How I refactor notes in Obsidian | Summary and Q&A

TL;DR

This video explores the process of refactoring notes to make them meaningful, easy to find, and usable, drawing parallels between coding and writing.

Key Insights

• 💻 Refactoring your code means improving it without changing what it's doing, and the same concept can be applied to refactoring notes. Both coding and writing seek to communicate concepts and distill pure thought into a more shareable form.
• 📚 Refactored notes should be meaningful, easy to find, and usable, constantly reflecting your current understanding of a topic.
• 📝 Taking an inventory of your notes using tools like Quick Switcher, Strange New Worlds, and Search can help you understand what you have on a topic.
• 🗺️ Tools like Obsidian ExcaliBrain and Excalidraw can assist in visualizing and rethinking the structure of your notes.
• 🔎 Categorizing and restructuring your notes can make them more organized and easier to navigate, using techniques like the Outline plugin in Obsidian.
• 🧩 Modularizing your notes, or breaking them into smaller chunks, makes them easier to work with, restructure, and abstract concepts for use in other contexts.
• 🔄 Refactoring notes takes time and requires critical thinking, but it is an essential part of developing a usable personal knowledge management system.
• 📝 Continuous note-taking means constantly updating your notes to reflect your evolving understanding, ensuring they remain an accurate representation of your thoughts.

Transcript

• In programming, refactoring your code means improving it without changing what it's actually doing. So, this might mean simplifying, updating, stylistically improving, or structurally revamping your code. Developers do it as part of their work. What would it mean to refactor your notes? In this video I'm gonna talk about just that, and I'm gonna ... Read More

Questions & Answers

Q: How does the process of refactoring notes in the video compare to refactoring code in programming?

Refactoring notes shares some similarities with refactoring code in programming, such as simplifying, updating, and improving the structure. However, note refactoring focuses on improving communication and making notes more usable and meaningful.

Q: Why is it important to continuously update and refactor notes in a personal knowledge management system?

Continuous note-taking and updating ensure that your notes accurately reflect your current understanding of a topic. It helps in maintaining an up-to-date personal knowledge management system and improves the usability and effectiveness of your notes.

Q: What are some tools and plugins used in the video for refactoring notes?

The video mentions several tools and plugins, including Quick Switcher, Strange New Worlds, ExcaliBrain, Excalidraw, and Note Refactor. These tools aid in taking inventory of notes, restructuring them, visualizing note structure, and modularizing notes.

Q: What steps did the video outline for the process of refactoring notes?

The video outlines five steps for refactoring notes: taking inventory, restructuring notes, categorizing, explaining, and modularizing. Each step focuses on different aspects of improving notes and making them more organized and readable.

Q: How does modularizing notes help in the note-refactoring process?

Modularizing notes involves breaking longer notes into smaller chunks, allowing for easier restructuring, updating, and abstracting specific concepts. It also provides flexibility to focus on individual parts of a note without having to overhaul the entire note.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• The video discusses the similarities between coding and writing, highlighting the importance of effective communication and distilling complex ideas.

• The content walks through the steps of refactoring notes, including taking inventory, restructuring, categorizing, explaining, and modularizing.

• Tools like Quick Switcher, ExcaliBrain, and Note Refactor are used to facilitate the note-refactoring process.