How to Use Obsidian to Improve Your Life in 2024

From zero to everything in a year…

Recently, I posted a tweet that read:

It received a lot of positive responses. People said it reminded them to zoom out on how far they’ve come and look upon it with a feeling of pride.

But where was I one year ago?

Location-wise, I was sat where I am now. I’m in my parents’ house, home from university, spending time with my family over Christmas.

However, within progress in mental position and business, a complete paradigm shift has taken place during the last 365 days.

A year ago I was floundering. Something was missing from my life and I vaguely knew that it had to do with not earning any money through my creative skills. I was capable with a camera and had plans to start a photography business but I had no idea how I’d do this. I also had little confidence that I could make it work.

Things ended up taking a very different direction over the next 365 days.

A year later, I have published 100 articles on Medium and 30 weekly newsletter issues. I’ve earned around $4500 in profit from an online business which started generating income around the end of May. This was through launching a product that’s helped over 50 people improve their personal knowledge management, productivity and creativity.

I owe it all to one app — Obsidian. But enough of me. If you’ve read my work in the past, you’ll probably be aware of where I’ve come from and what I’m about. It’s time to talk about you.

Here’s how you can improve your life using Obsidian in 2024…

Just a quick introduction first — Obsidian is a customisable, offline-first markdown note-taking app I’ve used for my personal knowledge management since late 2022. If you don’t know much about Obsidian and how it works, you should check out this piece…

This is where you can find most of the information that I’ve published on the internet about Obsidian, in one central location. This article will talk less about how Obsidian works and more about how you can use the app to find progress and success.

So, step one…

Take notes on what you consume

You are likely already consuming useful and insightful information. This could be for a job, because you have an interest in the topic or because you came across an insight unexpectedly. Capture and store the points that give you a sense of excitement, a sense of insight. Do this in Obsidian, creating notes for different sources — I do this with my Kindle highlights, articles, podcasts and YouTube videos. This has created a bank of content that inspires and generates insights for me, all within Obsidian.

This is a good first step. You should be in the process of learning, researching and building yourself up, which will allow you to generate new insights that will be interesting if taught to other people.

This brings us to the next step…

Generate original insights and ideas from what you’ve captured

You’ve lived a life, and this life is uniquely different from the next person. This means you’ve got a unique set of experiences and context to generate insights from. This means anything you create out of these insights will be original work.

In Obsidian, the best way to do this is to create a Zettelkasten.

A Zettelkasten is a single folder that contains notes of these insights, one-insight-per-file style. Write in complete sentences, trying to explain yourself as deeply as possible.

Within the app, you can link notes together. Meaning, if you have two related ideas, you can signify this connection by referencing one note from the other. Then, when you come back in the future, you will be able to remember the context and the connections between your ideas. This will be important when it’s time to create something to share with the ideas.

Which introduces the next step…

Create work that shares these ideas, then share this work

Since the start of 2023, when I began writing on Medium and sharing my ideas with the world, I’ve done it through Obsidian. From research to outlining, then to drafting and editing and then sharing. I want you to do this for the last step if you want to change your life in 2024 using Obsidian.

You’ve researched and captured points that are interesting to you and teach you something new. You’ve connected these insights to bring your unique ideas to life. There’s only one step missing now, but it’s the most important one. It’s sharing these insights with others so that they can benefit from them as well. After all, it’s a hollow victory if you have an insight that has the potential to improve the lives of others and you keep it to yourself.

I recommend posting online, whether on a blog or another site. I choose Medium, where you’re likely reading this piece now, and X, where I can exercise my short-form content writing skills. On these sites, your work has a great potential to be spread to readers who want to hear about it.

Then, when you have more traction, you can move to your own space, perhaps a website, blog or newsletter. Your audience will follow you there and you have much more flexibility with how you engage with them.

The final step is to monetise this knowledge if you so wish.

I’ve done this so far through the Partner Program on Medium and a product called PARAZETTEL that teaches everything I know about what I’ve described above — generating insights and turning these insights into something productive using the app Obsidian.

I plan to offer more personal services around these topics and scale them into workshops and coaching. The sky’s the limit once you have an audience who are happy with the value you’re providing for them.

The effects that engaging in this kind of knowledge sharing using Obsidian has had bleed out beyond the internet and online income…

I’ve met new people and improved my network, I’ve used the research I’ve done in Obsidian to better my health, and I’ve become a lot happier because, most importantly, I’ve found a direction that I want to follow in the future.

I hope that this guide in 2024 helps you to do the same.

Thanks for reading!

I’m relaunching PARAZETTEL, my productivity system in Obsidian, as PARAZETTEL V2. You can get your hands on it here…