New Obsidian Setup - Using Hub Notes

And the magical Smart Connections plugin

Obsidian mobile hub notes

Over the last week or so I’ve revamped my Obsidian setup. I take a lot of notes every day, at work and outside of work. This has been a habit of mine for many years - since before smartphones and tablets. Since way before I had ever heard of personal knowledge management (PKM).

As soon as I learned a little about what PKM is about, it felt like a natural fit; and the idea that our knowledge is one of our most valuable assets also seems obvious to me and feels like something well worth putting effort into and nurturing.

I use two notes apps every day - Notion and Obsidian. I like to think that I use each of them for the features that they are best at, or sometimes the features I’m most efficient at using in one vs the other.

Both of these apps make linking to other notes within the app easy, but I get more out of links and backlinks with Obsidian. A few weeks back I noticed that both apps were feeling a bit bloated, in need of some cleanup - and I started with Obsidian.

I started on my Obsidian revamp or refresh with the most basic level - trimming it down from around 1,000 notes to under 400. I deleted a lot of notes and archived some notes and folders.

My next step was to try to move away from using Maps of Content (MOCs) - which is a well-known way to organize notes in Obsidian. I had good, short conversations with ChatGPT and Claude, asking for suggestions on alternatives to MOCs. Each of them offered useful looking suggestions. I chose a method suggested by Claude - Hub Notes. Here’s a chunk of how Claude describes them:

They serve as central nodes or entry points to specific topics or areas of your knowledge base. Here's a more detailed look at hub notes:

1. Purpose of Hub Notes:

   • Act as a table of contents for a particular topic

   • Provide an overview of a subject area

   • Serve as a starting point for exploring related concepts

   • Help in discovering connections between ideas

2. Structure of Hub Notes:

   • They typically contain numerous links to other notes

   • These links are usually organized into logical sections or categories

   • Hub notes can also include brief descriptions or summaries of linked notes

3. Creating Effective Hub Notes:

   • Start with a clear, descriptive title (e.g., "Machine Learning Hub", "Ancient Roman History Hub")

   • Organize links into relevant sections (e.g., "Key Concepts", "Notable Figures", "Important Events")

   • Include a brief introduction to the topic

   • Consider adding tags to make the hub note easily searchable

It’s not hugely different to how MOCs are done, but right now it feels nicer, easier to me. The screenshot at the top of the post shows my current structure with it. All current notes (other than attachments) go into the Notes folder, so that the / (root) folder view is clean. I have hub notes for the topics I’m most interested in and take the most notes on - AI, Concepts, Books, Home, Cyber, Learning, and a couple more. I also have hub notes for Capture and Atomic notes - these are the equivalent of Fleeting and Permanent notes in the Zettelkasten method - which I currently do more of in Notion. The hub notes are all just section headings for sub-topics and links to notes within those.

Here’s what my Cyber Hub note looks like:

Obsidian hub note

Somewhere in the middle of my Obsidian refreshment efforts, I stumbled across a plugin that caught my eye. It’s called Smart Connections and it has added what feels like some real magic to Obsidian. As I mentioned above, linking notes is a powerful feature in Obsidian, and Smart Connections is the best way I’ve seen so far to make the most of that. Once it’s installed and scans all your notes, it does what is says on the box - it makes smart connections, finds smart links relevant to the note you have open in Obsidian, and shows them in the right sidebar. It does this in real time as you open a new note and the links in the sidebar just feel like a big level up in terms of the ability to see and jump between linked notes.

Here’s an example when I have a note about using the Claude GenAI app open:

Smart Connections Obsidian plugin

And another when I have a note about cyber threat intelligence (CTI) open:

Obsidian plugin Smart Connections

Smart Connections also has an opt-in feature called Smart Chat - which allows you to chat with an AI Chatbot about your Obsidian notes. My description doesn’t do it justice, here’s how its creator describes it:

Smart Chat: AI Conversations Based on Your Notes

Transform your note-taking with Smart Chat. This feature allows you to have dynamic conversations with your notes, powered by the latest AI technology. Whether you're brainstorming, seeking information, or exploring your notes in new ways, Smart Chat makes it possible.

I’m happy with my new Obsidian setup, more than happy with the Smart Connections plugin, and hoping this setup will serve me well going forward.

Are any of you using Obsidian or Notion? What are some of your favorite ways to organize your notes?

If you’re interested in the Smart Connections plugin, it’s this one in Community Plugins: