To try out Napkin for 30 days for free, click here: napkin.one/?via=nicole (This video is not sponsored and Napkin did not get any input into the content of the video. I'm just a rabid fan with an affiliate link!)
I have GPT in obsidian via the Smart Connections plugins. I wish it were a little more advanced. It does well on 'based on my notes' and 'based on this note' and 'notes in this folder' but it fails on Hashtags. A simple 'based on my existing Hashtags, predict Hashtags for this note' would be great. At the moment it gives me vague keywords but not based on my Hashtag system (which is categorised and nested)
@@nicolevdh I love it. Its primary function is a window that tells you which other notes are related based on comparing contents, which is great for creating extra connections (I add a list of related links to my atomic academic notes)... But it also has a chat window which connects to gpt ai
Thanks, Nicole!. Can the app assign tags to texts written in another language than English? (it seems feasible, considering that the engine is ChatGPT). Love your channel :)
+1'd all the bring-AI-into-Obsidian notes, but what caught my eye, literally, was the UI/browsing experience you are showing. And I totally think Obsidian could add something like that if they devs wanted to. I love the synergy of experience that all these tools can share and also expand on each other. I'm not sure I want to add another tool in my use of Obsidian, but I definitely would welcome it if/when there is better integration. When you showed the export from Napkin that you pasted into Obsidian, it seemed as if the tags from Napkin were not recognized as tags by Obsidian? Maybe I missed something subtle...
I tried Napkin when you mentioned it in your interview to Kepano (since he liked to be called that way). Excellent interview, by the way. But Napkin did not stick - the automatic tags are generic and so generic that are actually not pertinent to the actual topic of the note. It was almost as having tags automatically imported from Zotero when you save an item (I believe nobody is using that feature for the mess it is creating). It seems that you suggested Stephen to consider it as a potential feature in Obsidian - I will try again if that feature is included in Obsidian. Just my initial thought - but as always I like your videos (so now I am tempted to give it another thought).
I asked him whether I should call him Kepano or Stephan, and he said he'd respond to either. Heh. I must admit I also default to Kepano because that's what I knew him as first! Since you mentioned Napkin's tags were generic, I wonder how much data you had in there. Did you use it with Readwise? I've been talking to them about how essential Readwise integration is for me, and they're now syncing automatically. I did find that adding more thoughts and also adding manual tags to Napkin significantly improved the accuracy of the tags. Not to tempt you further. :D
Hey thanks for checking out the Napkin beta! 🙏 Napkin learns how you tag ideas and improves over time. Give it some nudges in the beginning and the precision will rise.
Opinion: I think tags need careful planning. The worst way to use them is to keep adding different tags or let them be auto-generated. They will soon become meaningless noise. I don't use Readwise and Apple would need to change their corporate policies drastically for me to use iAnything. Let's see how things develop as I'm being very blunt. I'm more often than not wrong and always bloody-minded. 😄Have a great weekend Nicole. I enjoyed the sessions at the LYT CON 2023 on Zoom. As you can guess, it finished with Nick MIlo's heartfelt plea to sign up for his workshop. 😄
I can understand that! I think it depends on whether you're using tags for organisation or for exploration. If you're using them for organisation, having lots of tags won't help. If you're using them mainly for exploration like me, though, I find it quite useful to have lots of them to click on and trace through my notes/highlights. I missed the whole conference because I was travelling all week! But I will definitely be catching the recordings.
@@nicolevdh Oh, that's good. Since I live in a state of chill and don't have "requirements" to meet, my new notes are mostly focused. I see the difference there.
Hi Nicole. Appreciate your clear, organized videos. I am in the process of considering MIGRATION from Evernote to Obsidian... quite a paradigm shift... so I am studying your videos and others to help me internalize the possibilities and challenges. Keep up the good work! Positively, Alan.
I use tags kind of like folders. I still also use folders but sometimes something can fit in multiple locations so I figure where best to store it using folders and I utilize tags to cover the other areas it fits in. Nested tags really help with this For example my daily notes on days I work will have the tag Work/Daily-notes that way if I want to look at just the daily notes of days I worked I can do so. Then there are other work related things I might store in a folder that isn't work related. For example projects I am working on in my spare time that are work related. The note will be in my projects folder but because it is work related I will have the tag Work/Project or Work/Personal-project. Another example might fit research. I have a folder for all my notes on books but I will tag each one based on subject matter such a psychology or herbology. That way I can look up what files I have on those subjects through tags. Adding tags to old notes is very daunting. I advise not doing so or only adding tags to old notes if there is ever a time you reopen that note for other reasons. Changing tags is also tedious however there is a plugin that lets you merge tags and or change the name and it will change it for every note that uses it.
This seems like something close to what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to find a system for my review process where I can read a book, or play a video game, or watch a movie, and while I'm watching/consuming, I write random notes. Maybe "John is 35", then "Sarah is from Newark", and then "John has a daughter", and by the time I'm done, I'll have a little section of notes about John, or a little section of notes about Sarah compiled. But I don't necessarily want all my notes thrown in together, and would love to create like a book or dossier about whatever piece of media I'm consuming. Does anything like that exist??
I love the idea, but using AI to organize for you seems like a bad idea. Isn't the friction actually useful? The point is to think better, and using AI to generate tags/link seems like a bad idea imo. (not a rant at this vid btw,, just general AI)
Valid concern! Personally, I think that if you want to use tags to organise, AI isn't a great choice. However, I would primarily use tags to explore my notes, and in that case, I think more tags is better.
@@nicolevdh Yeah, with new technology people always freak out, but there is some validity to this, I think. Internet is great, for example, but also has done so much harm to mental health and other things. There are always pro's and cons, but technology advances anyways, we can't stop it (so education on it seems the best way forward)
We put a lot of thought in this. We don't want to "outsource" thinking, we want to make it easier. See the magic tags as suggestions that nudge you to think in certain directions. Remove those that are meaningless and add some that fit your mental structure. The precision of the tags will improve over time.
Hm... overall workflow. Links - i.e. the flow of the info/idea/concept. Bookmarks - to act as the filter of area and topics Tags - process and management of the notes through the work flow... oops ... but Napkin adds tags... where would bookmarks come into the process?
My workflow in Obsidian is like this: - Links: add structure - Metadata: add properties that I can query later - Bookmarks: create temporary groups - Folders: create namespaces when necessary - Tags: (barely used) minor system-related information I use tags in Napkin a different way, and much earlier in the process. I use them to add jumping off points for exploration so that I can view highlights based on topic/keyword before they get into Obsidian.
This may be the future in a general sense for sure, getting help from your device, which is pulling from the web... maybe. Instead of the caffeine fueled donkey work we do now... One click at a time! My personal concern is having all my stuff being crunched by one or more server-side service, and the inevitable EULA you have to submit to. I guess to get access to the power of AI this is inevitable... Their code has to be given enough of the user data to understand the context... The other big drawback is basically handing over the thinking to some random AI, with who knows what blindspots or biases. By definition it would literally be impossible to audit, unless you pitted one AI against another (like airliner control system redundancy/ polling). In this case ultimately to be 'right' it would have to tag the way *you* would have done. But it doesn't know you, so how could it?... By recording and storing your historical tags and corrections and thereby creating a psych profile of YOU! I can hear Zuckerberg drooling with excitement...! In both areas the trust would need to be unimpeachable for any work that has value, scientific, commercial or legal... or security, safety, medical, military. Currently I don't see trust as being even remotely demonstrated even by ANY of the big players capable of resourcing such an AI.... The behemoths we know and love/hate... So I would never trust some random startup a. with my data, b. to give the right answers. The fact AI is already hoovering up the entire internet of data without permission, attribution or payment says to me we are at the Napster stage, like the Wild West. That isn't sustainable either. So lovely as this dream is, a long way to go before it is actually useful. Sorry to be a downer on Friday... Great vid tho, love the whole esthetic and great to see your smile at the end of the week!
Appreciate the thoughtful answer! I share a lot of your concerns about AI. I would not like AI to indiscriminately parse my notes. Incidentally, in my talk with the Obsidian CEO, Stephan Ango, he also said that he didn't see Obsidian incorporating AI feature until there was a way to do it offline, which I wholeheartedly support. That's why I thought Napkin was such a cool compromise, though. It doesn't parse my notes. It parses my Readwise highlights, which are of online articles or books that I don't care about it parsing.
@@nicolevdhSorry, I guess AI is in the news and also is a trigger for me for some reason, plus after a week of working my caffeine residual is high so I get a bit manic!
To try out Napkin for 30 days for free, click here: napkin.one/?via=nicole
(This video is not sponsored and Napkin did not get any input into the content of the video. I'm just a rabid fan with an affiliate link!)
Now we need an Obsidian Dev to create a GPT style tag creator. Best of both worlds!
Been my longtime request
This is basically what TfTHacker was looking into!
I have GPT in obsidian via the Smart Connections plugins. I wish it were a little more advanced. It does well on 'based on my notes' and 'based on this note' and 'notes in this folder' but it fails on Hashtags. A simple 'based on my existing Hashtags, predict Hashtags for this note' would be great. At the moment it gives me vague keywords but not based on my Hashtag system (which is categorised and nested)
Interesting, Smart Connections. I had never heard of that. But yeah, being able to leverage tags would be awesome!
@@nicolevdh I love it. Its primary function is a window that tells you which other notes are related based on comparing contents, which is great for creating extra connections (I add a list of related links to my atomic academic notes)... But it also has a chat window which connects to gpt ai
Thanks, Nicole!. Can the app assign tags to texts written in another language than English? (it seems feasible, considering that the engine is ChatGPT). Love your channel :)
I love napkin and Obsidian so much. I wanna be together with both❤😅
I feel the same way! I'm optimistic about how they'll evolve together.
+1'd all the bring-AI-into-Obsidian notes,
but what caught my eye, literally, was the UI/browsing experience you are showing.
And I totally think Obsidian could add something like that if they devs wanted to.
I love the synergy of experience that all these tools can share and also expand on each other.
I'm not sure I want to add another tool in my use of Obsidian, but I definitely would welcome it if/when there is better integration.
When you showed the export from Napkin that you pasted into Obsidian, it seemed as if the tags from Napkin were not recognized as tags by Obsidian? Maybe I missed something subtle...
I loved this idea, Nicole! thank you for the video
Obrigada também!
I tried Napkin when you mentioned it in your interview to Kepano (since he liked to be called that way). Excellent interview, by the way. But Napkin did not stick - the automatic tags are generic and so generic that are actually not pertinent to the actual topic of the note. It was almost as having tags automatically imported from Zotero when you save an item (I believe nobody is using that feature for the mess it is creating). It seems that you suggested Stephen to consider it as a potential feature in Obsidian - I will try again if that feature is included in Obsidian. Just my initial thought - but as always I like your videos (so now I am tempted to give it another thought).
I asked him whether I should call him Kepano or Stephan, and he said he'd respond to either. Heh. I must admit I also default to Kepano because that's what I knew him as first!
Since you mentioned Napkin's tags were generic, I wonder how much data you had in there. Did you use it with Readwise? I've been talking to them about how essential Readwise integration is for me, and they're now syncing automatically. I did find that adding more thoughts and also adding manual tags to Napkin significantly improved the accuracy of the tags.
Not to tempt you further. :D
Hey thanks for checking out the Napkin beta! 🙏 Napkin learns how you tag ideas and improves over time. Give it some nudges in the beginning and the precision will rise.
@@nicolevdh I might have used it with too little notes. I will give it a try with Readwise (although by then the trial might be over)
Opinion: I think tags need careful planning. The worst way to use them is to keep adding different tags or let them be auto-generated. They will soon become meaningless noise. I don't use Readwise and Apple would need to change their corporate policies drastically for me to use iAnything. Let's see how things develop as I'm being very blunt. I'm more often than not wrong and always bloody-minded. 😄Have a great weekend Nicole. I enjoyed the sessions at the LYT CON 2023 on Zoom. As you can guess, it finished with Nick MIlo's heartfelt plea to sign up for his workshop. 😄
I can understand that! I think it depends on whether you're using tags for organisation or for exploration. If you're using them for organisation, having lots of tags won't help. If you're using them mainly for exploration like me, though, I find it quite useful to have lots of them to click on and trace through my notes/highlights.
I missed the whole conference because I was travelling all week! But I will definitely be catching the recordings.
@@nicolevdh Oh, that's good. Since I live in a state of chill and don't have "requirements" to meet, my new notes are mostly focused. I see the difference there.
I don't really have "requirements" either-- I hit my FIRE number 6 years ago. :) But I've always been one to have a broad range of interests anyway.
@@nicolevdh Have you tried out the AI Assistant in the QuickAdd plugin yet?
Yes! I'm still exploring it, but it's pretty cool.
Hi Nicole. Appreciate your clear, organized videos. I am in the process of considering MIGRATION from Evernote to Obsidian... quite a paradigm shift... so I am studying your videos and others to help me internalize the possibilities and challenges. Keep up the good work! Positively, Alan.
does tagging works with other languages or just english sentences?
Napkin for automatically tagging non-English thoughts
I use tags kind of like folders. I still also use folders but sometimes something can fit in multiple locations so I figure where best to store it using folders and I utilize tags to cover the other areas it fits in. Nested tags really help with this
For example my daily notes on days I work will have the tag Work/Daily-notes that way if I want to look at just the daily notes of days I worked I can do so. Then there are other work related things I might store in a folder that isn't work related. For example projects I am working on in my spare time that are work related. The note will be in my projects folder but because it is work related I will have the tag Work/Project or Work/Personal-project.
Another example might fit research. I have a folder for all my notes on books but I will tag each one based on subject matter such a psychology or herbology. That way I can look up what files I have on those subjects through tags.
Adding tags to old notes is very daunting. I advise not doing so or only adding tags to old notes if there is ever a time you reopen that note for other reasons.
Changing tags is also tedious however there is a plugin that lets you merge tags and or change the name and it will change it for every note that uses it.
This seems like something close to what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to find a system for my review process where I can read a book, or play a video game, or watch a movie, and while I'm watching/consuming, I write random notes. Maybe "John is 35", then "Sarah is from Newark", and then "John has a daughter", and by the time I'm done, I'll have a little section of notes about John, or a little section of notes about Sarah compiled. But I don't necessarily want all my notes thrown in together, and would love to create like a book or dossier about whatever piece of media I'm consuming. Does anything like that exist??
You mean you want it to auto categorize for you, yes?
So interesting! Can Napkin handle small sketches or images? 😅
I love the idea, but using AI to organize for you seems like a bad idea. Isn't the friction actually useful? The point is to think better, and using AI to generate tags/link seems like a bad idea imo. (not a rant at this vid btw,, just general AI)
Valid concern! Personally, I think that if you want to use tags to organise, AI isn't a great choice. However, I would primarily use tags to explore my notes, and in that case, I think more tags is better.
@@nicolevdh Yeah, with new technology people always freak out, but there is some validity to this, I think. Internet is great, for example, but also has done so much harm to mental health and other things. There are always pro's and cons, but technology advances anyways, we can't stop it (so education on it seems the best way forward)
By the way, my comment was a bit of topic, but I hope you appreciate xD
We put a lot of thought in this. We don't want to "outsource" thinking, we want to make it easier. See the magic tags as suggestions that nudge you to think in certain directions. Remove those that are meaningless and add some that fit your mental structure. The precision of the tags will improve over time.
Hm... overall workflow.
Links - i.e. the flow of the info/idea/concept.
Bookmarks - to act as the filter of area and topics
Tags - process and management of the notes through the work flow... oops
... but Napkin adds tags... where would bookmarks come into the process?
My workflow in Obsidian is like this:
- Links: add structure
- Metadata: add properties that I can query later
- Bookmarks: create temporary groups
- Folders: create namespaces when necessary
- Tags: (barely used) minor system-related information
I use tags in Napkin a different way, and much earlier in the process. I use them to add jumping off points for exploration so that I can view highlights based on topic/keyword before they get into Obsidian.
can the tags be reused as links
This may be the future in a general sense for sure, getting help from your device, which is pulling from the web... maybe. Instead of the caffeine fueled donkey work we do now... One click at a time!
My personal concern is having all my stuff being crunched by one or more server-side service, and the inevitable EULA you have to submit to.
I guess to get access to the power of AI this is inevitable... Their code has to be given enough of the user data to understand the context...
The other big drawback is basically handing over the thinking to some random AI, with who knows what blindspots or biases. By definition it would literally be impossible to audit, unless you pitted one AI against another (like airliner control system redundancy/ polling).
In this case ultimately to be 'right' it would have to tag the way *you* would have done. But it doesn't know you, so how could it?... By recording and storing your historical tags and corrections and thereby creating a psych profile of YOU!
I can hear Zuckerberg drooling with excitement...!
In both areas the trust would need to be unimpeachable for any work that has value, scientific, commercial or legal... or security, safety, medical, military.
Currently I don't see trust as being even remotely demonstrated even by ANY of the big players capable of resourcing such an AI.... The behemoths we know and love/hate...
So I would never trust some random startup a. with my data, b. to give the right answers.
The fact AI is already hoovering up the entire internet of data without permission, attribution or payment says to me we are at the Napster stage, like the Wild West. That isn't sustainable either.
So lovely as this dream is, a long way to go before it is actually useful. Sorry to be a downer on Friday...
Great vid tho, love the whole esthetic and great to see your smile at the end of the week!
Appreciate the thoughtful answer! I share a lot of your concerns about AI. I would not like AI to indiscriminately parse my notes. Incidentally, in my talk with the Obsidian CEO, Stephan Ango, he also said that he didn't see Obsidian incorporating AI feature until there was a way to do it offline, which I wholeheartedly support.
That's why I thought Napkin was such a cool compromise, though. It doesn't parse my notes. It parses my Readwise highlights, which are of online articles or books that I don't care about it parsing.
@@nicolevdhSorry, I guess AI is in the news and also is a trigger for me for some reason, plus after a week of working my caffeine residual is high so I get a bit manic!
oh yeah new video
Hope you like this one! :)
I want that notes floating in the background in my obsidian too!
Yeah! It would be really cool. Although I think I'd settle for having that functionality in Napkin and just having the tags synced.