Zsolt's Visual Personal Knowledge Management — Channel Summaries
AI-powered summaries of 137 videos about Zsolt's Visual Personal Knowledge Management.
137 summaries
The Ultimate Guide to File Organization: 5 Systems You Must Know
Digital file chaos usually isn’t a storage problem—it’s a findability problem. The core fix offered here is to stop treating folders as a dumping...
The Excalidraw-Obsidian Showcase: 57 key features in just 17 minutes
Excalidraw-Obsidian integration turns Obsidian into a visual thinking workspace by letting users draw on an infinite canvas while keeping everything...
Rethinking MY PKM: How I Organize Everything In Obsidian
A disciplined Obsidian system built around “latch” is the core through-line: every note is placed so it can be found by location, alphabet, time,...
How to Take Smart Notes - Book on a Page
Smart notes aren’t a productivity accessory—they’re the mechanism that turns thinking into usable knowledge. The core claim behind the Zettelkasten...
Getting Started with Visual PKM from scratch using Obsidian-Excalidraw
Getting started with Visual PKM in Obsidian hinges on one practical workflow: build a linked Markdown knowledge base, then embed Excalidraw diagrams...
Part 1 Building a Second Brain Book on a Page
A “second brain” isn’t a place to hoard information—it’s a system for turning scattered ideas into usable thinking over time. The core promise is...
ExcaliBrain is transforming how I use Obsidian.md
Excalibrain is an interactive mind-map layer for Obsidian that turns a vault’s structure—folders, links, tags, and YAML front matter—into a navigable...
"Obsidian" Canvas on STEROIDS: Excalidraw 1.9.5 release
Excalidraw 1.9.5 for Obsidian adds “frames” and a new way to embed almost any file from your Vault as live, interactive iframes—turning Obsidian...
Rethinking my PKM part 5: How do you organize your notes?
Note organization in personal knowledge management isn’t a search for a “best” system so much as a match between how someone thinks, how they want to...
Mind mapping with Excalidraw-Obsidian
Mind mapping in Excalidraw can make thinking more engaging—at the cost of a slower process than bullet-point writing—while still producing a...
Before You Write: Frame Your Thoughts with Concept Modeling
Concept modeling—using concept maps (also called concept diagrams or concept models)—is presented as a practical way to organize understanding before...
Obsidian Plugins that I use every day
Obsidian’s plugin ecosystem can feel overwhelming—hundreds of community add-ons plus built-in tools—but one daily workflow can be built with a lean,...
Excalidraw-Obsidian 1.7.27 - Image editing power tools
Excalidraw-Obsidian 1.7.27 adds two image “power tools” aimed at making imported graphics easier to reuse and more consistent inside Obsidian notes....
Mastering Excalidraw Templates: 4 Hands-on Techniques to Boost Your Productivity
Excalidraw templates can be reused in Obsidian in four practical ways—ranging from quick stencil-library inserts to fully automated Templater...
Getting started with ExcaliBrain - starting from an empty Obsidian Vault (Part 1 of 3)
ExcaliBrain turns an empty Obsidian vault into a visual argument map by linking markdown notes into a structured graph—issues, positions, supporting...
Rethinking PKM Part 3: Quick Capture (with Google Keep)
A weak “quick capture” step is the bottleneck in many personal knowledge management systems—and this workflow replaces a clunky phone-first Obsidian...
Building Visual Maps of Content with Excalidraw in Obsidian
The core takeaway is a practical workflow for turning Obsidian into a “visual index” system by building Maps of Content (MoCs) with Excalidraw—so...
Obsidian-Excalidraw 1.8.0 - OCR, Optical Character Recognition of handwritten text and images
A new Obsidian plugin adds experimental OCR for handwritten notes and images, letting users search their scanned Free Draw content inside Obsidian....
Block reference parts of images just like text with Obsidian Excalidraw
Linking a zoomed-in “piece” of an image to the exact place it came from has long been a pain in Obsidian-style note systems: copying a big image and...
VISUAL SUMMARY: Feel-Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal - The Periodic Table of Productivity
Feel-good productivity is built around a simple premise: playfulness and positive emotion aren’t distractions from getting things done—they can make...
Start using the flipside of your markdown notes: Powerful new Excalidraw-Obsidian features - v2.0.26
Excalidraw-Obsidian v2.0.26 adds a “flip the page” workflow that lets any existing Markdown note behave like an Excalidraw drawing—while still...
Obsidian-Excalidraw 1.8.12 - QoL Improvements: pens, pinned scripts, panning tool, and color picker
A major quality-of-life update brings faster drawing workflows in Excalidraw inside Obsidian: custom pens can now be configured in a dedicated pen...
Playing to Win: Strategy Worksheet - Book on a Page
A strategy worksheet built around Roger Martin’s “Strategic Cascade” reframes business strategy as a set of coordinated choices—then turns those...
Connect Ideas with The Idea Compass and Visualize Connections with ExcaliBrain
The core takeaway is a practical method for turning a new idea into a structured set of connections—by “directing attention” in four compass...
Obsidian-Excalidraw 1.2.0 Walkthrough Part 5/10: Embedding and portability
Embedding Excalidraw drawings into Obsidian markdown is straightforward: drag a drawing file into a note with a leading exclamation mark, and the...
ExcaliAI - New AI Capabilities Have Arrived to Obsidian Excalidraw
Excalidraw’s new ExcalAI script turns hand-drawn notes and wireframes into AI-generated outputs inside Obsidian—mind maps, diagrams, and even...
6 Strategies for Linking your Visual Thoughts with Obsidian, Excalidraw & ExcaliBrain
Linking sketches to text in Obsidian becomes far more useful when images carry searchable metadata and relationships—not just when they’re pasted...
Turn any YouTube Channel into your AI Mentor - Obsidian is the ultimate automation workbench for PKM
A practical way to turn any YouTube channel into an “AI mentor” for Obsidian is taking shape: feed Google’s Notebook LM with condensed, timestamped...
Visual tools for transforming information into knowledge
Visual thinking tools matter because they help people convert raw information into structured knowledge—matching how the brain naturally organizes...
Rethink Writing: Think Visually, Your Brain is Not Linear
Writing helps people think, but reading and writing are often treated as the main engines of understanding in personal knowledge management—an...
Visual Zettelkasten
“Visual Zettelkasten” reframes Zettelkasten-style permanent notes by treating the visual sketch itself as the permanent note—so the illustration and...
How to create a sketchnote summary of a book with Excalidraw + Obsidian + Progressive Summarization
A layered “progressive summarization” workflow turns raw book notes into a one-page sketchnote that stays searchable and context-rich years later....
Mastering Concept Visualizations: A Simple Workflow for Creating Effective Visuals
Concept visualizations are a practical way to make abstract ideas easier to remember and understand by pairing images with targeted text—especially...
Explaining Links, Transclusions and Embedding in Obsidian Excalidraw
In Excalidraw inside Obsidian, “linking” is straightforward, but confusion usually starts with the difference between transclusion and...
Learn Systems Thinking with Object-Process Modeling in PKM
Object-Process Methodology (OPM)—with its ISO-standard modeling tools OPD and OPL—turns messy systems thinking into a disciplined way to describe...
How to customize Obsidian Callouts with your very own SVG icon created in Excalidraw
Obsidian callouts can be customized with your own SVG icons, and the most flexible workflow combines CSS snippets with either built-in Lucide icons,...
Rethinking PKM Part 4: Gardening in my Obsidian Vault with ExcaliBrain and Dataview
A key shift in personal knowledge management is treating link structure as an explicit “ontology”—a defined set of relationship types—then using...
Improve knowledge discovery by reusing icons. Create an image library with Excalidraw Script Engine
A practical way to reuse icons inside Excalidraw drawings hinges less on finding good artwork and more on treating icon files like structured data....
Zettelkasten with Obsidian: Researching a new topic - Where do you put your new permanent notes?
Starting a brand-new topic inside a Zettelkasten system doesn’t have to begin from scratch. The core move is to write a well-formed research question...
Deep Work - Book on a Page
Deep work is framed as a competitive advantage in a world where machines and algorithms increasingly handle routine knowledge tasks—and it’s also...
Practical Demo: Read eBooks and Create Visual Summaries in Obsidian
A practical Obsidian reading workflow turns a full-text eBook into a tightly linked, chapter-by-chapter knowledge system—complete with visual...
Book on a Page Summary of Atomic Habits by James Clear
Atomic Habits centers on a simple but consequential idea: every action functions like a vote for the kind of person someone is becoming. Over time,...
IT'S ABOUT TIME - How I integrate time into my Obsidian notes - GTD
A daily notes page can function as the backbone of a personal knowledge graph when every meeting note is logged chronologically there—while the same...
Linking your Images in Obsidian with Excalidraw and ExcaliBrain
Linking Excalidraw images to Obsidian notes through structured metadata turns one-off PNG pastes into searchable, navigable knowledge objects....
Visualize your location index with Obsidian Map View
A location index turns Obsidian into a searchable, visual “personal GIS,” and the Map View plugin is the mechanism that makes that geography usable....
Excalidraw-Publish: Make interactive visual websites with Obsidian-Publish and the Excalidraw Plugin
Obsidian Publish can’t run plugins, but Excalidraw’s SVG export can still deliver interactive, clickable visual pages on the web—if the publishing...
ExcaliAI Enhanced: More Visual Thinking Power
ExcalAI Enhanced turns Obsidian’s Excalidraw workflow into a visual “thinking” engine by chaining OpenAI vision, prompt generation, and image or...
Excalidraw-Obsidian File Structure: Breaking change in 2.2.0
Excalidraw-Obsidian’s 2.2.0 update changes the plugin’s file structure in ways that break backwards compatibility—especially for “hybrid notes” that...
MindMap Builder v3: PDF++ Integration, Folding & Markdown Import
MindMap Builder v3 tightens its integration with Obsidian MD and adds a set of workflow upgrades aimed at faster reading, richer structure, and fewer...
From Information Overload to Clarity: How Visual Thinking Can Help You Organize Your Thoughts
Visual thinking turns information overload into clarity by forcing the mind to externalize ideas as simple concept maps and drawings—making complex...
Markdown Embeds with Excalidraw Obsidian - MVP release (1.4.13)
A new Markdown embed workflow in Excalidraw inside Obsidian lets users drag a Markdown file onto the canvas and instantly generate a transcluded,...
Colorful Second Brain - Part 1: Crafting your colors in Excalidraw-Obsidian
Color choice is the difference between a second brain that clarifies ideas and one that overwhelms them—and Excalidraw’s color system in Obsidian is...
Part 1: Circle Map - Thinking Maps with Excalidraw in Obsidian
Circle maps are presented as a practical way to define concepts and build a clear frame of reference—starting with an essential question and then...
TheBrain-like graph-based navigation in Obsidian.md with Excalidraw and Breadcrumb - LATCH Hierarchy
A graph-style navigation system for Obsidian vaults is built to mimic the “brain” interface by using hierarchy as the organizing principle—then...
Excalidraw Writing Machine: Generate articles from your Visual Zettelkasten cards in Obsidian
A workflow built around Visual Zettelkasten cards in Obsidian can turn a visual article layout into a clean, publication-ready PDF draft—complete...
Two Workflows for Reading, Note-Taking, and Visual Thinking that Are Transforming the Way I Use AI
AI use doesn’t have to mean handing over private notes. Zsolt’s two workflows aim to keep personal information “ring-fenced” while still using AI to...
How I Published My Book for $0 Using Obsidian, Pandoc, Calibre (EPUB, PDF, Audiobook)
A complete, free self-publishing workflow turns Obsidian markdown into professional EPUBs and print-ready PDFs—while keeping the book tightly...
Rethinking PKM Part 2: Links, Tags, and Filepaths
A key takeaway from this PKM deep-dive is that file organization has measurable performance limits—and that those limits help explain why many people...
Deconstructing Visual Ideas with Obsidian Excalidraw using Excalidraw Scripts
A new Excalidraw script, “decompose selected elements into new drawing,” automates a core workflow in visual knowledge management: breaking a page...
My first steps implementing Zettalkasten using Obsidian.md, Data View, Excalidraw and ExcaliBrain
Zettelkasten in Obsidian is taking shape around a simple rule: permanent notes become the “cards,” while Excalidraw diagrams act as linked,...
A first look at Obsidian Shared Vaults (v0.14.10 insiders beta)
Obsidian’s new multiplayer synchronization in insiders beta turns personal sync into a shared vault: an owner creates a password-protected vault,...
Excalidraw-Obsidian Feature Walkthrough - Customizing Embeddable Elements
The biggest upgrade is a new way to scale Excalidraw embeddable elements—especially YouTube-style video embeds and Markdown embeds—so they stay...
Make all your images searchable in Obsidian by adding rich metadata with Excalidraw markdown
Adding rich, searchable metadata to images inside Obsidian—by embedding the image in an Excalidraw drawing and storing tags, author, source, and an...
Unpacking Notemaking: Concept Modeling with Nick Milo
Notemaking gets reframed from “capturing information” into a structured thinking practice: define a clear vocabulary, externalize ideas visually, and...
Unlock Your Creativity with Visualization: The Power of Spatial Thinking
Spatial thinking—backed by how humans evolved to navigate physical environments—can make ideas easier to understand, connect, and manage. The core...
Colorful Second Brain - Part 3: Simple rules for beautiful and reusable sketches
Reusable sketches depend less on artistic talent than on a small set of repeatable rules—especially around color and typography. When icons,...
How to Build Visual Roadmaps - A Case Study developing the Obsidian-Excalidraw Roadmap
A structured visual roadmap turns a messy backlog of requests into a clear, communicable plan—using Excalidraw mind maps to organize the...
Obsidian Excalidraw: A Guide to Marker Frames (Print Layouts, Presentations, Image References)
Marker frames in Obsidian Excalidraw are designed as “placeholders” that don’t capture or clip artwork—solving a common frustration with traditional...
Getting started with ExcaliBrain - starting from an empty Obsidian Vault (Part 2 of 3)
Excalibrain’s relationship graph becomes truly usable once link styling and ontology visibility are aligned—so the “remote work policy” node doesn’t...
Why Diagrams Matter in PKM: A Beginner's Guide
Diagrams matter in personal knowledge management because they turn thinking into something spatial, navigable, and reusable—especially when writing...
4D Thinking in Obsidian: Exploring Ali Abdaal's Feel-Good Productivity
A personal knowledge management system built in Obsidian turns a “periodic table of productivity” into a navigable network of ideas—so concepts don’t...
The Visual Thinking Framework with Obsidian and Excalidraw: Making Visual Connections between Notes
A practical workflow for building “visual thinking” links inside Obsidian: embed key visual frameworks from one set of notes into another, then reuse...
Excalidraw 1.9.13: Active image-embeds and Templater support
Excalidraw 1.9.13 adds interactive, “active” embeds inside Obsidian notes—plus a way to run templates/scripts from embedded markdown—and introduces...
TheBrain-like graph-based navigation in Obsidian with Excalidraw, Dataview, and Hover Editor (V2)
A new “brain navigation” workflow for Obsidian turns Excalidraw diagrams into a graph-style vault navigator—complete with color-coded nodes,...
Ditch Bullet Points: Build a Daily Visual Mind Map in Obsidian
A daily “refocus” mind map in Obsidian replaces stacked bullet points with a clickable, task-aware visual canvas—auto-centered every time the daily...
Visualize Your Options: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Flowcharts for Decision-Making
Decision-making rarely comes down to a clean yes-or-no choice; it’s usually a chain of tradeoffs under uncertainty. A practical way to handle that...
4D Visual Thinking: Effective PKM & the Visual Thinking Workshop Journey
A four-dimensional approach to personal knowledge management is the through-line connecting a tool-building push, a YouTube channel, and a structured...
Develop the Superpower of Constructive Debating with Dialog Mapping - includes ChatGPT case study
Dialog mapping—built on the IBIS (Issue-Based Information System) method—turns messy, high-stakes disagreement into a structured map of questions,...
Dave Gray's Visual Frameworks: A Companion to Sketch Your Mind
Visual frameworks—sketch-based metaphors that act as “anchors” for structuring thought—are presented as a practical way to turn raw ideas into...
Colorful Second Brain - Part 2: Excalidraw Color Palette Loader
A custom color palette workflow for Excalidraw is the centerpiece here: build palettes elsewhere, save them in an Obsidian vault, then use the...
Get More Out of What You Read with the Idea Integration Board, and the Obsidian Excalidraw Plugin
A new “idea integration board” workflow aims to turn book reading into a structured, visual knowledge map—linking primary ideas to secondary and...
Design unique icons with AI
AI image generators are already a practical way to create distinctive SVG-style icons for knowledge work—solving a common frustration with stock icon...
Excalidraw-Obsidian 2.0.5 - Quality of Life Improvements - Drag & Drop, Configurable Modifier Keys
Excalidraw 2.0.5 adds quality-of-life upgrades aimed at making Excalidraw work more smoothly inside Obsidian—especially around importing media,...
Finite and Infinite Games - Book on a Page
James Carse’s “Finite and Infinite Games” draws a sharp line between games meant to end and games meant to continue—and the distinction matters...
Dump, Lump, Jump: The Ultimate Visual Thinking Tool for Turning Ideas into Action
“Dump, Lump, Jump” is a three-step visual thinking method for turning scattered ideas into clear next actions—especially when inboxes, agendas,...
Beyond Words: The Future of PKM - Exploring 5 Cards from The MindSET Visual Thinking Framework
Visual personal knowledge management hinges on a simple shift: knowledge becomes easier to retrieve and understand when notes stop behaving like...
My YouTube Workflow in Obsidian with Templater, Kanban, and Excalidraw
A tightly automated Obsidian workflow turns YouTube production into a drag-and-drop Kanban system—complete with auto-created folders, thumbnails, and...
Book on an Obsidian Canvas - Steven Johnson's Emergence
Steven Johnson’s *Emergence* argues that intelligence, personality, and learning don’t originate from centralized control. Instead, they arise...
Digest What You Read: Walkthrough of my process for understanding Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky
A slow, deliberate “rumination” process—turning raw reading into visual models, then into permanent notes—is presented as the antidote to information...
The Checklist Manifesto - Book on a Page
Surgery kills about 150,000 Americans each year, and research repeatedly finds that at least half of those deaths and major complications are...
Part 2 Behind the Scenes 1/2: Note highlights and initial sketches. Creating the BASB Book on a Page
Turning dense literature notes into a “book on a page” sketch note is less about perfect design and more about forcing ideas into reusable, shareable...
Ultimate Automation with QuickAdd - a final look at the Clothesline method
QuickAdd automation can turn Obsidian’s “clothesline” drawing workflow into a two-track process: each time a user adds a card in the XColorDraw...
How I Think Visually: My Sketched Mind in Action. Reflections on Exploring Visual PKM with Jerry.
A visual note system can turn reading into a living network of ideas—especially when illustrations and concepts are built from linked components...
The Extended Mind - Book on a Page
Annie Murphy Paul’s “The Extended Mind” frames human intelligence as something built with help from the world outside the skull. Instead of treating...
Excalidraw Scripting - How to Automate On-File-Open Actions in Obsidian
Excalidraw Automate can trigger Excalidraw actions automatically when a drawing opens in Obsidian—such as switching to the hand tool on mobile or...
Diagramming for PKM: The Futures Wheel of Quitting my Job
Quitting a 9-to-5 job can bring immediate relief—especially from toxic office routines—but it also triggers a chain of financial, emotional, and...
Slow Reading Master: How my visual book summary process has evolved
A visual “book on a page” workflow is emerging as a slower, more connection-driven alternative to speed-reading: instead of compressing a book into a...
A step-by-step guide to creating an illustrated book-on-a-page summary without reading the book
Creating an illustrated “book-on-a-page” summary without reading the full book can be done in about 30 minutes by chaining four tools—ChatGPT for...
The Golden Ratio: Design Stunning Illustrations in your PKM with Excalidraw and Obsidian
The golden ratio—often labeled φ (phi), the Fibonacci ratio, or the golden mean—is presented as a design and composition rule that keeps showing up...
Merging Old Notes into One: Illustrations & Insights Combined
A single Obsidian Excalidraw card can now hold both a diagram and its supporting notes—without splitting the content into separate files—by using...