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Obsidian Starter Kit ReadMe
Overview
Introduction
Templates
Setting Up Templates
Using Templates
Obsidian Date Formatting
Graph View
Demo Zettelkasten Sample Notes
Conclusion
Introduction
Thank you for downloading the Obsidian Starter Kit! This Readme file is both in PDF and Markdown.
Open this .md version to jump in right away after install Obsidian on your desktop.
While you won't necessarily need to use all these templates, my hope for you is that this gives you a
starting position into writing and developing your own notes and ideas.
Read the Markdown Quick Start Guide for a basic understanding of Markdown to jump into Obsidian
right away.
For the extra bold, and those who work in a Windows Environment, try installing install Obsidian on
your external device to take your notes wherever you go! Check out the How to Install Obsidian on
External Device (Windows Only) notes, conveniently written in Markdown already.
For those new to Markdown, check out the Markdown Quick Start Guide to get an overview and
examples of how the markup language works.
Note: These wiki-links are clickable within Obsidian. If you're reading this on the
PDF version, they won't work. But the following link to Obsidian down below will. ⬇️
With that being said, first thing's first:
1. Download Obsidian and install for your Windows, Mac, or Linux environment.
2. Launch Obsidian and head over to the left hand side (see below) and choose the first button
on top to open your working directory. Hovering over it with your mouse will reveal Open
another vault as the description.
3. Decide if you want to open an existing folder or create a new folder as a "vault." All a vault is
is the folder where your Markdown files will be stored.
Tip: I'd recommend renaming the Obsidian Starter Kit folder and use that to Open
folder as vault if you're just starting out. Play around with Obsidian and get familiar with
this setting.
Templates
These templates are yours to do with what you wish. Tweak them out to your particular note-taking
style. All these are meant to do is give you a place to start.
To keep these as beginner friendly as possible, these are templates that don't require extra plugins.
Obsidian has an active developer community creating nifty and cool features, but don't get
distracted in the bells and whistles that you forget the main purpose of your personal knowledge
management system is to create and explore and ideate, not make your templates look pretty.
The included Templates are:
1. -master topic index log
2. Book Template
3. Cornell Notes Template
4. Daily Note Template
5. Eisenhower Matrix Template
6. Essay Template
7. Gym Template
8. Meeting Notes Template
9. Monthly Overview Template
10. New Notes Template
11. Project Notes Template
12. Topic Concept Template
13. Vision Planner Template
14. Weekly Overview Template
15. Year End Review Template
Setting Up Templates
Head over to settings in the bottom left corner:
Head over to the Core Plugins:

You can play around with the settings as you want, but the main ones we want to be on are
the Daily Notes and Templates as below:

Click the ⚙️button for both Templates and Daily notes. The steps will be the same or similar.
1. Pick a folder you want to use for your templates. In this case, a folder already exists in this
Starter Kit.
2. Select the folder location you want to use for your templates. (This is also where you can set
up the Date and Time format for your preference.)
3. Voilà! Templates set up. Now, whenever you create a new template, just move it to your
template folder and you'll be able to reference it later.
Now that you have your templates and daily notes set up, now you can forget about how you format
your notes. You can either use one of your pre-built templates or you can make a new one that
feeds your specific needs that you know will be recurring. That's the beauty of templates. They
save time and let you focus on the actual writing and ideation.
Using Templates

1. Create a new blank note.

2. Give your note a title.
3. Hit CTRL-P on Windows or Command-P on MacOs to access the Command Palette.
4. Select Template: Insert template option OR click on the Insert template button on the left-
hand side.
5. Select the template you want to use.
 6. The empty note populates with the contents of your template file.
Obsidian Date Formatting
To configure the date format to output a certain way, here's how:
No Command Description
0 {{date}} Prints out default date configurable in Settings
1 {{date:DD-MM-YYYY}} Prints date as Day-Month-Year (31/12/2020)
2 {{date:MM-DD-YYYY}} Prints date as Month-Day-Year (12/31/2020)
3 {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} Prints date as Year-Month-Day (2020/12/31)
No. 0 defaults to whatever default date is configured in Settings. Which means this can be changed
if you prefer one format over the other. You can also just copy/paste the {{date:format}} in your
template instead if you prefer certain templates formatted one way.
Graph View
This is a pretty cool feature in Obsidian. This is where the inspiration happens. In Obsidian, you link
notes to each other by using square brackets on the referenced note name. [[ ]] You can also see
how notes are related by using tags #Tag, but for simplicity's sake, I only referenced the templates
to this ReadMe file.
When you first begin, there won't be a lot of linked notes. But as you let days become weeks and
weeks become months, you'll have your own digital notes system referencing all the relevant ideas
you have on a topic.
This is my current zettelkasten-inspired Obsidian graph view as of 22/04/22:

Let your notes and ideas talk to each other and reference them wherever they seem relevant. Let
your ideas form clusters around a certain insight and see where that rabbit hole takes you. That's
the best way to utilize Obsidian or other wiki-linking software app you decide to try or migrate to.
The [[ ]] referencing isn't exclusive to Obsidian. Other note-taking apps that enable wiki-links use
the same formatting.
There are various knowledge management tools and frameworks people use for their fields, but at
its basic element: Obsidian works best as a knowledge hub when notes reference each other. You
can leave them alone for a year and come back to it still referencing other notes, but perhaps with a
new perspective you didn't have before. That's a new note! Reference the relevant notes or update
the ones you had. Linking ideas is how our brains work. We remember things by association and
events, not as granular and detailed things, but as a reference to other ideas and memories.
Demo Zettelkasten Sample Notes
Updated as of September 2022.
I’ve included a small demo use case for Obsidian so you can explore and play around with. It’s small
on purpose so the graph view is easily accessible to see how connected the notes are, but as you
write more notes, more clusters and interdependence will occur.
And remember, there’s no right way to take notes. The important thing is that you capture
information that is meaningful to you. Make connections with your notes and don’t silo knowledge
in one broad category. Chances are, that knowledge can be used in other categories.
You can hover over to the graph view to see the included demo. For a bird's eye view, start from the
master note. Otherwise, feel free to explore and play around or delete the demo notes as you see
fit.
Conclusion
I hope you found some value out this Obsidian Starter Kit. Hopefully now the app doesn't look so
daunting or anxiety-inducing staring at a blank note, unsure of where to start.
These templates only require the core plugins. These templates are meant to give you a starting
point, see what you like, what you don't like, and customize your digital note experience.
With additional plugins, you can add neat features to optimize your templates to your needs. But
you don't need to. In this world of digital tools for productivity, sometimes we get lost in
customizing the tools than we do actually use them.
If you feel like you got any value, I'd appreciate it if you took a minute to leave feedback or share
this free guide with your friends:
https://digitalzettels.gumroad.com/l/bfzylj
If you have any feedback or just want to say hi, you can find me at @DigitalZettels on Twitter, on
Instagram, and Pinterest.
Thank you for downloading this guide and good luck on your digital note-taking journey!