Link to original video by Zsolt's Visual Personal Knowledge Management

Practical Demo: Read eBooks and Create Visual Summaries in Obsidian

Short Summary:

This video demonstrates a unique reading workflow using Obsidian, a note-taking app, to create visual summaries of eBooks. The speaker imports the eBook into Obsidian, highlights key passages, and links them to other notes in his personal knowledge base (PKB). He then creates visual summaries for each chapter, using mind maps and Excalidraw, to connect ideas and visualize the book's structure. This process helps him internalize the information, find connections between different concepts, and use the book's ideas for writing.

Detailed Summary:

1. Introduction (0:00-0:30)

The speaker introduces the video as a quick demonstration of his reading workflow.
He uses "Bob Doto: A System for Writing" as an example, focusing on the process rather than the book's content.

2. Visual Summary and Book Overview (0:30-1:20)

The speaker showcases his visual summary of the book, which consists of mind maps for each chapter.
He explains that these summaries are organized around the book's structure and highlight key ideas.
He expresses his preference for visual information and mentions that the book's focus on writing, rather than visuals, was a drawback for him.

3. Linking Notes and Mind Maps (1:20-2:30)

The speaker demonstrates how he links his visual summaries to other notes in his PKB.
He uses an illustration from "How to Take Smart Notes" as an example, showing how he connects it to the book's introduction chapter.
He emphasizes that the visual summaries are not just visual representations but also serve as a starting point for further exploration and connection-making.

4. Importing eBooks into Obsidian (2:30-4:30)

The speaker explains that he uses the EPUB format for importing eBooks into Obsidian.
He uses the "EPUB Importer" plugin and demonstrates the process of importing an eBook into a separate vault.
He highlights the need for post-production editing, including cleaning up links and renaming images.

5. Organizing and Integrating the eBook (4:30-5:30)

The speaker describes how he organizes the imported eBook chapters in his main vault.
He adds "previous" and "next" links to navigate chapters easily.
He emphasizes the importance of integrating the book into his existing note system by linking it to other notes and creating visual summaries.

6. Visualizing Connections in Excalidraw (5:30-7:00)

The speaker shows how his visual summaries appear in Excalidraw, a visual note-taking tool.
He demonstrates how he can navigate the chapters and view connections between different concepts.
He uses examples from "How to Take Smart Notes" and "Nine Things I've Learned from Running My Distributed Setup" to illustrate how he finds connections between different ideas.

7. The Importance of Visual Summaries (7:00-8:00)

The speaker emphasizes the benefits of visual summaries, including:
- Quickly reminding himself of the book's content.
- Facilitating navigation through the book's chapters.
- Finding connections between ideas from different sources.
- Providing a visual overview of the book's structure and key concepts.

8. The "Train of Thought" Metaphor (8:00-9:00)

The speaker introduces the "train of thought" metaphor, which refers to the interconnectedness of notes in a Zettelkasten system.
He explains how these interconnected notes can be used as a basis for writing, allowing writers to pick up a chain of notes and develop their ideas.

9. Conclusion and Call to Action (9:00-10:00)

The speaker summarizes the benefits of his reading workflow and encourages viewers to explore similar approaches.
He promotes his "Visual Thinking Workshop" as a resource for learning more about visual note-taking and knowledge management.
He invites viewers to share their feedback on the workflow and discuss potential improvements.

Notable Quotes:

"This is a good book on Zettelkasten, so I can definitely recommend the book, but it was too much writing-oriented and not visual enough."
"I like to name all of my images so as I'm reading the book... I'm going to rename each of these items with the rename context menu action here to give these individual notes names."
"The whole idea of why I'm doing it like this is I can show you how all of this looks in Excalidraw."
"What he's referring to by a train of thought is the connection of Zettelkasten notes."
"This is a super fun way of reading books and not only fun but extremely good in terms of internalizing what you're reading."