Tame Your Note-Taking System In Obsidian by Building It Around Questions

Questions help build focus, purpose and direction of ideas in your multi-faceted, ever-expanding sea of notes.

“Can I ask, what’s your PhD question?”, my skills tutor ventured.

I fumbled something together in response; “ er, well, I used to have a question, you know when I applied for the PhD. It kinda came with one.”

She nodded.

“… but things have changed since then, “I added, screwing up my forehead, “as I follow things that are interesting, you know, so the questions have changed.”

More nods.

And I realised at that point I no longer knew what my PhD questions were. It brought memories of my nine month review; “ your questions need to be more defined as they are too broad.” Clearly I had not made any effort to narrow them, nor adapt or update them.

Two years in and I am still stuck in the mindset of a newbie PhD student whereby we will solve all the questions on our topic, and get a Nobel prize in the process. Everything is important and relevant and exciting.

And this all feels completely on parallel with my knowledge management system; the risk of missing out on…