Taking notes on people in Obsidian

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around a lot and traveling
and that makes it kindof difficult to foster these friendships.Usually I might start
something online or in personbut the majority of the relationshipis going to have to be online.That requires a little bit
more work on both partsand so any type of relationshipis going to have to be intentional.Having notes with me helps me prioritizewho is the most important to meand make sure that I
allot my time accordingly.

There's also the issue
of just not being ableto remember everything about
everybody that I care about.But you know what does remember? Obsidian.So when I meet a person that
I think is really interesting,I take notes so that I
don't have to remember itin my brain and it's not
taking up space in my headthat I could be using for something else.All I have to do is know that this personis important and then I know to lookin Obsidian for some of
the notes that I took.

When you haven't seen someone in a while,think about how long you
spend trying to rememberwhat they said to you last
or how much you rehash thingsthat you've actually gone over already.Having notes on people helps me maintainand make deeper connections faster.When do I take notes on people?Well, the overarching principle hereis to listen in the first place.So I do always take notesbut not when they're right
there in front of me.

When I'm talking to someone,
my primary objective isto just be there fully present
in the moment with them.Now that does look a little
bit different dependingon whether I'm there in person with themor if I'm on a call with them.I feel like on a call there's a little bitmore leeway to take
notes like I don't haveto look at what I'm
typing to be able to type.So it's a little bit easier for meto maintain that eye contact
while also taking notes.

But in general, when I have a meeting,that's what I'm doing.I am trying to have a
connection with the personby looking at the camera
or looking at their faceand then I'm just like
typing my notes on the side.So this is what that looks like.These templates are in my Patreon vault.You can sign up for Patreon hereand I'll also leave it
in the description below.But this is what it looks like.This is my meeting note
that I apply every timeI have a meeting and these
are Templater strings

that get replaced by,
in this case, the date.And then this one will be
the title of the meeting.I usually put attendees here.Then I just have Agenda,
Log and Next Action.So in agenda, I might put things
that I've prepared to talkto the person about
beforehand and then log isjust for things that come
up during the meeting.Let's say I want to create a new meeting.In my Patreon vault, I already havesome macros set up using
the Quick Add plugin.

So I just have to go
to the command palettewhich is Command+P for me.And then I want to select
this one, Quick Add,which is going to apply
a template to a new note.So I'm going to hit that.This is already going to have the dateso I'm just going to write
the title of the actual note.So let's say meeting about
stuff and that opens upin a new pane here and
that was already filled out

like the date is in there
and it has the inbox tag.And let's say for attendees,
I'm meeting with a new person.Let's call her Hanna, and I would typethe agenda and log here, and next action.So if I have any,let's say I also want to
create a note for Hanna.So then I'm going to
just command click thatand that automatically brings
through the person template,

which is right here on the left.So as you can see there aresome more things in the person templatethan were in the meeting one, and that'sbecause this is really
where all the meat is.I'm going to move these two over hereso that you can just see them bigger.All right, now this is my note for Hanna.I would then type her company.Let's say she works at
Grafana Labs like I doand then I might put her location,

let's say she's in the Netherlands.By the way, I'm using
keyboard shortcuts thatI have using a separate
app called Text Expanderbut that's a different video.So I then just go through all of these.I always set publish to false.I mean I do have this automatically gointo the People Folder,
which is never publishedbut you know, I just wanna
be extra, extra sure.So then I would fill
out all of these fieldsbut I do want to call out thisdate last spoken field
and the follow up field.

So if Hanna is someone that
I think is either relevantto what I'm doing right now
or someone that I'm gonnabe working with or just
someone who's cool,I would go ahead and put
true here and sometimesthere's like a real useful
reason for doing that.Sometimes it's just, hey, I
connected with this person.Maybe I'll catch up
with her at some point.And then I would say, date last spoken.And then I would just put today's date.

Again, that's still a
Text Expander shortcutbut it's just today's datein the specific format
that I use for Obsidian.Then I would write something about Hanna,like Hanna is a graphic
designer who lives in France.And then I would put here the agendas.As soon as I think that
somebody is someonethat I would meet up
with on a regular basisthen I switch to having the
agenda on their person note

and then I can pull that
into a meeting if I need to.I would talk about how we metlike we both know Pepe let's say.And then I would fill out these sections.These are more like prompts.So if our conversation
went into this directionthen I would fill out, maybe this couldbe employment history or where she's livedin before, then if she mentions like,you know, a partner or kids or something,I would put family there.Now I also have some other things

that I don't always fill out.You know, sometimes all I
fill out for a person isthis initial one or maybe like
company location and title.But I think that when I
get closer to somebodyI would go and try and
fill more of these out.So I try to put things
about their personalitythat kind of just strike me at the time.Like I would say Hanna is an
incredibly positive person

but I also use this
template that I alreadyhave prepopulated, and
this is actually from D&D.I like to play tabletop
role playing games, TTRPGs,kind of like D&D or
"Dungeons and Dragons."And in those sorts of games
we have player charactersand non-player characters,
both of which you needto have some sort of framework
to be able to understandlike who they are and what they like.And so these are actually
inspired by those games.

There's something called OGAS Framework,it's occupation, goal,
attitude, and stake.I kind of skipped the occupationbecause I figured that'll
be where the title is.And then I just go to the GAS part.Goal, attitude, and stake.So goal would be like her motivation,she wants to live in Africa someday.Her attitude, well I kind of already saidthat she's positive,
she's cheerful about it.

Now what is her stake?Stake is something that can kind of swingthe pendulum one way or another.So she has this goal of
wanting to live in Africa.So she wants to travel probably,
and she's quite cheerfulbut what makes her not want to travelor what makes her not be as cheerful?Maybe she doesn't like itwhen things are spontaneous and unplanned.There are people like that.And then if you've
played D&D, this Ideals,Bonds and Flaws is pretty common.

It is a standard framework for most NPCs,non-player characters, in the game.So an ideal would be something
like freedom, independence,you know, abstract ideas
that she really gravitatestowards and what are things
that she's bonded with?They could be, not so much ideasbut like people or factions.She really gets along
well with Pepe, let's say.And what are her flaws?

Let's say she's easily rattled
when things don't go her wayand her character alignment
in role playing gamesand in D&D in particular, there
are these two sort of axes.So there's chaotic, neutral and lawfuland then there's good, neutral and eviland you kind of mix and match
the two to see how they go.So maybe she's more like
chaotic good, let's say.

And then just for a fun thingsometimes I put "Magic
the Gathering" colors.By the way, all these, at
least in the Patreon vault,I do have them linked to notes
from my personal public vaultwhere you can see the
note that I have on it.So for example in "Magic the Gathering,"there are five different suitsand each one kind of stands for something.So when you have a deck,
'cause this is likea deck of cards you can
choose a theme for the deck

based on the colors and you
can mix and match as well.But I kind of just stick to one.So well we said that she likes,you know, freedom and independence.She also does like disinhibition though.I'm gonna say she's red,
freedom, emotion, action.Well she's not about impulse.Hmm, you know, let's say she's green,let's say that she's more greenand this is just a little bit of fun.

The idea is not to kindof pigeonhole people into this label.The idea is to come up with a setof shortcuts that are
a little bit more fun.And then if I don't remember her exactlybut I remember that I
wanted to get to know herthen I can kind of look and be
like, oh yeah, that's right.She really loves nature so maybeI shouldn't ask her to
go see a movie with me.Maybe I should ask her to go hikingwith me or something like that.And then I really love
this idea of knives.

The idea is that when you
are in a role playing gameand you're creating a character backstoryyou should sharpen some knives
that are interesting hooksthat the Dungeon Master can
then use to pull you in.So if you say that one of your knives isthat you are a wanted person
because you have a lot of debtthen the Dungeon Master
can later use that knifeand have those people
come looking for you.So I kind of extend this to
real life, to real people

by having knives as things
that get them fired up.It could be good things
or it could be bad things.These like hot button
things that every timeI talk to Hanna, she just fires upand gets really excited
and can talk foreverabout let's say the
environment and climate change.They're just a bunch of
topics that, you know,if I really want to provoke
or inspire her in some way,

these are the topics that
I can talk to her with.It can also just be as
simple as interests.And then here in meetings
I have this Dataview querythat automatically pulls
in all the meetingswhere I put Hanna in the Attendees field.So this is how it looks to havea somewhat filled in person template.The second way that I
might be meeting somebodyis in a conference or an in-person meetup.

And in those cases I don't alwayshave the chance to stop and take notes.I mean, if you're standing
and you know, you also havelike a sandwich in your
hand or coffee or somethingyou can't just be like,
wait, I gotta take notes.So what I do in that case
is I just try to rememberas much as I can and
then I look for breaksin the day or I just do
it at the end of the dayand then just dump all of my thoughts.Usually it's going to be in my daily note.

So let's look at that.In a daily note, this is just an example,I have a few things here because
this is the Patreon vaultbut I'm not actually
gonna use any of that.So I might just quickly
jot down a few things.Like let's say if I
didn't have that meetingwith Hanna and I actually
met her in personI could just put bullet
points like lives in France,wants to go to Africa, loves
freedom, travel, environment.

And then I would go on to the next oneand Pepe and then so on.So when I have a conference,I mean, I can't actually
show you an exampleof these notes because
sometimes they can be prettyrevealing when people say
something that, you know,even though I'm a stranger,
sometimes they reveal thingsabout themselves that
I can't actually show.But this ends up being like
a long bullet point list.

And sometimes for some people
it's mainly personal things.For some other people it's
more like where they workor what they're currently working on.And that's totally fine.I just dump in everything that I can seeand then later on at the end
of the day I then go backand try to actually like make links outof them like this and then create notesfor the people that I don't
already have notes for.

So it can be difficult to
remember people's names sometimes.So what I like to do is use
social media as an excuse.I whip out my phone and say, you know,"Do you mind taking a photo with me?"And then I then take the photoand it's good for the event usuallybecause they like the
social media interactionbut also then I remember
what they look like.I might bring that into Obsidian later.And sometimes if I'm lucky I
can also like snap a pictureof their lanyard with their
name and you know their title

or company and otherwise
I sometimes use LinkedIn.So I have the LinkedIn app on my phone.If it's a work thing it's easier.But what you can do, and I
didn't know this at firstis you can actually go
into search here and thenyou can have a LinkedIn
QR code and somebody elseif they also have LinkedIn
on their phones can scan thatand you can get connected right away.So that's your code.And then you can also scan something.

Oh look, there you are.But then you would scan
somebody else's codeand then they could also be addedto your connections to
your network on LinkedIn.And then the third way
that I would meet peopleis when I'm consuming their content,this is like not me really meeting them.This might be, you know,
someone wrote this tweetthat I think is really interestingor something on Mastodon
or wrote an articleand I don't really even know them.

I've made videos on how I
process articles from the web.Basically I use something called Readwise,if you wanna sign up for that,
that's Readwise.io/Nicoleand check out this video to
see more about how I use that.So I've shown you my templates for peopleand for meetings and
I've talked a little bitabout how I would go about
it if I were in a conferenceand was meeting people like in person.Now I wanna show you
what I do to follow up.

Remember I had that follow
up flag in the people note.Well this is how I use
that, in my daily note,I have a few things here
like for processing notesbut I also have a section
for people to catch up withwith a Dataview query that returns resultsfrom the People Folder
where follow up is trueand where the date that I last spoketo them is a month or more ago.Now you can also adjust this basedon what your preferences are.

Maybe when you put
follow up true to peoplethat's like you wanna talk to
them every week or something.And in that case you would
just put one week here.But let's say that when I talked to Hanna,that was actually two
months ago and I do havefollow up true and this
is more than a month ago.So let's go back to the daily noteand Hanna's going to come up thereand this is kind of like a
prompt for me to say, "Hey,remember that cool person
that I met at this time

on January 20th? Maybe I
should catch up with her."And just to kind of add
an element of randomness,I also have a Dice Roller
string here which justrandomly chooses a person with the tag,"person," and then returns that link.So I don't have many people here.I think I have Hanna, Pepe
and person, the template.So it's not going to be too usefulbut I can like kind of
roll through the dice

and just if I don't
wanna talk to Hanna todaythen I can try and get somebody else.In my actual vault, I
have more people hereso this is more useful than that.One thing I try to always
keep in mind is that becauseof the nature of the notes
that I take about peoplewhere I at times I'm trying
to peek into their psycheand trying to understand why
they are the way that they are.Sometimes I write things that they told methat maybe shouldn't be
made public and because

of that privacy is a really
important thing for me.So there are few things that I like to doto make sure that I
maintain people's privacy.The first is what I already talked about.I like to keep all people
notes in one folder.So in this case it's under the People one.And this is handy because then I knowthat I will never publish this folderand like I do use Obsidian Publish.So let me just show that
to you in my main vault.

And I do have a folder
here called, "Gente,"that's people in Spanish.And when I go to Publish, so
in Obsidian Publish you can goand click Manage Publish
Filters here and you can excludea bunch of folders that are
never going to get published.So as you can see, Gente is one of them.So that doesn't get published.And then also I do have that flag

in my person template
that says publish:false.The other thing is if you're
using Obsidian Sync thenI would make sure to encrypt
that folder, it is optional.So you can go into Sync here.So this one isn't being
synced, but you can,when you're creating a remote vault,you can choose whether or not
it's going to be encrypted.And if you are taking notes on people,I would suggest that you
do encrypt your vault.

And the other thing is this
plugin called Meld Encryptwhich I've just installed and it is a wayto encrypt notes and kind
of password protect them.So let's say I'm in today's
note, I can just hit Command+Pand Meld Encrypt, I'm going
to create a new encrypted noteand this one is going to have
a password and I'm just goingto put nvdh here because
it's not really a secret.I wouldn't actually put it
in the hint, but just so you

can see then this note is
completely encrypted and I cantype whatever I want and it
can be an complete secret.This is cool because
it's encrypted locally,it isn't making any calls out to anywhereon the internet and it
is password protected.So then you can also rename
this "Secret Hanna Note,"and then on the day you
can kind of link to it.

So then you can just type the title of it.If you don't remember, you
can just kind of copy it hereand then you can just type it there sothat you'll be able to jump to it.If you do use this Meld Encrypt plugin,I would recommend that
you go into the settingsand then where it says "Remember
Password," maybe untickthat so that it doesn't
automatically remember it.So this time when you open
the Secret Hanna Note,

it's gonna ask you for the password.In this case I put it as
the hint, but you know,that way you actually
have some security on it.I don't take notes on
every person that I meet.I take into account a
bunch of factors such ashow likely it is that I'm
going to run into them again,my chemistry with them and
how important or relevantthey are going to be
in my life or how muchthey're going to affect it going forward.And then I just take notes accordingly.After years of taking
notes like this, I've come

to the conclusion that
maybe taking notes on peoplein this way isn't not as weird
as it might initially seem.I actually think that it's the opposite.When I take notes on
someone and I go throughall of those things that I showed you,I actually see it as a compliment.It's like me saying,
"Hey, I know I'm not goingto remember as much as I
would like to about you.So I just wanted you to
know that I care enough

about you to try to have
a system so that I doremember those awesome
things that make you you."And when viewed under this
lens, I think that it'sa pretty positive thing and
it's definitely helped memake connections with people
that are a lot more genuine.If you'd like to see more
about how I use Templaterto create the format for a
bunch of different notes,then check out this video,
thank you for watching.(Italian) One who finds
a friend, finds treasure.