How do I set up a Zettelkasten in Obsidian?

A simple start is three folders for fleeting, literature and permanent notes, a note template with a References section, and a map of content for each topic. Link each permanent note back to its source and to related permanent notes. When you write, outline a project and link or embed the permanent notes you need.

What is the difference between literature notes and permanent notes?

A literature note records your own understanding of one source, briefly and with a reference. A permanent note states one idea in your own words, independent of any single source, and links to other permanent notes. Permanent notes are the part you build on over years.

What is a map of content in Obsidian?

A map of content is a note that lists and links the notes on one topic, acting as an entry point. It gives a linked vault some structure without folders or tags. Many users keep one per subject and add to it as new notes appear.

All video notes

Video notes · Notes and PKM

Zettelkasten Smart Notes: Step by Step with Obsidian

Video by Martin Adams on YouTube · 19 min · uploaded July 2021

Notes and analysis by BrainTube, written from the video. Not affiliated with Martin Adams. Watch on YouTube

In short

Martin Adams sets up a Zettelkasten in a new Obsidian vault with three folders (fleeting, literature, permanent), two templates, a map of content and a project draft that embeds permanent notes. It is a clear, practical walkthrough of the mechanics. It also bends the method in ways worth knowing: fleeting notes become stores of article highlights, permanent notes are titled as topics rather than ideas, and the folder layout creates duplicate note names.

The argument

The video's argument is that the Zettelkasten pipeline maps cleanly onto Obsidian's basic features. Fleeting notes catch raw material. Literature notes hold your own thinking about one source. Permanent notes break that thinking into linked pieces, gathered under a map of content that acts as an entry point to a topic. A project note then outlines a piece of writing and pulls permanent notes in with embeds, so you never start a draft from a blank page. The gaps you notice while outlining tell you what to research next. Adams demonstrates all of this with a single article, about treating a product like a garden, and a single topic: bootstrapping a startup.

Key ideas, with timestamps

0:32
One folder per note type
He creates folders for fleeting, literature and permanent notes in a fresh vault. Fleeting notes are for quick ideas and things seen on the web, literature notes for deeper thinking about what you consumed, and permanent notes for the linked slip box you ask questions against.
1:35
Templates core plugin
He enables Obsidian's core Templates plugin and points it at a templates folder. The note template has a heading filled from the title variable, a created date and time, a References section and space for the body. A second template, for a map of content, is a heading plus a numbered list.
4:11
A fleeting note from one article
His example source is an article called My product is my garden, about building a bootstrapped product slowly. He pastes the URL into the References list and collects highlights in the fleeting note, so he no longer needs to reread the original.
5:12
Literature note in a split view
He opens the fleeting note beside a new literature note with the same name and writes his own reading of each highlight. The result covers the pressure to move fast, the option to grow slowly, and the permission the garden framing gives to build in small parts.
7:14
Map of content as entry point
He creates a map of content called Bootstrapping a startup in the permanent folder and lists the areas he wants to cover. Before Ctrl or Cmd clicking links to create notes, he changes Files and Links so new notes land in the same folder as the current file.
9:19
Traceability through references
Each permanent note, such as the benefits of bootstrapping, links back to the literature note and the fleeting note in its References section. He then uses the backlinks pane to see how a note was reached from the map of content.
12:55
Projects pull from permanent notes
A projects folder holds a blog post outline: what bootstrapping means, who can do it, benefits, drawbacks, tips and a conclusion. He links permanent notes into the outline and finds two gaps (who bootstraps, and the drawbacks) that need more research.
14:58
Embeds to draft from notes
Putting an exclamation mark before a link embeds the note's content in preview. He edits the draft on one side and previews the embedded notes on the other, then removes the exclamation marks once the prose is written. The last two minutes promote his own app, Flowtelic.

What it gets right

The pipeline is shown end to end. Many Zettelkasten videos stop at linking. This one goes from a source to a draft outline, which is the part that justifies the effort. Seeing the outline reveal missing notes (who bootstraps, and the drawbacks) is the most convincing moment: the slip box tells you what you do not yet know.

Traceability is cheap and valuable. A References section that links each permanent note back to its literature note costs seconds and saves you later, when you want to check a claim or cite a source.

Small settings that matter. Enabling core Templates and setting new notes to land in the current folder are details beginners miss, and both are explained clearly. The embed-then-unembed drafting trick is also a good one.

Where it drifts from the method

Fleeting notes are not meant to be archives. In Sönke Ahrens' How to Take Smart Notes, fleeting notes are quick reminders you process and throw away within a day or two. Here the fleeting note becomes a permanent store of article highlights. That is closer to a reading highlights file. It works, but it adds a layer you then have to maintain.

Topic titles instead of idea titles. Permanent notes like What is bootstrapping and Benefits of bootstrapping are encyclopedia entries. The method usually works better when each permanent note states one claim in its title, for example "slow growth lets a founder keep a day job longer". Claim titles link more precisely and are easier to reuse in an argument.

Duplicate names across folders. He creates a fleeting note and a literature note both called my product is my garden. Obsidian can handle this with paths, but plain wiki-links become ambiguous and the graph shows two near-identical nodes. A short suffix such as - lit avoids confusion.

One source is a thin demo. The value of a Zettelkasten appears when the tenth source links to notes written for the first. With one article, every link is obvious. The graph-view comments at 12:24 would mean more with a vault that had grown.

It is a 2021 video. Obsidian has since added Properties for structured metadata, so today the created date would usually sit in frontmatter rather than in the body. The core steps still work.

How this applies to memory across AI tools

His fleeting stage is the slowest part: highlighting an article or a video by hand before any thinking starts. That is where AI now saves the most time, as long as the literature and permanent notes stay in your own words.

For video and audio sources, the raw material is the transcript. BrainTube saves YouTube videos with their transcripts, along with articles, PDFs and podcasts, into one compiled knowledge base, and exposes it as an MCP server so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients can search it. You can then ask for the passages relevant to a permanent note and write the note yourself, which keeps the part of the method that builds understanding.

For more on turning video into notes, see YouTube video to notes and the personal knowledge graph and MCP.

Who should watch it

Watch it if you are new to Obsidian and want to see a Zettelkasten built from an empty vault, with no plugins beyond the core set. The setup is 0:32 to 3:38, the source-to-permanent pipeline is 4:11 to 12:24, and the project draft with embeds is 12:55 to 16:01. Skip the last two minutes, which promote his app. If you already run a Zettelkasten, you will learn little new, and if you want the theory behind fleeting, literature and permanent notes, read Ahrens first, since this video assumes you know it.

Frequently asked

How do I set up a Zettelkasten in Obsidian?: A simple start is three folders for fleeting, literature and permanent notes, a note template with a References section, and a map of content for each topic. Link each permanent note back to its source and to related permanent notes. When you write, outline a project and link or embed the permanent notes you need.
What is the difference between literature notes and permanent notes?: A literature note records your own understanding of one source, briefly and with a reference. A permanent note states one idea in your own words, independent of any single source, and links to other permanent notes. Permanent notes are the part you build on over years.
What is a map of content in Obsidian?: A map of content is a note that lists and links the notes on one topic, acting as an entry point. It gives a linked vault some structure without folders or tags. Many users keep one per subject and add to it as new notes appear.

Keep videos like this one searchable

BrainTube saves YouTube videos with their transcripts into one compiled knowledge base that Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients can search.

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Zettelkasten Smart Notes: Step by Step with Obsidian

In short

The argument

Key ideas, with timestamps

One folder per note type

Templates core plugin

A fleeting note from one article

Literature note in a split view

Map of content as entry point

Traceability through references

Projects pull from permanent notes

Embeds to draft from notes