6 Useful Templates for Obsidian

In this video, we show 6 useful templates for Obsidian and how I use each of them. I also show how to use date/title snippets and some example notes.

If you prefer, there's a video about these templates. Check it out: https://youtu.be/RfRFS0S-tNs

1. Meeting Notes

This is a very simple template but it has the power to make meetings more objective. Besides the current date snippet, I also use the title snippet which takes the name of the note and uses it as the title. Hopefully, the meeting already has some goal or agenda of the things that are going to be discussed. As part of the preparation for the meeting, you can add the things you want to discuss or ask about. During the meeting, you create notes of what was discussed, like takeaways or decisions, and finally, add the action items.

# {{title}}

Date: {{date:MMM d, YYYY}}
Attendees:

---

# Goals / agenda
1. 

# Discussion notes
- 

# Action items
- [ ] Meeting Notes Distributed to the Team
- [ ] Tasks & Projects Completed, Processed or Delegated
- [ ] Key Dates Completed or Scheduled

2. Cornell Notes

When I attend a lecture or take an online course I use this Cornell Notes template as structure. This is a well-known system for taking notes and studying that helps keep the brain active during a class or lecture. Basically, you divide the note into 3 sections which are questions, notes, and summary. Filling this out not only helps you review what you just learned, but also helps you retain much better the information. I have a full video about Cornell Notes with more details and examples.

Topic: {{title}}
Date: {{date:MMM d, YYYY}}
Course:
Class:

---

### Questions/Cues
- Item

### Notes
- Item

### Summary
Highlight ==what’s important!==

3. Book Notes

This is a template that I always try to fill in after I finish a book, while things are still fresh in my mind. If I'm not wrong this was based on some video by Ali Abdaal. I try to summarize the book in 3 sentences using my own words, which is a great test to see if I really understood something. It has some questions that help me remember how I discovered it, who I can recommend it to, and how the book changed me.

# {{title}}

Date Finished: {{date:MMM d, YYYY}}
Author:
Tags:

---

# 🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

# 🎨 Impressions

## How I Discovered It

## Who Should Read It?

# ☘️ How the Book Changed Me

How my life / behaviour / thoughts / ideas have changed as a result of reading the book.

# ✍️ My Top 3 Quotes

# 📒 Summary + Notes

4. Blog Post

This template is more of a checklist to help me not forget any step and finish a blog post. There is a phrase I like that says a blog is like a conversation with people that reminds me to keep a more friendly language while I write. Usually, a post is divided into these sections like intro, overview, steps, and conclusion. Each one has some prompts that help a lot while writing. Finally, there is this checklist divided into inspiration, draft, and publishing with all the necessary steps in the process. Just follow step by step and in the end, you'll have a post ready and published.

# {{title}}

> A blog is just like having a long conversation with people, so it should make sense that things you enjoy talking about will be closely related to your passion.

## Intro
* A promise statement
* A preview of what's to come

## Overview
* A simple definition
* Examples
* Transition to the next section

## Steps
* Detail of each the steps

# Conclusion
* Reminder of how helpful the guide is
* Reiterate how important your topic is
* Call-to-action

# Checklist

Inspiration ⛅
- [ ] Read articles and watch videos that inspire me
- [ ] Brainstorm the topics that I want to write about in bullet points
- [ ] Reorder those bullet points to create a line of thought

Draft ✏️
- [ ] Expand those bullet points into sentences/text
- [ ] Go over the document

Ready to Publish 🌐
- [ ] Draft 5 titles and pick one
- [ ] Revise the complete text for typos
- [ ] Preview the text
- [ ] Publish or schedule the post
- [ ] Promote on social media

5. OKR (Objectives and Key Results)

This is a very popular framework in the corporate world for aligning personal, team, and overall company goals. After hearing so much about OKR in the companies I worked for I ended up adopting it and using it for personal projects too. Usually, I set goals based on quarters, so in the title, I put the dates in which this is valid. I write the goal I want to achieve along with the metrics that show the progress of each key result. Occasionally I update these numbers and make sure I am going in the direction I want to go.

# OKRs 🎯

## Start date -> Complete date

- Objective: Where do I want to go? How do I get there?
- Key Results
- Key result description
- |░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░| 0% Complete

6. Eisenhower Matrix

This template is for moments that we are overloaded with too many tasks and it's based on the Eisenhower Matrix. I know some people add tasks in Obsidian and this is a great template to better prioritize what you have to do. It helps you decide on and prioritize tasks by urgency and importance, sorting out less urgent and important tasks which you should either delegate or not do at all. Sometimes when I'm overwhelmed with so many tasks, I add all of them to this template reordering based on urgency so what's important will be on top. After this exercise, very often I realize that a few of them can be delegated, postponed, or completely removed.

# Eisenhower Matrix ✅

### URGENT + IMPORTANT
*Do it now*
- [ ] Task 1
- [ ] Task 2
- [ ] Task 3

### URGENT, NOT IMPORTANT
*Delegate or do it after tasks above*
- [ ] Task 1
- [ ] Task 2
- [ ] Task 3

### IMPORTANT, NOT URGENT
*Decide when to do it*
- [ ] Task 1
- [ ] Task 2
- [ ] Task 3

### NOT URGENT, NOT IMPORTANT
*Do it later / Dump it*
- [ ] Task 1
- [ ] Task 2
- [ ] Task 3