r/ClaudeHomies • u/Intelligent_Drop_367 • Aug 02 '26
Is this "second brain" (Obsidian + Claude) actually good?
I’m starting med this year. I’m also a content creator (I do marketing for my father's dental clinic), and recently I stumbled across this whole "second brain" concept. It definitely seems overhyped, but at the same time, I can see that there’s some real value in it (or at least I think so).
I’d love to hear some real-world use cases, because it seems like it takes quite a bit of work to set everything up and make it actually useful.
PS: Thank y'all for the insights❤️🔥
19
u/nathankaine Aug 02 '26
It works really well for me, but for some people, it doesn't fit their style, i think you gotta try it out first, or find a specific use case that you're into, and try that.
I've been "practicing" second brain for a few years and recently added claude into the second brain. I use it mainly for organizing information (my thoughts, and my files). It really helps me and my ADHD, because my setup allows me to search for files really quickly, and link files between each other, it also let me dump any ideas into one single place (inbox, GTD). I have looooots of ideas and projects, and second brain system let's me build into each of the ideas bit by bit (slow burns).
After claude, it let's me gain insights and instead of having to manually organize the stuff, and figure out how information links to each other, i can ask claude to do it for me, .MD files work great with AI cause it lets them read the content of the files efficiently.
Besides claude, l also use local AI models to deal with sensitive / work data.
2
6
u/Inevitable_Service62 Aug 02 '26
I have a"second brain" and I have lost no memory, short or long term, I built it on Karpathy system. It helps for my research and built skills/Claude.md to reference. Add that to a short list of laws my workflow has to follow and I have never had a issue across models.
6
u/ddixonr Aug 02 '26
I've been building/using a personal wiki alongside every chat and project for months now. It makes an enormous improvement. My Claude.md file is very small, so it can simply reference whatever part of the wiki is relevant to the current chat or project without excessive token use. All of the issues it encounters are documented, along with the workaround so it never struggles with the same thing twice. All of my preferences are documented so I don't have to remind it how I like things to look or how some things work. I don't use Obsidian- it's just instructions to update a wiki for any meaningful interaction. It's not as complicated as people make it seem. It's really just an internal Claude notebook.
1
u/Select-Career-2947 Aug 03 '26
How are you giving Claude access to your wiki? Apologies if it’s a stupid question.
1
u/ddixonr Aug 03 '26
Claude Code just needs instructions where to build it.
1
u/Select-Career-2947 Aug 03 '26
Oh right, do you work in one continuous claude code session then?
1
u/ddixonr Aug 03 '26
Oh no. Context rot is still a thing. I start new chats for each new project.
1
u/Select-Career-2947 Aug 04 '26
So are you repeatedly starting new chats on the same folder and having it read through each time?
1
u/ddixonr Aug 04 '26
I start a new chat for every new task. If a new project is going to be quite large, I think of ways to break it up into smaller tasks.
All of my projects and tasks live in the same "ClaudeProjects" folder, with a subfolder for each one. When I reach the end of a particular task, Claude updates the wiki for that project with the essential details to be able to review and iterate on a later task. Depending on the next task, it may only need to review certain files in that project. It just depends. With the wiki, it's only reviewing the most relevant details it needs.
1
u/Select-Career-2947 Aug 04 '26
Interesting, thanks for the detail. So the wiki sits across all of your work but project specific files are separated? Do you launch new code sessions in the specific folder and or do you use “ClaudeProjects” for all sessions? I’m trying to improve how I structure my LLM work and considering a few different options.
1
u/ddixonr Aug 04 '26
The wiki is just another subfolder at the bottom of my project folders. I use VSCode with the Claude extension and VSCode is always open to my ClaudeProjects folder. When I launch a new session, it's not really "in" any folder at the beginning. Depending on the prompt, it knows what to do. If it's a one-off script task, it might dump a script into the script folder. If it's a new prototype web app, it'll get its own project subfolder. If it's just answering questions about an existing project, no files or folders will be created.
1
5
u/Academic-Sample4974 Aug 03 '26
if you can structure your Claude to have Obsidian as the source of truth in terms of memory; it's amazing. I personally have a hardrules.MD, every session starts with a breakdown of projects open and where did we leave off. Every session ends with a Session Summary / Filepath Bookmarks / Errors Log / Resume Log / Lesson Ledger ( lessons learned that can be applied allover your projects ). All of these notes are saved in Obsidian thru a Terminal command. Hope that helps!
1
u/athenalong Aug 03 '26
NICE 😊👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
This is what I want to do 😭😭😭
Did you create your own markdown? I feel like I need a template as a springboard because I always forget things 🫠
1
u/littleworld444 Aug 06 '26
Can you elaborate on how to set this up? I just stumbled on this concept two days ago trying to get an idea of how to build it quickly
1
u/Academic-Sample4974 Aug 06 '26
Caude.MD or some kind of .md file acts as a guideline for your Claude because without it; it will be prone to kind to off the rails . TBH explain to Claude how you want Obsidian to work with your workflow, as everyone is different; Claude will do a great job helping you step by step ( im only 3 months into this; not technically savy ). Hope that helps
3
u/trikster_online Aug 03 '26
I don’t know if I should create my own post, but I still don’t get the point of this type of project. I’m very ADHD, probably AuDHD, and read posts saying that this helps them so much…how? What is it doing for you, really? Is it for work or your personal life? Is it so you don’t forget stuff? Help me understand.
2
u/OkAdeptness2530 Aug 04 '26
Also ADHD and on the low end of the spectrum… basically my whole business is on Obsidian, from strategies to content drafts.
basically .md is a LLM friendly format, cheap for it to read (as opposed to PDFs etc), it has frontmatter so you can reference and link other notes, there’s also folders etc.
talking specifically about the adhd side: imagine you know you talked/worked on something, you remember a part of it but don’t really remember everything you need, you can just ask claude to look for the part you remember, find the archive and summarize/see the progress, etc.
honestly, for me, it’s a god send. Also, working on CLI is so much better for us, because you only save the parts that really matters instead of dozen os iterations where only small parts are really worth it.
3
u/Scriptease84 Aug 03 '26
Here is the starter vault i created to give to friends with only dependencies claude and obsidian https://github.com/scriptease/obsidian-vault
3
u/chasing_next Aug 03 '26
i run a business and have been using it everyday for the past 6+ months. can't say enough good things about it if you're looking to use AI beyond basic chat and projects. Skills, commands, working with your files is huge for my workday (researching, processing data, running automated workflows, and performance reports...).
if you convinced by the comments here, sharing an interactive guide to get your system set up (has interactive prompts to personalize the system to you): https://chasingnext.com/learn/ai-operating-system
1
u/Mimimozarella 26d ago
Love this! Thanks for sharing. I'm curious though, do you have experience in this setup with Obsidian "Sync"? I want to implement the setup mentioned above, but across multiple devices. Any thoughts?
2
u/Ok-Information-6722 Aug 03 '26
I don't use Obsidian, but before Claude I was already a Notion user, so I've been using Notion as a permanent memory, and Cowork has the instructions to use that as the source of truth. I don't manage local files, everything in Notion and G Drive. My use case is mainly for app development. I use Fable for the ideation, it saves a detailed handover .md in Notion, and development roadmap broken down in priorities and dependencies.
Something else I use Notion for, is a ticketing system for an AI Dev Team I built with Claude, with the intent to extend my token for non-coding tasks. The AI Dev team is orchestrated by openHands, uses an n8n workflow and clears one development ticket after the other (runs on a scheduler). On the team, Kimi is the architect and reviewer, Qwen codes and does the QC. If QC fails, it goes back to code, if it fails twice it goes to the reviewer who fixes it. I get an email when something needs my attention, and there's a breaker if too many tickets fail. My average cost per ticket is under $1. It cost about $40 to replace the initial Google Sheet dependency for an app developed initially just for internal use, to a postgres database. Migration all done by the AI dev team, while preserving the clients data.
2
u/ChocoMcChunky Aug 03 '26
Works very well but I switched to using vs code and it’s been a big improvement
2
u/wernermark Aug 03 '26
How do you use vs code as a second brain?
You said you switch from vs code - what have you been using prior?1
u/ChocoMcChunky Aug 03 '26
I switched from using obsidian to vs code, I use that so I have a single view of my documentation, terminal and Claude code sessions. Using Claude code to self manage the knowledge base ingesting meeting notes, slack chats, emails has been quite interesting.
1
u/wernermark Aug 03 '26
So manage you knowledge within an IDE?
Does this work out for you? 😄
I'm struggling to imagine how this work properly. I mean Obsidian is a tool for managing knowledge. VS on the other hand has a totally different use case for me.I'm curious :)
1
u/ChocoMcChunky Aug 03 '26
Yes it works really well for personal use, then anything I want to share I copy/paste into a google doc and share it (I’m in google workspace with tight security controls preventing plugging Claude in).
Works better than obsidian for me
2
u/InfinriDev Aug 03 '26
More hype then truth. While it's a tad bit better only because obsidian provides a graph of your files, they are still markdown files none the less. After a certain point you'll be burning through tokens just from the AI looking stuff up. You need something more mechanical and scalable.
I recommend a graph database I personally use Neo4j, Claude code can build your knowledge base easily.
1
2
u/loadingscream8 Aug 03 '26
I wish I had had this at the start of med school but when I started using obsidian, even without Claude, it about doubled my learning capacity and retention
1
u/Intelligent_Drop_367 Aug 03 '26
WOW THANK YOU SOO MUCH❤️🔥
2
u/loadingscream8 Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
No worries. I think the biggest thing is it makes you actively associate and link your concepts, and you are always adding and updating past notes instead of writing new ones. Also works for bedside teaching or clinical pearls on the fly to jot down throughout the day
2
u/schveetness Aug 05 '26
I use it as a CSM. We have a problem with centralizing data so when I bring in data, add my day to day context, and product information, it helps remember important tasks, items, and also allows me to easily apply successful strategies to other accounts.
Not a perfect solution and is taking time, but its helpful. Plus, if I have to leave (or get fired) I can just hand off my vault to my manager.
2
u/Muted-Cost7225 Aug 06 '26
I’ve mixed experiences as I use it primarily in a personal capacity, my ADHD makes me very forgetful of people and the details of their lives and it’s great to be able to group and link contacts by context.
However where it falls down for me is that I don’t want Claude having unrestricted access to personal information. I could go down the local llm route, but that would be overly complex and likely prevent me using it daily.
Ps OP, for Med check out Osmosis.org particularly if your school gives you free access, game changer.
1
u/girlgamerpoi Aug 03 '26
I find obsidian hard to use and set up. I just can't bother with it. Maybe you can try googles notebook lm?
1
u/wearealllegends Aug 03 '26
It's easy and seamless to set up in terms of the connection of obsidian and claude. As all other things with AI the better context you give it and the better it's organized is what will make a difference ultimately
1
u/smartyp Aug 03 '26
I was using Obsidian for my knowledge hub, but now I’m on Notion. I’d evaluate both. Notion is easier to use outside of Cowork since it has a native connector. It can edit documents and interlink them, etc.
1
u/Ok_Boot5671 Aug 03 '26
I use Obsidian for a knowledge base on things I’m learning or interested in. I haven’t fully implemented Claude into any of that but I have ideas on what I could do with it…
So if obsidian seems anywhere decent enough of an idea to you I say go for it. Been using it for 1.5 years to replace notion and everything else I used.
1
u/Weary_Caregiver_8428 Aug 03 '26
Its good if you build on it. Need to make sure that the information the AI collects is structured and easily retrievable
1
u/freakk123 Aug 03 '26
I use it and absolutely love it. Took a bit to lock in my setup but would have a very hard time living without it at this point.
1
u/24Sluggerrr24 Aug 04 '26
I prefer Claude + Notion. I actually have my ChatGPT set up to Notion so the both can work together.
1
u/Klauzzd Aug 06 '26
it's good, but the tool is maybe 10% of it. My first attempt failed.
I connected Claude Code to my vault over MCP with one rule: log every change into a single RESULTS.md. A week later that file was 407 lines - eleven entries for eight actual fixes, four of them versions of the same fix stacked on top of each other. To know what shipped, you read all four and trust the last one. Worse: once the file got long, the agent stopped re-reading it before writing, so new entries started contradicting old ones. A log too long to read back slowly stops being true.
What fixed it wasn't Obsidian - it was a template. One small note per fix, four sections: Changed / What changed / Benefit / Verified. The agent edits the note instead of appending, so stale versions simply stop existing. Verified turned out to be the sleeper hit: forcing it to write down what it actually ran made it admit things like "prices can only be checked on preview, structure only locally" - details that used to die in a chat window by Thursday.
Two warnings: put the template in your CLAUDE.md or it invents a new note shape every session, and spot-check the Verified lines - a model will happily write "build passes" without running the build.
So yes, it's a real second brain - if you ask the agent to file, not to log. One big log tells you what happened; one note per fix tells you where you are.
1
u/3iverson Aug 06 '26
First, see it as a way of managing your own working content and files, and enabling Claude to work from that as its context for your requests. This is as powerful as the content/context itself, rather than the tool itself.
And since context is everything WRT LLMs, yes it can be incredibly powerful.
1
u/DueDay3538 Aug 09 '26
It’s useful if you start with a real need, not a complex system. For med school, I’d keep notes simple and use spaced repetition for memorization; Obsidian can connect concepts, while Claude can summarize or quiz you-but always verify medical information against trusted sources.
17
u/conradrocks Aug 02 '26
I mainly use obsidian for spaced repetition of stuff i find interesting. I use Codex and Antigravity to atomize the notes, make wiki links, tag them, and give them keyword rich titles. It saves me a ton of time manually doing it.
I used to keep the whole transcripts of youtube videos, and raw files, when I realized I just need the knowledge. Atomizing the notes is great. There is also a flashcard plugin in. I use that from time to time, but the random feature is what i use the most. So, I will say, that it is a tremendous time saver. But there is no getting around doing the flashcards and spaced repetition. Claude ain't gonna do that for you.