Streamlining Academic Research: A PhD Student’s Guide to Efficient Literature Management In the realm of academic research, an efficient workflow for handling scholarly literature is invaluable. As a PhD student and migration researcher, I have developed over the past years a workflow that allows me to efficiently search, download, read, and annotate my research literature. Although this process can be complex, it has proven to be extremely beneficial in my work. Thus, I am eager to share this workflow with others, hoping it can assist you in your endeavours as well. It might sound complicated, but I assure you, it’s …
Read OnSchlagwort: Obsidian
State of the Apps – 2024 Edition
In January of this year, for the first time I published an overview of crucial apps that my professional life couldn’t function without. Inspiration stemmed from the ‘State of the Apps’ segments within the Cortex podcast, hosted by CGP Grey and Myke Hurley, a title I found fitting to take up. This year, I managed to get a head start. In the following, I will showcase to you the apps I use spanning various domains including browsing, mail, task management, writing/thinking/note-taking, research, file and literature management, reading, and more. Many of the apps presented here are also integrated with a …
Read OnUnlocking Handwritten Notes in Obsidian with Excalidraw and Scribble Helper
Obsidian is primarily a text-based tool for me. I only use images occasionally, and I’ve also outsourced my PDFs to DevonThink. I take the approach that it often makes sense to use specialized tools and not do everything with one app, even if that’s potentially possible. Drawings and diagrams are a bit different. I need them relatively rarely anyway because I work very text-based. However, I’m currently trying to get into the habit of using drawings a bit more because I believe that complex topics can be understood much better that way. And that brings us to the topic of …
Read OnMaking digital work visible
The Problem One of the biggest problems with digital work for me is that the spatial dimension is not represented, or at least not sufficiently. I have the problem that I can’t think very well in the abstract. I have to see things, arrange them and, above all, write them down in order to achieve insights. And it doesn’t help at all if I have folders upon folders on my hard drive (or in the cloud for that matter), ALL OF WHICH I DON’T SEE. I can’t get a sense of dimensions, relations, relationships. The only thing I can do …
Read OnThe Tools I use for Writing
Recently, I wrote about the applications I use for my daily work. Today, I want to follow up with a short post that focuses on the subset of my work: the apps and services I use to write my blog articles. My workbench looks like this: Obsidian, tools to improve style, upload, and publish. What does that mean in detail? Planning and Thinking I write all of my texts in Obsidian, as it is a fantastic tool. However, what might be more interesting is how I collect and manage my article ideas and track articles through to publication. To accomplish …
Read OnState of the Apps 2023
Cortex by Myke Hurley and CGP Grey is one of my favorite podcasts and I eagerly look forward to each episode. Every year, in the penultimate episode of the year, they talk about the most important apps and services they currently use. And then, the always worth reading Mere Civilian also recently wrote an article under that theme. Last year, I actually wanted to do the same, but then didn’t for reasons I don’t remember. This year, however, the time has come. Which apps do I use every day? What has changed in the last year? And where do I …
Read On
How I use Twitter, Readwise, and Obsidian to keep myself updated on the war in Ukraine
I don’t want to say too many words about the terrible things that are going on in Ukraine right now. This is the wrong place for that. But the war there prompted me to inform myself very thoroughly about various topics, such as the history of the war, the situation in Crimea or the Donbass, or military-strategic considerations, so that I can better assess the situation there. As a political scientist, I also have a professional interest in this regard. Twitter has become an enormously important source for me. You can say whatever you want about Twitter, but there are …
Read On
Wie ich mich mit Twitter, Readwise und Obsidian über den Krieg in der Ukraine informiere
Ich will gar nicht viele Worte über die schrecklichen Dinge verlieren, die gerade in der Ukraine vor sich gehen. Dafür ist das hier der falsche Ort. Der Krieg dort war aber Anlass für mich, mich sehr intensiv über verschiedene Themen wie die Vorgeschichte des Krieges, die Situation auf der Krim oder im Donbass oder auch militärisch-strategische Erwägungen zu informieren, damit ich die Lage dort besser einschätzen kann. Als Politikwissenschaftler habe ich ja auch ein fachliches Interesse in dieser Hinsicht. Twitter ist dabei zu einer enorm wichtigen Quelle für mich geworden. Man kann über Twitter ja sagen, was man will, aber …
Read On
My 8 favourite Obsidian plugins (2)
Obsidian benefits greatly from its strong plugin infrastructure. I have picked four of my favourite Obsidian plugins for this article.
Read On
My 8 favourite Obsidian plugins (1)
Obsidian is also so great because you can extend it almost at will with plugins. In this two-parter, I present my 8 favorite plugins and show how I make Obsidian my perfect writing environment!
Read On