{"id":836,"date":"2025-08-21T20:05:59","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T19:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/?p=836"},"modified":"2025-10-28T15:29:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T15:29:00","slug":"mind-maps-podcasts-and-a-pocket-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/mind-maps-podcasts-and-a-pocket-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind Maps, Podcasts, and a Pocket Brain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p>Lately I\u2019ve been testing a simple idea: can AI turn Obsidian into a genuinely useful second brain for me? The answer was a complicated but resounding &#8220;Yes&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My first step was to find an experienced Obsidian user whose ideas resonated with mine. This turned out to be a YouTuber whose channel has over fifteen\u00a0 videos relating his personal experience in building a second brain, and offering advice about all aspects of Obsidian for that purpose.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I satisfied myself that this approach would be a good basis from which to develop my own, but didn&#8217;t have the time to watch every video in order to benefit from their content.\u00a0I needed a quick and efficient way to fast-track that process. Step forward NotebookLM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the great things about NotebookLM is that you can give it fifteen YouTube videos and then have a conversation about their content. The discussion can encompass the content of one, several, or all of the videos. To help you structure the conversation, NotebookLM can produce a mind map setting out all the concepts or ideas contained in the videos.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On top of that, to help you reflect on these ideas while strolling round the park after work, the AI can produce an audio overview. This takes the form of a podcast-style discussion between two hosts, and you can set the ground rules for their discussion, for example the focus points, audience, technical level. Listen in for yourself.<audio src=\"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/media\/notebooklm_obsidian_discussion_2025-08-19.mp3\"><\/audio><audio src=\"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/media\/notebooklm_obsidian_discussion_2025-08-19.mp3\"><\/audio><audio src=\"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/media\/notebooklm_obsidian_discussion_2025-08-19.mp3\"><\/audio><audio src=\"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/media\/notebooklm_obsidian_discussion_2025-08-19.mp3\"><\/audio><audio src=\"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/media\/notebooklm_obsidian_discussion_2025-08-19.mp3\"><\/audio><audio src=\"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/media\/notebooklm_obsidian_discussion_2025-08-19.mp3\"><\/audio><audio src=\"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/media\/notebooklm_obsidian_discussion_2025-08-19.mp3\"><\/audio><\/p>\n\n\n\n<audio controls src=\"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/media\/notebooklm_obsidian_discussion_2025-08-19.mp3\"><\/audio>\n\n\n\n<p>Intriguingly, the discussion is interactive when you&#8217;re online to the AI. You can join in to ask questions or steer the discussion in a particular direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the big picture in place, the next step was the hands-on work of shaping Obsidian to fit my needs. That will be the subject of my next post, where I\u2019ll dig into the practicalities of building it and explore how a local AI might give my second brain extra intelligence without compromising its privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lately I\u2019ve been testing a simple idea: can AI turn Obsidian into a genuinely useful second brain for me? The answer was a complicated but resounding &#8220;Yes&#8221;. My first step was to find an experienced Obsidian user whose ideas resonated with mine. This turned out to be a YouTuber whose channel has over fifteen\u00a0 videos [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[83,294,293],"class_list":["post-836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","tag-notebooklm","tag-obsidian","tag-second-brain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":864,"href":"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836\/revisions\/864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anapoly.co.uk\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}