The Ultimate Power User Setup for Obsidian (2026 Updates)

There's one page you need to make Obsidian a better home for your mind.

The home note. This one note is the center of my entire Obsidian setup.

Anytime I want to add or find a project, an idea, a journal entry in my idea verse, [music] I find my way back home.

I'm Nick Milo and I've helped thousands of people set up their own idea verse, a digital home that powers their best thinking. And today, I'd love to show

thinking. And today, I'd love to show you how I've set up my home note in Obsidian, how it leads to each area of my idea verse, and how I use it to prioritize my projects, find valuable

sparks I've captured, and see my daily notes in context to other notes so that I remember more of those things that matter most. And then I'll show it again

matter most. And then I'll show it again on mobile. You ready? Let's dig in. We

on mobile. You ready? Let's dig in. We

are now in Obsidian and I have my new special home note open. It's called Home Base. It can instantly launch me into

Base. It can instantly launch me into many useful places. And I can't show them all in this video, but here's the basic rundown. Atlas for things to know,

basic rundown. Atlas for things to know, efforts for things to do, and calendar to make it whole to reflect, plan, and review with plus to capture what's new,

and extras for overflow, too. Everything

has a place in ACE, a universal thinking space. And with my homebased note that

space. And with my homebased note that you are looking at, it's even easier, faster, and funner to do the things that I want to do. Like number one, quickly prioritizing my projects. No matter who

you are, where you are, what you're doing, you probably have a bunch of efforts and projects that you're always trying to figure out and prioritize. Let

me show you how I do that with the home base note. So this is my note and I just

base note. So this is my note and I just scroll down to efforts and let's go ahead and click on projects together. So

when I do that, we get this new view and what you're going to notice is I have active projects and then simmering and then below that a category called sleeping. Now I just finished the

sleeping. Now I just finished the linking or thinking workshop number 16.

So it's no longer active and I'd like to move it. So I can simply rightclick on

move it. So I can simply rightclick on this move file to just start typing simmering. Hit enter and immediately now

simmering. Hit enter and immediately now it's over here in the simmering projects and we can see the rank here. So that's

one way I can immediately prioritize and manage my bandwidth and then it gets better. I can look just at the active

better. I can look just at the active projects and if this view is feeling a little messy, we can also make the view a lot easier to look at. So these are

simply what 11 different notes and they happen to be in a specific folder. That

folder is called projects. So if you want to know where it is over here with the ACE folder framework efforts projects and then we have one called

active. So within this we have the same

active. So within this we have the same 11 notes that we see over here on the right hand side. But what we don't see are all these interesting columns that give us rich context and help us make

[music] really effective decisions. So

with that out of the way as I'm looking at this I'm like idea verse pro 2.5 is the most important. So, I'm actually going to without even clicking into the

node, go ahead and change it to 5.1. Hit

enter and then it immediately adjusts.

Since this is sorted by rank, we now see that IDverse pro 2.5 is at the top. The

last part about prioritizing projects are adding new ones. I'd love to show you that. So, in my idea versse and in

you that. So, in my idea versse and in the one that I'll be providing with links later on is I simply hit command S. That's going to pull up this quick

S. That's going to pull up this quick add window and then I'll just click add effort project. So when I click on this

effort project. So when I click on this it's like what's the name of the new project? Well, just to plan ahead after

project? Well, just to plan ahead after Ideaverse pro 2.5 eventually someday down the road there's going to be Ideaverse pro 3.0 and I might just want

it to sort of simmer in the background.

So I've immediately just created the new project. We don't necessarily need it in

project. We don't necessarily need it in an active project. So, let's just go back to the all projects view. And we

can see it's right here. Now, let's just give it a really high rank number five.

We can now move it to simmering. And you

can see immediately it's right here. So,

currently this project has a rank of five. Let's actually pop into it. So,

five. Let's actually pop into it. So,

what I would do is I would open it up.

And I'd say it's actually a three. But

now I'm going to say this isn't the first time I've done a project like this. So wouldn't it be nice if not just

this. So wouldn't it be nice if not just projects but we also had a higher level like an area for that effort and so in this case I do and it's called areas of

effort. So if I go ahead and start

effort. So if I go ahead and start typing idea verse and a little magic we have it now linking up to ideaverse as

an area of effort. So what that means is if I click even higher we can see this ongoing list of projects all these different versions of the idea versse and so this is an area of effort looking

down on all the different idea verse projects and for the really ambitious user you can create workspaces that make it easy to surface your efforts and your

projects in a single view see how fast I can do this I hit commande which pulls up all my workspaces and I'll simply hit

dynamic EMPs, efforts, and projects. And

immediately, what do we see? This is my dashboard, my cockpit when I want [music] to be in producer mode. And over

on the right hand side, we see the active projects. We see the simmering

active projects. We see the simmering projects. And over on the left hand

projects. And over on the left hand side, we see the areas of effort. And

you can see that idea is at the very top with the really high rank. and I can open it up in the middle of my Obsidian window and still have these dashboards

reminding me of how to prioritize my efforts [music] and projects and make sure what I want to do is in alignment with what I need to do. And I'll just say like this will be overkill for you

if you feel like you only have a couple projects, but if you're an idea person, and I think if you're watching this, you likely are, you're going to have a lot of different ideas and potential

projects. And wouldn't it be nice if you

projects. And wouldn't it be nice if you could have a home for each of those ideas and they could just simmer in the background? Or even if it needs less

background? Or even if it needs less energy, it's sleeping in the background.

And then when it's ready, you can finally make it an active project. And

even if it never becomes active, well, it's doing no harm simmering and sleeping. Now, if you like what you're

sleeping. Now, if you like what you're seeing and want my completely done for you system, including this new homebased note and everything it links to, just click the links wherever they are to

learn more about how to get the latest Ideaverse Pro. It's by far our most

Ideaverse Pro. It's by far our most downloaded offering ever, and it's a great entry point for you to organize your own world of ideas. How do you quickly add a new idea? How do you

capture it before the spark is gone?

It's pretty simple in Obsidian. So, if

you're on a Mac, go ahead and hit commandN or on Windows controlN. And

immediately it'll create a new note.

Now, one of my favorite football players when I was young and growing up was this really intense middle linebacker, Mike Singleary, and he's just got the passion for the game of football. And I recently

came across this quote by him, and I wanted to capture it. I wanted to be able to come back to it in the future. I

think it's going to enrich my life in those small nuanced sort of ways. So,

what do I do is I just type it into a new file name like this. And let's

pretend I'm busy with one of the projects that we just looked at. I don't

have to do anything else. I can go ahead. I've captured this and I'm going

ahead. I've captured this and I'm going to close it. And that's the beauty of Home Base because whenever I come back to Home Base, I can just immediately

click on the plus icon. Now I see all my newly recently added notes which for me go to the plus folder in the ACE framework and we can see that that's showing up right here at the top.

[music] So let's hop into this note. The first

thing I want to do is I'm actually going to move it into a folder called quotes.

So I'm just going to hit commandM to move it and just move it into a folder called quotes. The other thing you can

called quotes. The other thing you can do if you feel up for it and I certainly do right now is I'm going to add a quotes template. So with that, I hit

quotes template. So with that, I hit insert template. I'll start typing

insert template. I'll start typing quotes and I'll go ahead and select the template. [music] Why this is nice is

template. [music] Why this is nice is because there's a field called by. And

in this case, who is the quote by? And

it's by this guy, Mike Singleary. There

it is. I'll hit enter. So I could do that at any time because I wouldn't forget this thing. Why won't I forget it? Because of home base. I can go to

it? Because of home base. I can go to the ad folder and now that I've moved it, I can go always to the recents folder. I can scroll down and say, "Hey,

folder. I can scroll down and say, "Hey, when did I when was that quote? Oh, it

was like end of November." And then I'll be able to find it again. Now, to take it even further, I would add some personal details. Now, [music] not only

personal details. Now, [music] not only do I have a quote, not only is it part of a collection, and I have who it's by, but I have something personal about this one. Now, let's say years go by. It's

one. Now, let's say years go by. It's

Thanksgiving. I'm back with some of my origin family, and there's football playing on in the background. I might

just be reminded of Mike Singleary. And

because of the work that I did today, I'm going to remember this story. This

is a thinking process that yes, externalizes our thoughts so we can find them again, but in that process internalizes the memories. So it's much more likely that we'll be able to

remember this. So those things can't be

remember this. So those things can't be measured on spreadsheets. And it's a major reason why many of us really care to nurture and honor our experiences and ideas throughout our lives. And for

extra credit, because this recents view is so powerful, hey, why not put it in the sidebar, you can do that. So with

bases, what I did is I threw a base into the sidebar. So now, no matter what note

the sidebar. So now, no matter what note I'm on, if I go ahead and click on the quote we were just looking at, I can still see all the most recent notes staring at me. So I never feel lost or I

never feel like what was that note or that I have to keep all of these tabs [music] open. You can let go of the tabs

[music] open. You can let go of the tabs because you can find what you need just by going to this recent base view.

[music] And of course, this is part of idea verse pro. We just click manage workspaces and I can go to base view with recents which will then load them in the lower left and we can just scroll

through to our heart's content. Now I

want to share with you how to work with a daily note. Now projects we would hit command S and add a new project. For new

idea, command N. And we're creating a new note. For daily note, we would now

new note. For daily note, we would now hit command D, which is going to create a new daily note. Now, let me just put in some text that I might capture in the

morning of my day. Had a dream about the Dollaly Llama, wrote about that. And

then I go on to think about, okay, what do I actually need to do? Send out the newsletter, record this YouTube video, pencils down on Idea Verse Pro 2.5. All

right, so that's my daily note. Pretty

cool so far that we can just with one button press go ahead and get out all the ideas on our mind. But we can take this a lot further. At the bottom of this daily note template is something

I'm so excited about. If you've ever used the Day One journaling app, you might remember the feature on this day.

Finally, we've been able to replicate the on this day feature. So, if I scroll down far enough, you'll see on this day and 31 different notes that I've made

since 2006. And so, you can see the

since 2006. And so, you can see the different notes that are starting to show up going into 2004, 2003,

2001, 2015, down to 2011. And I have a note called life in general in November 2011. Boy, am I curious what's in there,

2011. Boy, am I curious what's in there, but we're not going to find out right now. I just want to show you the power

now. I just want to show you the power of an embedded base in Obsidian. And to

get this, let me show you a peek under the hood. You can set this up for

the hood. You can set this up for yourself. It's just going to take a bit

yourself. It's just going to take a bit of work. Or if you want the best

of work. Or if you want the best version, yes, it's in ide 2.5, links below. But I want to show you the power

below. But I want to show you the power of the home note. So if we close this note and start from scratch, we look over to the left. We open home base. Now

all we need to do is say to ourselves, where would this be? Atlas or efforts or perhaps calendar? And yes, the answer is

perhaps calendar? And yes, the answer is in calendar. So I go ahead and click on

in calendar. So I go ahead and click on that. And now I'm seeing in front of me.

that. And now I'm seeing in front of me.

And this is amazing. Any timebased note.

So, we have today's daily note, [music] a meeting from yesterday, an actual dream I had, not about the Dollaly Lama, but about a flying orange llama, and then a bunch of different daily notes, a

meeting, and it's all here. I'm

reviewing my daily notes in context. How

much more valuable is this? Because a

daily note is only so much value to you if you're having trouble ever finding it again. But then how do you find all that

again. But then how do you find all that gold and all these old days? Well, how

about you go to home base and you just easily click on calendar and then you can see everything. If you want even more context, let's go to home base and

let's go to days [music] by month. And

now I can see these are all the notes created in the month of November of this year and then all the notes created in the month of October. So now I have even more context. And because this is a

more context. And because this is a base, I can throw in other columns like in these daily notes, what am I linking out to? And it turns out here the

out to? And it turns out here the nearness principle. It turns out here

nearness principle. It turns out here sensemaking, ideiation, and above steel manning. So some really interesting

manning. So some really interesting context all from just going [music] home to home base and just clicking on one of these amazing portals to a part of my

ideaverse. And in idea verse pro, if we

ideaverse. And in idea verse pro, if we click manage workspace layouts, I'm going to go ahead and click on inner guide dynamic days. And then immediately

I can see this dashboard. This is my calendar dashboard. And it allows me to

calendar dashboard. And it allows me to see so much different context. And I can just stare at it and immediately be reminded of so many meaningful things.

But hey, this is a little bit too much, especially if you're just starting out.

Don't feel intimidated or like you have to do this. just know when the time is right. There is functionality to allow

right. There is functionality to allow you to do a lot of neat things with your daily notes. Now, what I'm going to do

daily notes. Now, what I'm going to do is jump back into the daily note. I'm

going to click back a couple days and just share another meaningful moment that came about because of this daily note template that allows me to

dynamically link to every other single note that was created on the same day in all of the previous years of my life.

This one happened to be in 2015. For

those of you that don't know, my full last name is Nick Milo Dragovich. And so

I have this really cool journal that I was reminded of just 2 days ago because of what's happening in my idea verse and how it can resurface important notes

exactly when I might be interested in them. And that's the value. Not all who

them. And that's the value. Not all who wander are lost. If you just allow yourself to be reminded of the things that mattered to you in the past, they

can inform and enrich your present and your future. Curiosity builds real value

your future. Curiosity builds real value if you let it. And I hope you see that in some of these examples today. Now,

that's all great if you're around your desktop, but the home base note works amazingly on mobile. So, let's speedwalk through the three examples that I just covered, but this time using my phone.

So, let's hop into Obsidian. And just

immediately it's a blank page. So let's

just swipe over to the left. [music] We

can hit home base. And we're immediately reminded of all these important places that we might want to go. Now I want to prioritize my projects. So let's scroll down to efforts and just hit projects.

Now immediately I'm looking at all my active and simmering projects. And let's

hit the views and just go to active. So

we can just see our active projects. And

let's go ahead and change the rank to Ideaverse Pro 2.5. It's the final few hours, so I'm going to make it a 5.4.

Really make sure it's high. But now, how would I add a new project from my phone?

How would I do that? We can go ahead and just swipe down and just start typing add. And then with idea verse Pro,

add. And then with idea verse Pro, you'll just find add effort project. I

click on that and say, hey, just new project. We'll hit okay. And immediately

project. We'll hit okay. And immediately

you see it's at the bottom. Let's give

it a really high rank of 5.5. It's so

important. and immediately you see it sort to the top. [music] How cool is that? So that's for projects. Now let's

that? So that's for projects. Now let's

talk about adding a new idea on mobile.

So for this one, and not everyone knows this, just hit the magnifying glass and start typing. Now let's say I just

start typing. Now let's say I just watched McBth and I'm just obsessed with when Lady McBth is so guiltridden that she's having a dream and she's saying

out damned spot. And so I'm going to just type that and then just [music] enter to create. And now it's created a new note on my phone. I can go ahead and

close this note because I have the home base. So now at any time all I need to

base. So now at any time all I need to do is swipe over to the left, hit home base. And where do you think I can go?

base. And where do you think I can go?

Well, if I hit the plus icon, it sorts immediately to the top. Now I could also, if I wanted to go to home base and hit the recents, and again, it's sorting right to the top. So let's go into this

note. And I'm saying to myself, well,

note. And I'm saying to myself, well, this is a quote note and it doesn't have any other information. How can I add that on my mobile device? Well, in this case, I'm just going to swipe downward

and then there's templates, insert template. So, I'll add that and I'll

template. So, I'll add that and I'll start typing quotes because that's what this is. And then boom, now we have the

this is. And then boom, now we have the template. I go to the buy field. Hey,

template. I go to the buy field. Hey,

isn't this by Shakespeare? So, I'll

start typing that and I add Shakespeare.

And that's pretty awesome to me. Now,

because this is a quote, I like to put my quotes in a folder. That folder is called quotes. So, let's just go ahead

called quotes. So, let's just go ahead and move file 2. I'll start typing quotes. And now, years into the future,

quotes. And now, years into the future, no matter what, out damspot will be in the quotes folder, and I'll be able to find it a lot of different ways. Let me

show you the number one way. I'll just

go back to home base and I'll probably hit quotes. [music] And you'll notice

hit quotes. [music] And you'll notice right here, outdamned spot is showing up because it's recent. But I can always give it a high rank. Maybe it resurfaces that way. Maybe I resurface by going to

that way. Maybe I resurface by going to Shakespeare and seeing all the notes that link to Shakespeare. So what you're seeing is how quickly we can add a new idea. But that's not it. You're also

idea. But that's not it. You're also

seeing how we can resurface and rediscover and quickly find those ideas as well. Now, what about a daily note?

as well. Now, what about a daily note?

So, for this one, you just swipe down and you start typing daily and you hit daily notes. Open today's daily note.

daily notes. Open today's daily note.

Now, this note's already been created.

If it wasn't, it would create right now.

But instead, we're just returning to the daily note. And now, I can quickly add

daily note. And now, I can quickly add new ideas here. So, new ideas here.

[music] And again, I can go ahead and close this note because if you have a home note, then all you need to do is click on home base. And then it's just as easy to go and hit calendar. And look

at all this beautiful context. And this

is on my phone. This is on my device I can take with me anywhere. I'm more

empowered than ever because of how Obsidian now has bases and how that's been combined with the note called home base. The three examples I just showed,

base. The three examples I just showed, prioritizing my projects, finding valuable sparks I've captured, and seeing my daily notes in the context of other notes. These are just a few of the

other notes. These are just a few of the easiest to show ways of using your notes to improve how you think, how you know, and how you grow. So check out the latest Ideaverse Pro in the description below. And if you want to dig even

below. And if you want to dig even deeper into some of the advanced dashboards that combine ACE with the four ways we develop ideas, then check out this video next.