Category: Study Skills

Image showing lots of document icons for a post on building a Zotero and Obsidian workflow

Zotero and Obsidian : A Workflow to Research Anything

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If much of your study is electronic – e-books, PDF papers, worksheets and the like – you’ll face the same struggle I have: digital overwhelm. A clear workflow for dealing with mounds of virtual material is essential if you’re not to get lost.

I feel like I’ve tried them all, too. I’ve gone through the gamut of e-readers: GoodReader, PDF Expert, even trusty old Apple Preview (which has great annotation features). All very decent in their own way. On the file system side of things, though, it’s another story. I’ve cobbled together some sort of ‘folders on the Cloud’ system over the years, but it’s seriously creaky. I break my own rules half the time!

Bearing that in mind, I was chuffed to bits to chance upon a whole new system recently – one that’s passed me by completely. It seems to be a particularly big hit across North American universities. It also has a large, active community online, sharing performance tweaks. And best of all – it uses completely free software.

Zotero and Obsidian

Zotero is a publications manager that you simply drag your e-material into. The app retrieves bibliographical information, renames files sensibly and stores a copy online for working cross-device. Even better, it’s capable of generating full bibliographies, so is a file store, reader and referencing tool all in one.

Obsidian is the note-taking side of this – a sleek, markdown-driven text editor that is beautifully minimalistic. It excels in creating hyperlinked notes, allowing you to build your own Wiki-style knowledge bank. But it dovetails beautifully into Zotero thanks to community plugins that allow you to import your PDF annotations directly into bibliographically pigeon-holed notes.

After resisting the temptation to kick myself for not spotting it sooner, I did a deep-dive into Zotero + Obsidian workflow how-tos, and it’s an academic revelation. A couple of community content creators are real stand-outs here – so much so that it’s best I let them do the talking rather than waffle any more. I’m learning this as I go along, and these are great places to start.

Workflow Training

Here’s where I started, more by chance YouTube search than anything else. Girl in Blue Music namechecks a lot of the other big Z+O content creators here, so it’s a good jumping point for newcomers.

From there, it’s worth exploring morganeua‘s vast selection of content, including numerous how-to videos and worked examples.

Once you’ve worked through those, you can graduate to full geek mode! Bryan Jenks pushes the system well beyond anything else I’ve seen, and likewise has a huge back catalogue of training vids. He layers styling and advanced templating onto the base, making for a slick, colour-coded, optimally managed research system.

I feel very late indeed to this workflow party. But if you are too, join the club – and let me know if you’ve found this useful too!

A finch flying above a beautiful landscape

Finch : Tiny Bird, Big Habits [Review]

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When I first saw a Finch ad on Instagram, I confess, I rolled my eyes. Yet another quirky productivity app wrapped up as a kid’s game and pitched to grown‑ups, I thought. Isn’t Insta awash with them lately? But curiosity won the day, and I’m honestly quite glad it did.

As you’ve probably guessed, Finch turns your self‑care and habit building into a gentle, gamified ritual – with a little birdie companion. It might seem a touch infantile, but don’t be fooled: its foundation rests on solid habit‑science, and yes, adults do love things that are fluffy and cute (well, I do anyway).

Finch is generous too – its free version offers custom goals, journaling, mood tracking and more, without forcing you to pay to access the essentials. I haven’t paid a penny to use it yet, but the range of function on the free tier has been more than enough to keep me using it.

Why It Works

  • It starts small. When you first set it up, the suggested goals are self-care easy wins – drink more water, get outside at least once day – things to get you used to the app environment. Want to journal, stretch, or simply “get out of bed”? Go ahead and make it count.
  • Flexible goal‑setting for grown‑ups. Once you’ve got used to the interface, you can go to town setting your own goals – even on the free tier. I’ve added language learning daily tactics, university reading goals and all sorts – I almost feel guilty that I’m doing all this without a subscription!
  • Gentle gamification. As you check off goals, your bird gains energy, goes on charming adventures, and earns “Rainbow Stones” for adorning its nest. It’s rewarding without being punishing. And of course, also streak-building is part of the ecosystem, your Finch never dies if you miss a day (God forbid).
  • Supportive, not prescriptive. Other users highlight how the app strikes the right tone: compassionate rather than preachy. Some users with ADHD, anxiety or depression say its warmth makes self‑care feel doable.
  • Friend‑based encouragement. You can buddy up with a friend on a single goal (or more) without exposing your progress to a social feed. It’s discreet, pressure‑free support. For a laugh, I added a pal on the “drink more water” goal. We laugh about it, but it’s actually not a bad habit to develop, is it?

Final Verdict

Finch is a cosy, surprisingly effective habit app wrapped in feathers and whimsy. It’s kind to energy-drained minds, flexible enough for real lives, and – despite coming at me via the dreaded Insta ads – far more than a passing gimmick.

If you’ve ever felt wary of habit tools that feel too serious or demanding, Finch might just surprise you. And if nothing else, the little bird and its gentle cheer-on can make daily tasks feel a bit more doable – and dare I say it, sweet.

Finch is available as a free download on all the usual platforms –
find out more at their website here!

Lots of colourful neon shortcuts on a screen.

Apple Shortcuts for Smart Study Hacks

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I’ve been optimising my iPad for study recently, trying to make it a portable, one-stop shop for reading and prep on-the-move. It’s no doubt another flex of my childhood awe for Inspector Gadget’s niece Penny, and her computer-in-a-book that could do everything.

Anyway, it’s led me to discover lots of features I half knew about, but had ignored for the duration of my Apple fanboydom. And one of the biggest revelations of rediscovery has been the Apple Shortcuts app.

In a nutshell, Shortcuts allows you to bundle all sorts of custom process chains into a single, iconisable action. For example, a shortcut could retrieve something, do something with the result, then present it in a certain way. People use them for all sorts of admin tasks – collecting stock prices and collating them in a spreadsheet with a single click, for instance.

The cool thing is that many third-party apps have extensions that you can link into shortcuts. ChatGPT, for example, which I find invaluable as a quick summary or explanatory tool, can be part of an action chain. And you can trigger chains not just with clicks, but from documents, via the share link.

Shortcuts for Smart Study : Brief Description

Using the app, I put together a quick shortcut I called “Brief Description”. It sends the current PDF (from a browser window, or from the Files app), to ChatGPT, prompting it for a one-paragraph summary.

A screenshot from Apple Shortcuts of a 'Brief Explanation' action using ChatGPT.

A screenshot from Apple Shortcuts of a ‘Brief Explanation’ action using ChatGPT.

As you can see, one of the best things about it is how you assemble a shortcut in more or less natural language, as you select items via an intuitive click-and-build interface. There are also plenty of resources for getting started and pushing the boundaries of it (like this very clued-up YouTube channel!).

The result of my shortcut offers a great way to get a paper summary, whatever the language:

Screenshot of an Apple Shortcuts link in the share menu.

Screenshot of an Apple Shortcuts link in the share menu.

When working through a bunch of resources, it’s great to ascertain in a click or two whether it might be a worthwhile full read, making this a brilliant time-saver. It’s even more powerful when combined with ChatGPT’s new(ish) memory features – my account ‘knows’ what I’ve been working on from recent chats, so is even better able to judge what’s useful.

For sure, I’ll be exploring more of this over the coming weeks, as it’s clear I’ve barely scratched the surface of how useful it could be yet. Have you used Apple Shortcuts to create smart study hacks? Let us know in the comments!