Obsidian vault + Claude Code harness. Built for ADHD brains.
Run claude . for a 10-minute onboarding that personalizes the vault to how you think. Notes link themselves like associative memory after that.
| What systems assume | ADHD reality |
|---|---|
| You'll remember where you filed it | Out of sight, gone |
| You'll apply a taxonomy consistently | Decision fatigue burns working memory |
| You'll review on a schedule | Time blindness kills voluntary routines |
| You can hold structure in your head | Working memory caps at ~4 items |
| You'll stick with one system | Interest shifts; rigid systems get abandoned |
Result: a graveyard of half-built vaults, retried every few months.
- Memory is associative, not hierarchical. Six broad folders. Real structure lives in
[[wikilinks]],#tags, and Dataview queries. Notes find each other. - Working memory is tiny. Templates pre-decide structure so you only think about content.
- Spaced retrieval beats willpower. Spaced Repetition plugin schedules reviews from passages in your own notes.
- Visual + verbal beats either alone. Graph view, Canvas, and Bases give spatial encodings of the same notes.
The vault behaves like an associative network. Notes don't sit in folders waiting to be retrieved by hand — they surface each other based on what they link to, the way related thoughts trigger each other in a brain.
The mechanism
-
Every
[[wikilink]]you write creates a directed edge in the graph. -
Subject, Definition, and Resource templates ship with an embedded Dataview query:
list from [[]] and #definition[[]]resolves to the current note. Translation: list every note that links to this one and is tagged#definition.
What this means in practice
Write a Definition note about "Stoicism", tag it #definition, and link it back to a Subject note "Philosophy". The Philosophy note's embedded query auto-lists Stoicism. Forever after. No filing. No indexing. No maintenance.
Why it compounds
- You write each connection once. The system uses it many times.
- The graph gets more useful with size, not less — opposite of folder hierarchies, where size buries things.
- Open any note in your active field and the relevant definitions, resources, and reflections you've ever linked to it are already on the page.
This mirrors Hebbian learning at the neural level: cells that fire together wire together. Notes you've connected once stay connected.
| Challenge | What handles it |
|---|---|
| Working memory limits | Frontmatter + templates |
| Blank-page paralysis | Pre-built fields |
| Object permanence | Smart Connections (semantic search) |
| Hyperfocus tangents | 0. Notes/ inbox, retrieve by topic later |
| Time blindness | Calendar + daily notes |
| Decision fatigue | 6 folders, not 60 |
| Task switching | One vault for everything |
| Restarting after a gap | Conventional defaults — easy to resume |
Autism — predictable structure, pattern-friendly graph view, low-stim theme, explicit frontmatter.
Dyslexia — semantic search ignores spelling, SF Pro typography, spatial navigation via Canvas and Graph.
Tool, not treatment. Talk to a clinician if you're struggling.
| Layer | What |
|---|---|
| Folders | 0. Notes → 5. Experiments |
| Templates | Subject, Resource, Definition, Book Analysis |
| Theme | Cupertino — calm, low-stim |
| Plugins | Dataview, Templater, Calendar, Smart Connections, Style Settings, Spaced Repetition |
| AI search | Smart Connections — local embeddings, optional Ollama chat |
| AI authoring | Claude Code with 5 Obsidian-aware skills + 2 custom (onboarding, book-analyst) |
Vault ships empty. Notes are yours.
| This | PARA | Zettelkasten | Notion | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Built for ADHD | Yes | No | No | No |
| Pre-built templates | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Local AI search | Yes | No | No | No |
| AI agent for editing | Yes | No | No | Chat only |
| Files on your disk | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Setup time | 10 min | DIY | DIY | Locked-in |
-
git clone https://github.com/jcksamuels/connected-thinking ~/Documents/connected-thinking -
Obsidian → Open folder as vault →
connected-thinking/brAIn/ -
Settings → Community plugins → turn off Restricted mode, then install all six (links below). They auto-enable once installed because the vault config already lists them as enabled.
- Dataview — SQL-like queries inside notes
- Templater — scripted templates
- Calendar — daily-note navigation
- Smart Connections — local AI semantic search + chat
- Style Settings — theme customization UI
- Spaced Repetition — flashcards from your own notes
-
Settings → Templates and Templater → folder =
Templates -
Settings → Appearance → Theme → Cupertino
-
First-run onboarding (recommended)
claude .On the first session, Claude reads
CLAUDE.md, sees no Profile note exists, and runs a 10-minute conversation to learn how you think, what you're working on, and what you want the vault to capture. It then writes your Profile, Goals, and starter Subject notes — the seed graph from which everything else grows. Re-run any time by saying "onboard me" or/onboard.
Folders
0. Notes/— inbox1. Education/— subjects, definitions, resources2. Life/— goals, inspiration, reading3. Ventures/— work, businesses4. Archives/— old5. Experiments/— sandbox
AI
- Smart Connections — find notes by meaning when you forgot the title
- Claude Code — draft, reorganize, summarize across multiple notes
Both optional.
Rename folders, edit templates. Nothing breaks if Templates/ keeps its name.
.obsidian/plugins/, workspace.json, .smart-env/, .trash/, .DS_Store, per-machine Claude Code state. Configure Smart Connections (Ollama endpoint, model) on first run.
Cowan 2001 (working memory). Clark & Chalmers 1998 (extended mind). Ebbinghaus 1885 (forgetting curve). Paivio 1971 (dual coding).
MIT.