Effortless Note Taking

Master a connected note system that auto-generates research ideas.

Effortless Note Taking teaches you a proven, end-to-end system to transform how you approach reading, research, and information management. You'll learn to harness powerful tools such as Obsidian — and link them with reference managers like Zotero or Paperpile — so that your notes evolve into a dynamic network of ideas that can generate new research directions on their own.

This course gives you a step-by-step, “zero-to-hero” workflow — whether you are new to note-taking or want to scale up to long-term research projects. You’ll end up with a fully organized vault of knowledge where every paper, thought, and concept is linked, searchable, and ready to spark new ideas.

Outcomes

Build a searchable “second brain” vault
Generate new research ideas automatically
Manage large-scale reading and writing projects
Access any note or paper in seconds

What's included?

Full Step-by-Step Video Program
A 9-hour, structured training that walks you through the entire note-taking system from setup to advanced workflows.
Comprehensive Written Playbooks
A 20,000-word guide detailing tools, strategies, templates, and best practices for building a connected knowledge base.
Obsidian Starter Vault & Templates
Pre-built templates and folder structures so you can implement the system instantly without guesswork.
Research Tool Integrations Guide
Clear walkthroughs for connecting Obsidian with Zotero, Paperpile, PDF readers, and your reference workflow.
Access to the Effortless Academic Community
Full access to a private space where you can ask questions, share wins, and get help from peers and the creator.

Courses

Note Taking

7 sections24 lessons

Who is this for?

Grad students, researchers or academics drowning in literature
Professionals juggling multiple large writing/research projects
Lifelong learners wanting an organized, long-term knowledge system

Ilya Shabanov

Founder of The Effortless Academic

I’m Ilya Shabanov, and after a decade working across industry, web design, and entrepreneurship, I switched paths into academia — and discovered that the real bottleneck wasn’t intelligence, but information overload. I became passionate about buildin...

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