What I’m trying to do
Looking to hire: help setting up a minimal PhD vault + migrating my notes
Hi all,
I’m a PhD researcher hoping to finally move my thesis work into Obsidian and set it up properly. I’d like to pay someone experienced to help me, rather than keep going it alone. Ideally I want to optimise the workflow with Claude which I am already using (just web browser chats and projects).
Some honest context so you know what you’d be walking into: I’ve spent months trying to do this myself through YouTube tutorials and conversations with power users, and the sheer range of conflicting styles and approaches left me more lost than when I started. So I’m not looking for another elaborate, heavily-plugged setup to admire — I’m looking for someone who’ll impose one simple, boring, defensible structure, migrate my existing research notes form OneNote and Claude across, and talk me out of endlessly tinkering with it.
What I’m after:
**•** A clean, minimal vault I can actually maintain long-term
**•** Help migrating my existing PhD notes and files into it
**•** A structure suited to a thesis (papers, literature notes, project/chapter notes, articles, presentations, dissemination, emails, daily notes) — nothing fancier than it needs to be
What would help me choose:
**•** Prior experience with academic especially PhD users (bonus points if humanities or psychology)
**•** A preference for minimalism over maximalism
**•** Willingness to do a few scoped, one-off setup session rather than an open-ended coaching relationship (possibility of ongoing IT ad hoc support as needed)
If this sounds like your kind of job, please reply or DM with a bit about your background,
Things I have tried
I’ve tried most of the self help approaches