[HN Gopher] How I use Obsidian (2023)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       How I use Obsidian (2023)
        
       Author : hisamafahri
       Score  : 164 points
       Date   : 2026-02-17 22:30 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (stephango.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (stephango.com)
        
       | Insanity wrote:
       | I tried Obsidian to build a "second brain". But eventually just
       | reverted back to notes on my iPad (handwritten) and Vim
       | (markdown) for typed notes.
       | 
       | I actually think Obsidian is a great tool, but I just need
       | something as low friction as possible to quickly jolt something
       | down. Vim and Goodnotes does the trick for me.
        
         | ehnto wrote:
         | Same, all projects get a .notes folder where plain text goes.
         | Home directory gets a .notes folder also. It helps to have good
         | command over text based search tools.
         | 
         | There was an exception though, where text just didn't cut it,
         | which was a brief period where I was importing vehicles from
         | Japan and needed lots of images, documents and comparisons up
         | on a big digital whiteboard. I used LogSeq for that.
        
         | timothyduong wrote:
         | Obsidian is amazing on my desktop environments but I shared the
         | same sentiment with you, on mobile I use Apple Notes and
         | transpose to Obsidian if its worth doing so...
        
           | ravenstine wrote:
           | I like the desktop app, but the android app is such ass. It's
           | bad enough that I wonder why they even bother.
        
           | Brajeshwar wrote:
           | Similar to mine. I use Apple Notes for quick, ephemeral notes
           | and for Shared Family Notes. If they are the ones that are
           | more important, they go into the plain-text notes in the
           | Obsidian folder.
           | 
           | The Notes folder(s) is sync with a Cloud Service. So, I use
           | iA Writer[1] (a brilliant Notes App) to have a pleasant
           | writing experience on other mobile devices. They are just
           | Markdown, so I can open them in any Notes App that supports
           | Markdown. I paid for iA Writer once, like 10+ years ago.
           | 
           | 1. https://ia.net/writer
        
         | Peacefulz wrote:
         | This is a project that's always on my mind that I never take
         | the time to flesh out. I can't put my finger on the scope. I
         | don't know if I want a full, Johnny Decimaled PKM platform for
         | my entire life, or topical, dense information about things that
         | interest me.
        
         | SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
         | I tried it several times and the one thing that got it to stick
         | for me was having a structure to the markdown. I have an AST
         | parser for markdown body grammar and validate the frontmatter.
         | The structure helps me keep things sane and organized because
         | my brain is all over the place. Beyond that, unlike OP I attach
         | these schemas to folders in my vault per schema.
        
       | Jonovono wrote:
       | I really want to like obsidian but it's just unusable (for me)
       | 
       | So I built my own thats a bit more lightweight. Think nvalt meets
       | markdown. thats native, iOS and Mac with I cloud sync, and open
       | source.
       | 
       | Check it out if it sounds interesting!
       | 
       | iOS app is still in review ;(
       | 
       | https://hashy.ink/
        
         | FireBeyond wrote:
         | > a bit more lightweight
         | 
         | I don't want to be overly negative, but no plugins are
         | mandatory, there's no "47 step setup guide" unless you want to
         | heavily customize.
         | 
         | And as far as I can tell you mostly replaced some of the weight
         | with AI?
         | 
         | AI "Search Notes", "Organize Notes", "List and filter, tags",
         | "Clean up notes"
         | 
         | I guess I just see this as weight in a different area? You've
         | pushed a lot of the weight and plugins to cloud-based AI?
         | 
         | I am, on principle, very much a fan of "native app, not another
         | Electron view".
        
           | Jonovono wrote:
           | It's a BYOK so the ai is optional. (And if you really don't
           | want it it's a package in the open source app that can easily
           | be pulled out) Since it's markdown and on filesystem you can
           | just edit your notes with Claude code if you want similar to
           | obsidian.
           | 
           | By lightweight I mean it's not a super heavy and bloated
           | electron app on desktop and a slow and janky capacitor app on
           | mobile that takes 10 seconds to launch and that the project
           | can be greppable in a day to build on
        
             | FireBeyond wrote:
             | I appreciate the feedback - being a bit more modularized
             | like this makes more sense!
             | 
             | And yeah, if you're referring to the whole Electron stuff
             | there, I entirely agree!
        
       | xnx wrote:
       | I Use Workflowy. The features it adds over plain text/markdown
       | are worth the slight added complexity. I wish it was cheaper and
       | supported tables, but I'll never go back to non-outlined notes.
        
         | hodanli wrote:
         | This was me until I discovered Logseq. I still use Workflowy to
         | collaborate with others, but combining notes and todos with a
         | powerful query system is what makes Logseq my goto note and
         | todo management tool.
        
       | Brajeshwar wrote:
       | I ~like~ love Obsidian. I also like Steph Ango and his
       | philosophies. In fact, a lot of his ideas shaped and improved
       | mine. His approach is opinionated.
       | 
       | So pick the good ones you like and make your own.
       | 
       | For instance, I'm pretty well-organized, and I like it that way.
       | This leads me to native organizations using folders and some
       | patterns that I learnt aloong the way. Nothing more complicated.
       | One day, if I have to walk off Obsidian, I can, and I will still
       | know where things are.
       | 
       | Right now, my organization is a loose combo of PARA[1] and Johnny
       | Decimal.[2]
       | 
       | Obsidian is another tool; it just happens to be one hell of a
       | good tool.
       | 
       | 1. https://fortelabs.com/blog/para/
       | 
       | 2. https://johnnydecimal.com
        
       | Simboo wrote:
       | Don't over complicate this everyone.
       | 
       | This is the best file-explorer GUI ever made hands down.
       | 
       | All your files map 1-to-1 with the OS filesystem. No double
       | clicking files over and over again. No getting lost in endless
       | unsorted directories. Launch any file extension type straight
       | from the same explorer GUI.
       | 
       | I use this app less as a second brain and more as a personal
       | document vault. (Markdown is ugly sorry about it) I get lots of
       | pdf's and such so it's all in one place.
       | 
       | Cool, end of speech. Peace out
        
         | KPGv2 wrote:
         | > This is the best file-explorer GUI ever made hands down.
         | 
         | besides norton commander and its clones
        
         | KPGv2 wrote:
         | I use Calibre to maintain my PDFs. I've even got my taxes in
         | there, but have been thinking recently that they don't belong
         | in a library and probably should just be printed and stored
         | with other important things like passports and birth
         | certificates.
         | 
         | But every PDF I download, ebook, academic article, it goes in
         | Calibre and out of my Downloads path.
        
         | jrm4 wrote:
         | I didn't know that Obsidian worked that cleanly; I occasionally
         | flirt with it but have been using https://zim-wiki.org for
         | about a decade longer, so my muscle memory is there. I keep
         | looking for reasons to switch but so far nothing yet has done
         | that?
        
         | PurpleRamen wrote:
         | Any good filemanager is better. Out of the box, it's also very
         | lacking in necessary abilities. There are also some errors
         | around the edges, like hiding vault-internal links, which makes
         | it a bit questionable for good filehandling.
         | 
         | But sure, when all you have are supported filetypes, then it
         | can be useful.
        
       | afcool83 wrote:
       | Just for context, Steph Ango is the CEO of Obsidian. His approach
       | to notetaking in his own app made the rounds in the PKM (personal
       | knowledge management) community for how _counterintuitive_ it
       | was.
       | 
       | He eschews a lot of the common wisdom pushed by influencers in
       | this space who tout "the one true way(tm)" to stay organized.
       | File splattered in the root? Sure. Unresolved links to notes that
       | don't exist and probably never will? Why not! Blank daily notes
       | that aren't carefully manicured journal tomes? Heck yeah.
       | 
       | His point is "perfect is the enemy of good." You could carefully
       | curate and perfect your pkm...or you could have a life.
        
         | MrDarcy wrote:
         | Half of my tasks are in my people folder and half my people are
         | in my tasks folder and it all works out fine in Obsidian.
        
           | ozlikethewizard wrote:
           | I think this is my favourite thing about obsidian, it feels
           | so unproscriptive. I have a pretty well thought out folder
           | structure because this is how ive always managed my
           | documents, but every new note goes in a junkyard folder to
           | get sorted if I ever come back to it again. I sometimes use
           | backlinks, but this is generally localised within project
           | folders. I enjoy seeing everyone elses equally chaotic way of
           | using it.
        
         | kelvinjps10 wrote:
         | I feel like organization it's not as important now with search
         | in computers. Like you can search anything also there is tags.
        
           | PurpleRamen wrote:
           | Search becomes useless if you drown in results. A good
           | organization should assist in shortening paths, but if you
           | start the path manually or through a search doesn't matter
           | much.
        
             | infecto wrote:
             | But shouldn't search be responsible for reducing or at
             | least ranking the results in such a way that no matter how
             | many results you find what you are looking for in the top
             | N?
             | 
             | Using a hybrid of traditional and semantic is so trivial to
             | implement these days that I think we have past the point of
             | needing good organization.
        
               | PurpleRamen wrote:
               | > But shouldn't search be responsible for reducing or at
               | least ranking the results in such a way that no matter
               | how many results you find what you are looking for in the
               | top N?
               | 
               | Maybe if you are Google, having well paid teams and
               | excessive data on what people with your profile are
               | usually searching at the moment. Obsidian is lacking all
               | this, so the search-quality is very depending on the
               | amount of files and results.
        
               | afcool83 wrote:
               | The basic search one gets out of the box is closer to
               | regex matching than search. IMHO something like
               | omnisearch should be sherlocked next.
        
       | kepano wrote:
       | _How_ I use Obsidian
        
         | afcool83 wrote:
         | It's a truly remarkable app you and team have built. I'm going
         | to use the term _simple_ but please understand that that's high
         | praise.
         | 
         | To me, obsidian is a thought-taking app, not a notetaking app.
         | Thoughts are amorphous and incomplete no matter how much you
         | embellish them. They don't belong in only one place with only
         | one label or pinned to only one date. They reach out to each
         | other. Merge and split. They sit inside each other sometimes.
         | 
         | Obsidian gets that. It offers _just enough_ structure and
         | automation and operating system (of a kind) to force the binary
         | file system on some silicon to work like our brains do...and
         | not the other way around.
        
         | FergusArgyll wrote:
         | Hacker news strips 'how' from the beginning of submission
         | titles. It can be readded (and seems like it was)
        
       | KPGv2 wrote:
       | ever since I first heard about Obsidian, the vibe I get is that
       | it's a solution in search of a problem. Every use case I get
       | pitched, there's a better solution, or it's a "problem" that
       | doesn't need to be solved.
       | 
       | If you aren't a researcher in a field, why do you need personal
       | knowledge management? Even when I learn a subject, I find
       | just...taking a flat note file to be way better than all these
       | Zettelkasten stuffs. It all feels very pomodoro to me. It is
       | useful for some people, but influencers have hyped it up into the
       | Grand Unified Solution.
       | 
       | Same with mind mapping. I don't see the benefit. Maybe being
       | AuDHD has something to do with it? Like...if it's an area I want
       | more expertise, I'm already hyperfocused on it and remember
       | everything. If I don't want expertise, I don't need PKM. I keep
       | _trying_ to use them, but it feels superfluous. Like I never have
       | to refer back to it.
        
         | rjh29 wrote:
         | It's literally just a folder of markdown notes with a handy
         | search and file list if that's what you want it to be. That's
         | all I use it for. I think the hyper-organisation stuff is more
         | of a hobby. It's not about productivity it's enjoyable for its
         | own ends.
        
         | tonyarkles wrote:
         | > Maybe being AuDHD has something to do with it
         | 
         | I used to live my entire life in emacs org-mode. My memory is
         | shit, if I don't have a reminder of a task I need to do it
         | probably won't get done. If someone asks me "hey, do you
         | remember that thing we talked about in that meeting last week?"
         | the answer will be "no, not at all". If I go "damn, what was
         | that recipe for those pork chops I made last month that were
         | really good?" I will draw a complete blank about what even made
         | them special, but I'll be disappointed because they were good.
         | 
         | I miss org-mode but as my life became more mobile-phone-
         | centric, it stopped working for me. I ultimately ended up
         | replacing it with two things: Todoist for task management and
         | Obsidian for notetaking.
         | 
         | Maybe the difference is that I use Obsidian for basically two
         | things: keeping track of things that _have_ happened (meeting
         | notes, design decisions, debug sessions) and for things that
         | are a work in progress (software projects at work and for fun,
         | home renovation plans, things that temporally are going to
         | evaporate from my brain before they're done). It's a tool that
         | lets me remember what I was talking to people about last week,
         | and a tool for picking up the project I was working on last
         | month. And it syncs great to my phone and iPad Pro for when I'm
         | out of the house.
         | 
         | I haven't ever gotten to appreciate Obsidian's task management
         | stuff but Todoist tickles my brain just right for that.
        
         | daheza wrote:
         | For me as a engineering manager
         | 
         | I keep a weekly folder where I toss notes in My todo list
         | exists here my performance log for employees
        
       | brcmthrowaway wrote:
       | How does it compare to notion
        
         | shminge wrote:
         | offline first, so much faster, no terrible pricing model.
         | Hugely better in my opinion
        
         | jdejean wrote:
         | No databases, views, nested pages, automations, or
         | collaboration. It's a flat list of files with folders. You can
         | supplement these features with plugins but it's not the same.
         | Notion is objectively more powerful but if you care about data
         | ownership or minimalism you might prefer Obsidian
        
           | kepano wrote:
           | Views were added in Obsidian 1.9 (Aug 2025)
           | 
           | https://help.obsidian.md/bases
           | 
           | Collaboration was added in Obsidian 0.14 (May 2022)
           | 
           | https://help.obsidian.md/sync/collaborate
        
       | rickcarlino wrote:
       | Since it is just markdown files and a tiny bit of JSON meta data,
       | it's trivial to use Obsidian as the GUI for a static site
       | generator. I have some thin ruby scripts that compile my notebook
       | to HTML and upload to my blog via SSH. I removed my previous
       | static site generator library and just use simple markdown
       | rendering libs now. https://rickcarlino.com/notes/
        
       | gbraad wrote:
       | I use Obsidian, but would never use someone else's Vault
       | template; as these are script files, you neverknow what can be in
       | there without reviewing this. Just a friendly reminder to be
       | cautious
        
         | DauntingPear7 wrote:
         | This guy is the CEO of obsidian so I would trust him imo
        
       | laurieg wrote:
       | People who do lots of work and ship lots of projects tend to have
       | a certain level of mess in their workshops. Creation is repeated
       | cycles of trial, play, reflection and tidying.
       | 
       | For anyone thinking about trying out Obsidian, here are some
       | problems I have solved with it:
       | 
       | - Remembering where I met someone, what we talked about and then
       | connecting up with them at a later date. My ability to remember
       | names is easily 10x because of obsidian.
       | 
       | - Seeing who in my family's birthday is coming up soon and their
       | address so I can send them a card.
       | 
       | - Graphing how far I've run for each day/week and any quick
       | training notes.
       | 
       | - Showing me friend's restaurant suggestions on a map when I've
       | got a free evening and I want to try something new.
       | 
       | And all of this stored locally and synced onto many devices.
       | 
       | If you're curious I highly recommend starting simple. Don't worry
       | about plugins, just write a quick daily note every day about the
       | information that is important to you. When you feel like you're
       | outgrowing that, adopt a structure that fits you and solves your
       | problems.
        
         | Dr_Birdbrain wrote:
         | How do you use it to remember names?
        
           | timwis wrote:
           | Not the OP, but I've got a "Names to remember" evergreen note
           | in my Reference folder. Within it, I have a few headings
           | (e.g. neighbours, or locations), and a bullet point for each
           | person, with context that will trigger the memory. That might
           | sound like there's a lot of structure, but it's really the
           | act of writing it down in the first place that helps me
           | remember.
        
             | acidburnNSA wrote:
             | It'd be cool to write a little script that dumps them out
             | into an Anki deck for spaced repetition.
        
               | dns_snek wrote:
               | There's plugins for that:
               | https://obsidian.md/plugins?search=anki
        
           | ozlikethewizard wrote:
           | I use Obsidian for the same purpose as the sister comment. I
           | have a long old note where I add the name and a minor info
           | for new acquaintances. Mine is charavterised by the
           | environment of acquaintance, i.e Work/Town/Rave/Hobby/Online.
           | Rarely need to refer back once ive written down.
        
           | NatKarmios wrote:
           | I have stub notes for people I've met, and link to them in
           | the journal section of my daily note when I've met them; I
           | can then check the backlinks on that person's note when I
           | want to check where I've seen them before.
        
         | dzjkb wrote:
         | how do you do graphing/maps? I'm guessing it's some plugins?
        
           | bpavuk wrote:
           | if you mean "graphs" as in "plots", you can just use
           | matplotlib with some Markdown parser. the Templates plugin
           | (built-in) helps maintaining cohesive structure that helps
           | both parsing and human comprehension.
           | 
           | for maps, there is an Obsidian Maps plugin. recent addition,
           | built-in as well. I personally don't use it much, but I know
           | the kind of person who would be very happy about it!
           | 
           | and then there is an up-and-coming Obsidian CLI, which is in
           | paid beta. the license is cheap, around $25 for forever
           | access to current and future betas, but it's optional.
        
         | phito wrote:
         | I've been using obsidian for about 3 years now and the only
         | thing I've used are daily notes. I'm unsure where I should go
         | from that.
        
       | codazoda wrote:
       | Love it. I try to follow an absolutely minimal process. Even more
       | minimal than this.
       | 
       | I even built my own "second brain" tool to make my own writing
       | absolutely frictionless.
       | 
       | A dump of all files in one folder is the only thing that keeps me
       | sane. I do not want to sort.
        
       | fred_tandemai wrote:
       | Curious how people here are using obsidian when taking notes
       | during meetings in the context of AI note taker. I find myself
       | incapable of using features like links as I'm interacting with
       | say a client. I've found AI note takers to be really powerful to
       | help free my mind during meetings though.
        
         | Brajeshwar wrote:
         | Either someone or I, of course, turn on a Note Taker that can
         | transcribe the meeting notes. That file can go into Obsidian.
         | 
         | Unfortunately, most people don't refer back to it and would
         | wait for someone to do it as part of the spec or project tasks
         | assigned by the Project Manager.
         | 
         | However, I love taking notes in meetings using graphs, arrows,
         | boxes with text, etc. Sometimes, I use an iPad with the Pencil,
         | but I prefer a pen on Paper. This one is usually the one that
         | gets shared, and people seem to like it for understanding the
         | context or for referring back to what they heard during
         | meetings in a simpler, yet faster/easier way.
         | 
         | My methods are inspired by Dan Roam's Books. I browse/re-read
         | the books pretty often. https://www.danroam.comhe
        
       | for_i_in_range wrote:
       | I use yellow legal pads and 4x6" notecards... and probably ship
       | more substantive writing than 96% of people on the planet.
        
         | backscratches wrote:
         | The 4% that are more substantive writers than you dont waste
         | their time with complex industrial technology like note pads
         | and flashcards. The weakness stemming from your addiction to
         | modern tools shows even in your short comment.
        
       | borh375 wrote:
       | Back when I was looking for a new PKM system, I remember a
       | "competitor" (now irrelevant) of obsidian making fun via Quote
       | tweet of the _Files over app_ manifesto, saying something like
       | "nobody cares about the way the notes are stored". Ironically,
       | that mean-spirited tweet made me discover Obsidian, and I've
       | adopted it since then as I strongly agree with the philosophy of
       | sovereignty over the content by them being plain files.
       | 
       | I do care about how files are stored, felt trapped with OneNote
       | proprietary format, and seeing what happens to Evernote, now care
       | even more.
       | 
       | More recently, Andrej Karparthy succinctly captured what's great
       | about Obsidian: https://x.com/karpathy/status/1761467904737067456
       | 
       | And with the new LLM powered, I find having tight control over
       | files to be extremely powerful
       | 
       | Thank you kepano!
        
         | mold_aid wrote:
         | >And with the new LLM powered
         | 
         | The what now? Did I miss an update
        
           | borh375 wrote:
           | Missed a word: LLM powered tools (CLIs, etc.) that can work
           | over files easily. Nothing in Obsidian itself, though I'm
           | sure some nice plugins will exist
        
       | kcaseg wrote:
       | I tried Obsidian a couple of years ago when all those ,,Hack your
       | brain with Obsidian" videos were flooding YouTube, I even had a
       | subscription.
       | 
       | Turns out my brain is beyond saving, while the program was pretty
       | neat, having to have an extra window open was just beyond my
       | attention span. Now I use a notebook, it is chaotic and has
       | coffee strains but I actually use it.
        
       | pmarreck wrote:
       | FYI, firing up Claude Code or Codex inside your Obsidian repo
       | location is a game-changer
        
         | swah wrote:
         | Can you expand on your usage this way? Still haven't picked on
         | that.
        
           | pmarreck wrote:
           | Well, it has helped me reorganize my notes and add
           | appropriate links based on context (which AI is good at, of
           | course) since I tend to still use it like a glorified notepad
           | (which it's also good at, but really doesn't take much
           | advantage of it)
           | 
           | You can also use it to ask questions like "which of my
           | business ideas might have legs?"
        
       | elcapitan wrote:
       | Obsidian is very flexible, and what a lot of these "how I use
       | Obsidian" tutorials miss is to give a reason why the person is
       | actually using it the way they are using it. Seems like this guy
       | is using it mostly to store meeting notes or journaling. Of the
       | many influencery Obsidian tutorials on Youtube, 99% of them seem
       | to be using it to keep notes for creating Obsidian tutorials.
       | 
       | Would be interesting to have differing perspectives from people
       | with different problems and how they use it for those cases.
        
         | ozlikethewizard wrote:
         | I manage project documentation for work + personal projects
         | using it. So I tend to have one folder per project with very
         | little linking across folders. Then I have a personal folder
         | that contains all non work stuff with varying degrees of
         | structure, then a junkyard folder on the root where new notes
         | that dont currently have an obvious category go, and if i come
         | back to them they get sorted.
        
         | mold_aid wrote:
         | You don't think those exist? Obsidian forum has a lot of
         | individual use-cases and more than a couple academics.
         | erazlogo's public vault was as influential to me on how I use
         | it as K. Healy's exposition of his use of R in emacs.
        
         | Dumblydorr wrote:
         | It's great for sheet music and for DnD DMing. I also use it
         | store all things I write. I don't use links though, I'm a
         | barbarian who uses folders and canvases
        
       | schainks wrote:
       | Having tried different systems since the days of Evernote, the
       | _only_ thing that is consistently useful like obsidian is...
       | emailing myself whatever info I have to look up later. I even
       | used to do this for reminders.
       | 
       | Google search in Gmail continues to just work.
       | 
       | But also I want something better than email, so I've been a happy
       | obsidian user for a while now.
        
       | krypttt wrote:
       | I tried Notion, Obsidian, and various other note taking tools
       | before I came to accept that I am simply not a note taking
       | person. I just don't see the value in it I suppose.
        
         | swah wrote:
         | More like a remembering things person? I envy that!
        
       | roflchoppa wrote:
       | I ended up copying Steph's layouts, I added some Github actions
       | that pipe out files that have specific tags in them and create
       | blog posts in another repo. It works very well for me.
        
       | kkfx wrote:
       | I use Emacs/org-mode to do the same and much more, without tying
       | myself to specific third parties, but the point remains valid and
       | largely ignored by most until recently: the heart of our
       | information is plain text with potential binary attachments, and
       | managing it as freely as possible, with search&narrow access and
       | the ability to turn it into hypertext, to compute inside text etc
       | is essential to "unlocking" or truly harnessing the power of the
       | desktop computing. This model of personal computing has been
       | denied for ages due to commercial interests in selling countless
       | walled gardens that do only one thing, "UNIX-style", but without
       | the IPC of the Unix CLI.
        
       | jpfromlondon wrote:
       | The PKM pipeline is :
       | 
       | Discovering PM solutions upon entering the workforce and deciding
       | to use them for your personal life.
       | 
       | Shortcomings drive you to discover PKM software like Notion and
       | Obsidian.
       | 
       | Picking either one or the other.
       | 
       | Switching from Notion to Obsidian or vice versa.
       | 
       | Starting to write your own PKM.
       | 
       | There is no class of software more entropic because everyone's
       | requirements are so specific to the individual.
        
         | conception wrote:
         | Only todo/task apps have the same churn.
        
           | jpfromlondon wrote:
           | Good point, I overlooked this because the overlap is huge.
        
       | keybored wrote:
       | My PKM is writing in Org Mode and never using any Org Mode
       | features to look things up.
        
       | Dumblydorr wrote:
       | I use the app for two things mainly: DnD DMing and sheet music. I
       | think it's deep but I mostly just make canvases and copy paste in
       | images and then move those around to a useful shape. I put in
       | tables, text, images, and all on canvases. I don't use links
       | really, I probably should but I use the known Folder structure to
       | get to whichever canvas I'm working on.
        
       | nivcmo wrote:
       | The "messy but functional" approach is underrated. I've tried
       | every PKM system under the sun - PARA, Zettelkasten, Johnny
       | Decimal - and always ended up spending more time organizing than
       | doing.
       | 
       | The breakthrough was realizing that capture friction matters more
       | than organization. If you have to think about where to put a
       | note, you won't capture it.
       | 
       | Now I dump everything in daily notes and let search + backlinks
       | surface connections. The "junkyard folder" approach works because
       | it removes the decision paralysis.
       | 
       | (Still haven't solved the "remember to actually check my notes"
       | problem though. That's where automation helps - birthday
       | reminders, follow-up prompts, etc. The real win is when your
       | system bugs you, not the other way around.)
        
         | seivan wrote:
         | I've been doing this as well, but using regular editors. What
         | benefit does Obsidian give here that a text editor doesn't
         | give? You just want to write/paste something for storing but I
         | never understood why I needed a different editor for it.
        
           | true_religion wrote:
           | Well, it has a bunch of plugins for making your notes folder
           | into a database, or cataloguing meta data, or adding graphs,
           | spreadsheets, mind maps, or flow charts, but I don't really
           | use any of those.
           | 
           | The only thing I use is the Mathjax plug-in for keeping notes
           | about interesting publications.
           | 
           | Aside from its plugins, Obsidian is a great markdown editor
           | and has a folder view and search integrated. I like it for
           | that. My alternative is Apple notes, but long notes are hard
           | to read there, so having markdown view is a positive
           | experience.
        
           | phito wrote:
           | I feel like the only reason I use Obsidian is because of the
           | "real time" markdown editor. If I could have this in Zed (not
           | split view between source and render) I would probably not
           | used Obsidian anymore.
        
           | stanpinte wrote:
           | The integration of notes and tasks - that's unbeatable. While
           | I journal stuff during the day adding tasks is one macro
           | away, and these task can then be searched easily. Your
           | journaling becomes a database of stuff to do.
        
           | kmacleod wrote:
           | If your editor has a wiki mode (like Emacs' org mode) then
           | maybe nothing. If not, then Obsidian is your browser and your
           | editor is your editor. For example, git syncing between
           | Android and desktop isn't working well for me, so I edit
           | directly in github UI and browse in Obsidian. The fact that
           | Obsidian works exactly like that is one of the biggest
           | benefits of Obsidian.
        
       | olav wrote:
       | > I avoid folders because many of my entries belong to more than
       | one area of thought
       | 
       | This is the reason why I find Trilium Notes so liberating, where
       | one note can have many parents.
        
       | risingsubmarine wrote:
       | Many thanks to Obsidian for reinforcing the strength of file-
       | over-apps in daily computer use. Consider this as a baseline for
       | your entire setup, and you will spend much less energy fussing
       | over finding the optimal programs, operating systems, or
       | ecosystems. Just manage your files, and everything else can come
       | and go.
        
       | gverrilla wrote:
       | When obsidian can allow for a dynalist-style configuration,
       | please tell me.
        
       | evo_9 wrote:
       | I've been using Cursor / Claude Code to open my Vault folder, or
       | a sub-folder in the vault; since Obsidian is stored in .MD files
       | you can chat with your LLM about whatever info is in there. I
       | used this to review and prepare for interviews, and it was
       | extremely effective in helping me land my new job.
        
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