Sweet! I’ve been using Notion lately for a work project that fit very well with Notion’s collaborative databases. But in doing that it made me want Properties for my personal Obsidian notes.
I did try to not use folders, but could not. Somehow, my mental structure works that way. Still, I think it depends on how you use them. I just have a handful of very high level folders for the big parts of my life I usually compartimentalize anyway, but it is flat otherwise, no subcategories,etc. Semantic connections across those folders, when the need arises, are done with links and tags. I use dataview sparingly. To me, the most attractive feature of Obsidian is the fact that, at the end of the day, all the notes are plain markdown files. Having used different note taking apps for decades now (I have notes from the late 90s still around, which I kept migrating from tool to tool), to be stuck in a proprietary format (or requiring special rendering, as is the case) would be a showstopper.
Still, the most beautiful thing about Obsidian, I think, is it’s ability to support a myriad organization styles, matching different people’s cognitive styles!
@berryjam I’ve tried to sign up for Lemmy twice and it’s failed both times. Please tell them they can use different fonts for live preview and for reading mode with the Minimal theme and the Minimal Theme Settings plugin.
I manage tasks in Obsidian using the Tasks plugin. Takes a little extra time to input the tasks so I use it primarily for important activities.
I have sections in my weekly notes to list due and overdue tasks. And I have a “task overview” note that groups tasks according to different filters.
I’ve started tracking tasks for other people (that I need to follow up) by using their initials as a hashtag, I can then filter these in/out depending on what I need to see.
Works brilliantly for my purposes and I have an easy way of seeing any outstanding tasks
I love this! I’m working on it too and have used tools for GTD such as everdo and omnifocus. Learning new strategies for organizing my notes and tasks together but obsidian is robust enough to do it. Just takes setup willpower. Not sure about notifications yet but time sensitive stuff goes in my calendar. Obsidian not only has amazing use for tools but can track habits and journal so well, then give a birds eye view of each area from habits, tasks, completed tasks, and daily logs from a one week to one month etc. Life changing for me as i’ve fallen off the journal bandwagon many times but including it in one app makes it best for me.
It’s interesting to read this as I move my tasks from Things into Obsidian (experimenting)
Maybe l’ll report back and LYK. 😆
I do think it’s important to carve out the cruft. Maybe Tasks/Todos is cruft for you, and some other facet of the app is for another. It’s interesting to me!
What??? I love both! The iPad and iPhone app! Super fast, works like a charm and I am always surprised how many feature I can use even on the tiny phone screen! I just installed the projects plug in and was fully prepared to accept it not working on iOS but here we are 🥳 it works like a charm and is super easy to use. I am in love with Obsidian and I use it 95% of the time on iPhone.
I went through multiple steps of using and not using folders. In the end a had a moment where I asked myself a question. What is a page? What should it contain and how big it should be? Then it struck me and more questions popped up. Why do I need one way of linking when I link a page, but different way when I want to link a specific part? The answer is that I don’t need Obsidian. I need an outliner. An infinite fractal document which enables me to link specific parts of its tree. So I switched to Tana and then to Workflowy.
My method of organizing “pages” is quite simple. I use alphabet. It’s surprising to me that I don’t see it being recommended as a default option online. Instead I see Johnny Decimal, PARA, LATCH and other names just to sell an online course. Now what is a page in my system. It’s a search keyword and I associate with the information.
Next step that arises sooner than later is to reduce number of pages visible. I do this by progressively grouping pages into “folders” which in case of an outliner means nesting it under each other. For example I might discover a cool fact about Prague. I have a lot of pages that start with P so I group them. Then I notice that a lot pages start with Pr so I group them again and then I create Prague node.
Searching is simple as well. If I search for my friend John I might click through J > Jo > John but it is logical in my eyes and three levels are not that common anyway.
I’ve never had a paper-drawer notecard system, but one is described in the book The Mixed-Up Files of Ms Basil E Frankweiler and I’ve always sort of aspired to that. The way you organize alphabetically has those kinds of paper file / encyclopedia vibes to me!
That sounds overly complicated to simulate, what you already have: a search function. (unless you are talking paperback, but then why subscribe to ObsidianMD :D)
This community has a lot of good ideas. The most important one is the need for permanent notes. This allows me to forget stuff because I know I’ll find it in a shape that is useful for me.
Then there are ideas on how to do it. Zettelkasten, PARA, Johnny Decimal etc.
And finally what to write for example habit trackers, daily notes, ledgers etc.
I like looking at other people notes because it gives me ideas on how to improve my own notes. I’m not in a stage where I would blindly copy anything, but if something catches my eye I think how to integrate it into my notes. And that’s the value I get from this community.
ONE OF US. ONE OF US.
My main concern now though is that there's a single point of failure for my mental well being. I'm reaally gonna need to keep backups because it's not just my 'second brain' I think most of my actual brain is in there at this point.
I just installed it, and obviously it looks pretty basic at the start. Any particularly useful tutorials that showcase how powerful it is? I don't need a beginner's step-by-step (have used Notion before), I just need the eureka moment(s).
I use git as it even has a native interface; you only need to init the vault as a repo yourself. Then you can host that repository wherever you want, be it your own VPS, your local server, your local computer, a Git hosting service (e.g. github, gitea).
So to speak, what you get by Obsidian sync for your money is not having to deal with the hassle on hosting it yourself.
So I tried setting up obsidian-git, but couldn’t get it to work. I did it on mobile. I did a git init repository, and it said it did. Then I created a branch, and it said it did. I tried pushing it to github, it said no remotes defined. I then defined remotes using the command, and it said success. However, I still can’t see it in the list of remotes, or see the branches, or set remote branch to push to. I gave up and used Remotely Save. Did I miss a step?
I use mac, too, but haven’t encountered this. You’ve done all the usual haven’t you: checked Obsidian is latest release, installed another theme? Reinstalled Obsidian?
I’ve had issues with themes but found they tend to be theme-specific. Minimal is always a goid one to try (again, young probably done this).
Failed to mention that I’m on MacOS. I also just learned that when I full-screen the app, the side bars match the theme. Exiting full screen causes them to go back to black.
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