Writing down what I do in Obsidian • Hacker News Board

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#191

Post by tarr11 » Wed, Nov 09, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

I’d really like to understand how people managers who work on teams / corporate environments use Obsidian.

I find that most of my work meetings are shared docs. It often feels like double work to put some things in Obsidian and move them around.

I also don’t use Obsidian as a task list - I use Todoist which is totally fine for that.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#192

Post by chriskrycho » Wed, Nov 09, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

prithsr wrote: post #177

I know this thread seems to be Obsidian specific, but wanted to share: I've been writing down every detail of my day since January 2021 on Diarly. I pay $15 a year to have it sync across iCloud devices. I have two "journals" - one for personal, and one for work. From thoughts, to encounters during the day, to what food I ate, I write everything. It has dramatically improved my day-to-day. I've had trouble remembering…

Yes, and when combined with search (including just grep/rg/etc. on the command line!) it becomes really, really powerful. It's hard to explain just how powerful, because it's the kind of thing that, like compounding interest, really only shows up as you continue investing over time, but it really pays huge dividends.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#193

Post by chriskrycho » Wed, Nov 09, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

agentwiggles wrote: post #176

I have just started using Obsidian this last week or two in the hopes of eventually migrating away from Notion. There are some things I miss though, like to-do lists. I've also found that code blocks are a little unreliable about whether they render pretty or just stay markdown. I like the idea of getting all my stuff local, but there are going to be a few things about Notion that keep me there for a while. Also, (an…

To-do lists work a bit differently; they're just Markdown tasks:

    - [ ] do something
    - [x] did something

However, there are a number of neat plugins which can integrate those into anything from simple views of all open to-do items to full-up Kanban boards. Additionally, the Minimal theme lets you do Bullet Journal-style variations on that:

    - [/] partially did something
    - [] punted something to the next day/etc.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#194

Post by chriskrycho » Wed, Nov 09, 2022, 4:44 PM UTC

jatins wrote: post #3

no shade, but just reading this I was sure this was written by someone who works in BigTech. Because this was very reminiscent of ceremony required for BigTech performance reviews.

It happens to be the case that I do (I am at LinkedIn) but I actually started this years ago when I was working as an independent contractor/consultant. It was the only way I could keep track of having many, many different things in flight: I was working on a masters' degree, working ~full time, had two little kids, and also had several side projects going. It actually started out as just a way to help build the necessary personal disciplines to get things done, and the logging grew out of it when I realized it was really helpful for two things: my own understanding of what I had done over a given period of time, and then eventually for using at the startup I joined in 2016, and now at BigTech.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#195

Post by chriskrycho » Wed, Nov 09, 2022, 4:48 PM UTC

wyclif wrote: post #11

Did he mean to link to his Obsidian config? It looks like there's supposed to be a link there but there isn't.

Yeah, I intended to link it when I started drafting this months ago but then forgot to add the link and my config is out of date now that Obsidian 1.0 is out, so I removed it when someone else pointed out the same typo. Sorry about that!

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#196

Post by ZetaZero » Wed, Nov 09, 2022, 4:57 PM UTC

prithsr wrote: post #177

I know this thread seems to be Obsidian specific, but wanted to share: I've been writing down every detail of my day since January 2021 on Diarly. I pay $15 a year to have it sync across iCloud devices. I have two "journals" - one for personal, and one for work. From thoughts, to encounters during the day, to what food I ate, I write everything. It has dramatically improved my day-to-day. I've had trouble remembering…

> I pay $15 a year to have it sync across iCloud devices.

Curious how you do this? The Obsidian Sync option is $96/year.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#197

Post by xerox13ster » Wed, Nov 09, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

agentwiggles wrote: post #176

I have just started using Obsidian this last week or two in the hopes of eventually migrating away from Notion. There are some things I miss though, like to-do lists. I've also found that code blocks are a little unreliable about whether they render pretty or just stay markdown. I like the idea of getting all my stuff local, but there are going to be a few things about Notion that keep me there for a while. Also, (an…

Start and end your code blocks with the ticks on their own line.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#198

Post by dexterdog » Wed, Nov 09, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

ZetaZero wrote: post #196

prithsr wrote: post #177

I know this thread seems to be Obsidian specific, but wanted to share: I've been writing down every detail of my day since January 2021 on Diarly. I pay $15 a year to have it sync across iCloud devices. I have two "journals" - one for personal, and one for work. From thoughts, to encounters during the day, to what food I ate, I write everything. It has dramatically improved my day-to-day. I've had trouble remembering…

> I pay $15 a year to have it sync across iCloud devices. Curious how you do this? The Obsidian Sync option is $96/year.

He's not using Obsidian. I use Obsidian with syncthing (not really an iOS option) so I pay nothing.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#199

Post by bojo » Wed, Nov 09, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

ZetaZero wrote: post #196

prithsr wrote: post #177

I know this thread seems to be Obsidian specific, but wanted to share: I've been writing down every detail of my day since January 2021 on Diarly. I pay $15 a year to have it sync across iCloud devices. I have two "journals" - one for personal, and one for work. From thoughts, to encounters during the day, to what food I ate, I write everything. It has dramatically improved my day-to-day. I've had trouble remembering…

> I pay $15 a year to have it sync across iCloud devices. Curious how you do this? The Obsidian Sync option is $96/year.

Obsidian has their own sync platform independent of the rest. Diarly's $15/yr covers a handful of premium options, one of which is iCloud sync.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#200

Post by SystemOut » Wed, Nov 09, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

tfsh wrote: post #7

There's a useful plugin called "Daily Notes" which automatically creates a note each day with your desired template, along with the calendar plugin I have a daily chronology of everything I've done which I deem noteworthy. If anyones interested in Obsidian and daily journalling keep the initial ceremony low. Some people have sections for challenges, achievements, mood, emails, to-dos, etc. That'll be far too much cog…

Try the "Checklist" plugin. You can put a #todo tag above a section in your note and it will aggregate all your checklist items under that tag into the sidebar. It lets me put todos across all my notes and keep track of them.