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How I use Obsidian (2023)

stephango.com

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Re: How I use Obsidian (2023)

#31

How does it compare to notion

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

Re: How I use Obsidian (2023)

#34
post #10

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…

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?

Re: How I use Obsidian (2023)

#35
post #19

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. I…

> 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.

Re: How I use Obsidian (2023)

#36
post #28

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…

How do you use it to remember names?

Re: How I use Obsidian (2023)

#37
post #7

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.

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.

Re: How I use Obsidian (2023)

#38
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!

Re: How I use Obsidian (2023)

#39

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.

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

Re: How I use Obsidian (2023)

#40
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.

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