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Writing down what I do in Obsidian

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61–70 of 232 posts

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#61
post #9

I'm an ardent Emacs user for the past 20+ years. But I am considering writing a book, and the "throw things in anyhow, get things back" facility of Obsidian is quite useful for catching disparate thoughts to later incorporate into a flow in the final text.. Of course there is a mode in Emacs supporting obsidian-like facility, but does not feel as convenient - autocomplete never quite works as smooth as it does in Obs…

As a wildly alternative workflow for writing a book, have a look at Scrivener.

I am writing right now my PhD thesis with Scrivener, and it's perfect, except (!) reference management is not working. My workaround is to have everything in Zotero, and manually put in the references, hoping I can convert later, in a big dirty manual step.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#62
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.

I am blushing, because I have org mode open with my OKRs nicely tree-structured, and open tasks underneath. And, and, I giant mess of real-world task on top, that I don't know how to structure, but are somehow part of my job.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#63
post #59

i found my love in Trilium what has everything i need and if needed, i can still change the code by myself (AGPL) + files are stored as markdown documents (so i am still able to get into my notes, even if the repo would disappear). see https://github.com/zadam/trilium TLDR; - future proof file format (markdown) - possible as local standalone + sync to simple cloud storage (like gdrive/dropbox/...) - gantt charting -…

Some corrections:

> - future proof file format (markdown)

Trilium has Markdown-like editing experience, but it stores the notes in HTML. Which is IMHO more future-proof than Markdown.

> - possible as local standalone + sync to simple cloud storage (like gdrive/dropbox/...)

Trilium stores data in an SQLite database, and sync tools like gdrive/dropbox don't know how to sync it and usually corrupt the database. To sync correctly, you need to have a server with trilium installed.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#64
My note taking system is a single "donelist.txt" that sits in a GDrive/onedrive/xdrive on my machine. Entries are:

9.11.22

scrum

working on stry1234

meeting X

- do a thing

lunch

created PR for stry1234

meeting Y

8.11.22

scrum

working on def4321

lunch

created PR def4321

meeting Z

meeting A

...

This is good enough for me although I'm still figuring out how to plan ahead better. Maybe I should write down how I expect the week to go, goals and schedule, on Monday and update from there.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s kind of like saying an IDE has no clear productivity benefit when authoring software. It’s an IDE for note-taking.

When I think of productivity in this context, I am referring to the rate at which one can generate value. Software itself has value (eg, a client-facing web service). Therefore an IDE, which may require an investment to get past the learning curve, can have a productivity benefit as it can make generating software (and thus value) more efficient. Do notes themselves have value? I would argue not really. For the most…

Incredibly valuable for me. When exploring something new, I journal as I go. If a side task has to be parked, I can pick up again months later because I use it as a knowledgebase. Also, a quick scan for #gotcha in my notes reminds me of subtle bugs and workarounds in tools and processes that are easily forgotten. I also create quick reference charts for tools I want to become familiar. I hashtag every new note as if I'm making a Twitter post, so things are linked in a useful way. I usually have Obsidian open near the IDE.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#66

Does anyone have any experience with Joplin[0] as an alternative? I'm looking into using SyncThing + Joplin to create a sort of 'networked personal brain'. I was originally looking at Obsidian, but the arguments on why they chose not to go FOSS are pretty weak[2] imo, so I'm looking at using Joplin instead. [0] https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/ [1] https://syncthing.net/ [2] https://obsidian.rocks/why-isnt-obsidia…

Switched from OneNote to Joplin. It's been a good replacement for organizing notes & code snippets. A couple quirks. Had to write custom CSS in the config to get markdown previews scaled correctly. Formatting has been a nuisance, having to [shift]+enter to not have double lines in preview mode, which seems to break basic formatting around it on reload. Otherwise no complaints, it's free, encrypted, lots of plugins, a great client, and has built in support to sync directly to OneDrive. Better than the janky, slow to load web client of OneNote on Linux!

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#67
I honestly tried to love obsidian because of how easy it is to set up and how user friendly the UI is (plus there are tutorials and tons of articles), but I just can't get over it being offline and only means to sync are looking for a plugin that will use git/dropbox etc plus there are no mobile app anyways.

Right now I found that notion is perfect for me. It does not have a mind mapping functionality but its very good, super easy to use (to the point it being intuitive) in all other areas AND I have perfect sync, mobile app and web app so I can use it on my work laptop, phone and personal PC without any problems

But if you don't need that, obsidian is amazing

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#68

I honestly tried to love obsidian because of how easy it is to set up and how user friendly the UI is (plus there are tutorials and tons of articles), but I just can't get over it being offline and only means to sync are looking for a plugin that will use git/dropbox etc plus there are no mobile app anyways. Right now I found that notion is perfect for me. It does not have a mind mapping functionality but its very go…

I don't know when you tried obsidian but it does have a mobile app and a (paid) sync/backup service.

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#69

I honestly tried to love obsidian because of how easy it is to set up and how user friendly the UI is (plus there are tutorials and tons of articles), but I just can't get over it being offline and only means to sync are looking for a plugin that will use git/dropbox etc plus there are no mobile app anyways. Right now I found that notion is perfect for me. It does not have a mind mapping functionality but its very go…

I'm slightly confused - Obsidian has mobile apps [0] and sync functionality is built in [1]

[0] https://obsidian.md/mobile

[1] https://obsidian.md/sync

Re: Writing down what I do in Obsidian

#70

Does anyone have any experience with Joplin[0] as an alternative? I'm looking into using SyncThing + Joplin to create a sort of 'networked personal brain'. I was originally looking at Obsidian, but the arguments on why they chose not to go FOSS are pretty weak[2] imo, so I'm looking at using Joplin instead. [0] https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/ [1] https://syncthing.net/ [2] https://obsidian.rocks/why-isnt-obsidia…

I'm using Syncthing with NotePlan and Caddy in a similar way, it should be doable as long as Joplin can sure individual files.

Here's how I do it: https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/How%20I%20write%20this%20blog...

If you want to sync an SQLite DB of articles instead, you can also do that with Litestream: https://litestream.io

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