Writing down what I do in Obsidian

https://v5.chriskrycho.com/journal/writing-down-what-i-do-in-obsidian/

by larve • 4 years ago

358 223 4 years ago

v5.chriskrycho.com

Personally my Obsidian notes are a reflection of the chaos in my head. The neurons (notes) of my second brain all interconnect without rhyme or reason or folders or tagging...

oxff5• 4 years ago

This is imo how most people should start and use it. All these "structure first" approaches are like using someone else's preferred way of learning and memorizing, if it works its an happy accident.

You'll get your structure out of your mind once you learn to know it.

manbash• 4 years ago

I am constantly finding myself deliberating whether I should or shouldn't use folders in my Obsidian vault.

Most of the times folders feel artificial. I prefer tags nowadays as the single source.

The times I separate to a folder is for very-specific Dataview data-only pages, and for storing assets such as images.

Sakos3• 4 years ago

Articles like this are useful to see what's possible. You don't have to copy his workflow 1:1, you can take ideas from many places and design a workflow that works for you.

Guaranteed the author didn't start "structure first". It's something that developed into its current form over a long time of experimenting and refinement.

jatins2• 4 years ago

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.

googlryas• 4 years ago

Yes, I thought it sounded like snippets for my OKRs. Could also be derived from quantified self lineage.

wingerlang• 4 years ago

I think it is more the latter. Seems more like a passion (or obsession) than something they have to do for OKRs, especially with the super detailed logging and using dedicated apps, and super optimizing them on top of that.

_glass2• 4 years ago

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.

JonChesterfield4• 4 years ago

In fairness this is probably an answer to "how to pass promotion" in such an environment. I don't have the patience so will stay with git log immediately before the deadline but have some envy for people who enjoy this sort of logging.

chriskrycho6• 4 years ago

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.

jatins2• 4 years ago

I was working on a masters' degree, working ~full time, had two little kids, and also had several side projects going.

That's impressive. Probably deserves a blog post of itself on how you managed to squeeze in extra 4 hours in a day.

ThePhantom2• 4 years ago

I can see Obsidian being popular because it makes notetaking fun and customizable and may motivate people to do it more. But as far as actual productivity goes I can't see any benefit it adds.

scottbruin• 4 years ago

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

ThePhantom2• 4 years ago

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 part things like "life planners" / "task managers" I've noticed are highly intricate but require considerable upkeep to maintain. Time that can be used to actually generate value.

Cthulhu_3• 4 years ago

You've kinda addressed your own concern about productivity though - it's more fun.

tfsh• 4 years ago

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 cognitive load for anyone - keep it simple and very quickly you'll know whether you want to add or remove any of the daily ceremony.

I have a "Key tasks" where I include a mostly succinct breakdown of anything worth noting. I did this on Google Docs for 3 years before very recently moving to Obsidian and I wouldn't turn back. Tags and back links definitely help me jump between related thoughts and actions much more than grepping in a 50k+ words Google doc :)

aliqot• 4 years ago

I use this every day :)

nagarjun• 4 years ago

I use an iOS Shortcut to create a daily note in Bear. It's simple but, works surprisingly well!

crucialfelix• 4 years ago

I also use Memos which is a plugin for quick capture, short status updates. It inserts them in your Daily Notes page. Also can view and search all memos collected across all day pages.

fatfox• 4 years ago

If anyone is looking for the “Daily Notes” plugin in Obsidian: You can enable it under “Core plugins”.

stefandesu2• 4 years ago

There's also the "Periodic Notes" plugin which additionally allows for weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly notes.

a10c• 4 years ago

Which integrates nicely with the Calendar plugin (you can click the week view to create a weekly note directly in the calendar)

noneeeed• 4 years ago

It works well with the calendar plugin too. You click on a future date and it will create the daily not for that day so you can pop something in as a future reminder.

I've only been using Obsidian for a week but it's been a complete game changer for how I work.

rpastuszak3• 4 years ago

I've just transitioned from Apple Notes to Obsidian and so far I'm loving it. In terms of high quality free software (not nec. OSS) it feels like the same league as Blender. It's so simple and so powerful.

I use it for ad hoc notes and research (e.g. project ideas, an ML-course I'm taking now, random interesting subjects beyond tech) as well as for daily journaling.

I start my day by writing in a "stream of consciousness" app I wrote for myself: https://enso.sonnet.io.

The format is as follows (ca. 20m each morning, 700-800 words):

- 100% unstructured description of my previous day, then

- 3-4 things I found beautiful or interesting, then

- a short TODO list for the day.

Then I just copy past the notes into my new daily note in Obsidian.

This seems to work really well for me. If I was to pick one improvement, it would be Apple Reminders treating multi-line text as separate entries when pasting. But again, it takes just a few seconds, and most of my workflow is just muscle memory at this stage.

PS. I'm thinking about writing an Open AI Whisper powered transcription tool for voice notes in Obsidian. If that's something you'd find useful and would be prepared to pay for, please let me know.

callistus• 4 years ago

https://enso.sonnet.io

Thanks for sharing this. Love the constraints and how minimal it is.

erreJulian• 4 years ago

Enso looks great, thank you for sharing.

0x008• 4 years ago

Its not the same - I know, but you can try these options to get a similar experience in obsidian:

- https://forum.obsidian.md/t/zen-focus-mode-with-automation/3... - https://github.com/deathau/cm-typewriter-scroll-obsidian with Zen-Mode enabled.

tuvi13• 4 years ago

I am going to use that serene enso thingy you built :-)

inferense• 4 years ago

this is great. For those who have a similar workflow we've built a tool[1] around daily documents which on provides full fledged tasks and calendar that can be synced with Gcal or any other calendar via .ics.

[1] https://acreom.com

SystemOut• 4 years ago

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.

throwaway180118• 4 years ago

I've seen a lot of recent posts about Obsidian in the past week. If it's a marketing tactic then it might be working on me. I hope it's a decent product and not just some PR stunt.

puchatek• 4 years ago

Gotta admit i also checked out obsidian and the top review for the app on the play store gave me pause. Seems the app cannot sync with your local server so you'd need the sync subscription if you wanted to use app and desktop together to maintain one set of notes.

Can someone confirm this?

ephimetheus• 4 years ago

On iOS/macOS you can use iCloud Drive to synchronize without the subscription. It doesn’t work flawlessly but it’s „ok“.

Sprocklem• 4 years ago

I use Syncthing to sync between my android phone and my computer without a subscription, and everything has been working perfectly.

emptysands• 4 years ago

I use the sync feature, but its not required. There are several tutorials for using got with a community plugin or an alternative like syncthing.

Its just text after all. Which is the point of using Obsidian.

Paying for sync is like paying to support the software development. Which is worth doing for Obsidian. Plus I find it useful. I am on the older lower rate.

Sakos3• 4 years ago

Obsidian saves to a bunch of openly accessible markdown files. You can sync them however you want.

eXpl0it3r• 4 years ago

Cross system / OS landscapes can make it nearly impossible without Obsidian Sync. It's okay for Android & Windows, but if you throw an iPad into the mix, you can't really find a local/cloud sync for them all. iOS especially has some limitations on how apps can access files, so your only options are iCloud or Obsidian Sync.

For more info see here: https://help.obsidian.md/Getting+started/Sync+your+notes+acr...

Kelteseth• 4 years ago

I used the git plugin for this on my iPad. This uses a JS based git version.

johntash• 4 years ago

There's a plugin called "Remotely Save". I use it to sync to nextcloud (webdav), but there's also another plugin for syncing to a git repo.

And worst case, you can use any 3rd party file syncing tool like nextcloud, dropbox, syncthing, etc since it's just a directory of files.

leovander• 4 years ago

I have it synced in a git repo, and I use their apps on windows and macos. I lazily use the git plugin to commit and push changes, but you can do at all in the command line if you wanted. Reminder, it's a bunch of plain text markdown files so commit away.

wellthisisgreat2• 4 years ago

Switched to it from Bear Notes, Apple Notes.

Not affiliated with Obsidian. Can recommend it wholeheartedly.

greyman• 4 years ago

But why, it's a free product. I used it for some time but then switched to Logseq.

mpawelski• 4 years ago

It recently got 1.0 version.

But before that it was already really popular, there are tons of YouTube videos with people describing how they use it, houdreds of opensource plugins, people even sell paid courses about it. It's amazing to me how popular it got is such a short time.

So I was actually quite surprised how little before v1.0 it appeared on HN, especially when most of plugins are on github and have many stars, so clearly developers were using it.

For me this is the first "notes" app that I enjoy using. I can totally recommend it. Before it was just a text file or OneNote (for which i found some migration tool to Obsidian) . To me Obsidian still has many annoying isuues but much more advantages, and I see it's only improving with each version.

sn413• 4 years ago

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 Obsidian. For now, I am very impressed with the simplicity of Obsidian's usage.

chungus• 4 years ago

What Emacs mode might that be? And are there more reasons it falls short, besides the autocomplete?

sn413• 4 years ago

There is a simple mode available on melpa, called obsidian. The issue with it which I am facing is that if you link using markdown in actual Obsidian, it is able to find the link in whichever subfolder of the vault the target is in. But this does not seem to work with the emacs mode. It searches only the top vault path - so creates a new file when the file actually already exists in some subfolder. Maybe it is something I am doing wrong, I will read the source code and figure out/change the code.

osener• 4 years ago

I went with Logseq because it can be configured to use org-mode syntax in place of Markdown, and I’m really happy with it.

ajvs2• 4 years ago

Same, and the plugin ecosystem is quite big too.

Cthulhu_3• 4 years ago

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

_glass2• 4 years ago

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.

sn413• 4 years ago

Scrivener is pretty impressive, but its Latex capabilities are not as good as those of other formats. I found indexing and bibliography lookup to be spotty. Another reason I found it lacking was when having labelled equations to be later referenced, Scrivener does not seem to have an autocomplete for this.

wellthisisgreat2• 4 years ago

Wrote a book (93k words) in Scrivener, so can confirm.

Could probably have done it in Obsidian too but didn’t know of it when I was starting. Also compiling features of Scrivener (format the text into industry-accepted formats) is nice

beermonster2• 4 years ago

Of course there is a mode in Emacs supporting obsidian-like facility

Do you mean org-roam ?

ubermonkey• 4 years ago

Nothing is ever "as convenient" in emacs, and I say that as a fairly die-hard user of OrgMode.

I'm pretty curious about my ability to migrate to Obsidian and away from Org/emacs, mostly for reasons of polish. I'm not ever going to become a lisp hacker, but I ended up in Org because it was the ONLY thing I could find that allowed me to keep notes and to-dos intermingled, while giving me a great ability to pull out and collate those to-dos in a dynamic view.

Obsidian can do that, too.

Siira2• 4 years ago

Obsidian is good, but emacs UX and power are on a whole other level if you invest in it. I recently integrated and extended a presentation mode for my org files. It allowed me to reuse all my emacs goodies when creating slides, and all the content is easily searchable and linkable. It is even a great UX when presenting; I could very easily jump between slides to show the relevant slides when questions came up. It’s exportable to beautiful HTML, too.

wyclif• 4 years ago

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

avjinder• 4 years ago

Yes, seems like the config could not be found.

chriskrycho6• 4 years ago

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!

Abishek_Muthian4• 4 years ago

Since this post will attract Obisidan veterans, I asking for some validation of two potential need-gaps in Obisidian I'm tracking for a while -

1. Live recommendation for Obsidian[1]

Say I'm typing a note and write a sentence about echo location then I get recommended a previous note with a comment from a HN user about how moths escape bats by deafening it in a side panel.

It's not a keyword based recommendation, But a sentence classification (I understand the compute overhead drawback).

2. Automatic tag generator for Obsidian[2]

This is simpler, Generate tags for the notes automatically based on previous tags and if none is available then generate new tags.

[1] https://needgap.com/problems/409-live-recommendation-for-obs... (Disclosure: It's my problem validation forum)

[2] https://needgap.com/problems/408-automatic-tag-generator-for...

throwaway6753093• 4 years ago

The only notetaking tool I found that had support for live recommendations was Evernote which did something called context notes, it was quite useful.

Abishek_Muthian4• 4 years ago

Thanks, I will check it out. Btw, Others in Obsidian forums have mentioned DEVONthink as well.

brimwats2• 4 years ago

try either the Influx or Strange New World plugins for #1, depending on how you have your vault set up (either mostly daily notes or not respectively)

Abishek_Muthian4• 4 years ago

Thanks, Influx does provide recommendations but it seems to require prior snippet in the notes; I'm thinking about live recommendation without prior action from the user apart from just writing notes.

setr2• 4 years ago

Regarding point 1, are.na effectively does this for bookmarking, by showing you the categories that others have stored the same bookmark to (so really showing you what they thought was related, according to whatever relationship they were interested in) which I think is a much more reliable/same way to approach the problem — its much more precise, as the other user was literally on the same page as you at some point, rather than whatever tangential topical relationship identified by keyword matching. And it’s more broad, as the relationships you can find are not simply the literal topic itself (e.g. hexing the technical interview might be stored by one user alongside programming taos, and by another with closure hackery, and another with programmers-as-wizards).

Abishek_Muthian4• 4 years ago

Very interesting, Thanks for introducing me to are.na.

I like that they've essentially outsourced the computation required to classify the content to real humans.

I understand the value in adding context to the bookmarks, But does it help in any way to recall a bookmark when I need it? Because not using the bookmark is a real problem[1] but I find the suggestions from bookmarks in Firefox address bar quite useful; Integration of in other writing tools which knows the content of the bookmarks could be useful.

[1] https://needgap.com/problems/57-i-forget-my-web-bookmarks-qu...

for_i_in_range• 4 years ago

Alternatively, there's the pen and paper version of Obsidian: https://www.antinet.org/

agileAlligator• 4 years ago

Interesting! Now I wonder if this system can be digitized.... (I am way too lazy to take pen and paper notes lol)

revskill• 4 years ago

My note taking system is simple:

I'm using MacOS Notes application, in that basically have two important notes: Reading and Writing.

My professional life is mostly about reading and writing.

Other minor notes include: Awesome materials.

I never have a separate Todo/Outcomes,.. notes.

laputan_machine• 4 years ago

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-obsidian-open-source/

throwaway6753093• 4 years ago

If I remember correctly Joplin doesn't like you to keep your own file structure for your markdown notes, it has some kind of a alphanumeric representation which obfuscates the original structure.

master-12• 4 years ago

Doesn't Joplin store all notes in a SQLite DB?

I'd recommend looking into Logseq[0], it's free and open source and stores all notes on disk as Markdown. I version my notes with Git, but Syncthing will also work.

[0] https://logseq.com/

wartijn_2• 4 years ago

It does, but if you use the build in synchronization, your notes will by synchronized as (optionally encrypted) files. I think using syncthing would be possible if you make Joplin synchronize to a local directory, and use syncthing to sync that directory.

hookey• 4 years ago

I used to use Logseq with Syncthing, but I ran into a bunch of sync conflicts that were annoying to deal with and sometimes it would just stop syncing for no reason. Luckily, they've just made Logseq Sync available to all backers on OpenCollective and it works quite well. I'm very happy with the setup now. I think they're making Sync available as a paid monthly service soon.

alexktz2• 4 years ago

No, Joplin stores files as plain text with obfuscated filenames. An SQLite DB is only involved for indexing and search.

stvrsxz• 4 years ago

I am using Joplin for years and I am pretty satisfied with it. (This is not a comparison because I have never used Obsidian)

It is doing 99% of what I ever wanted to do with my knowledge base. Though, if I am in a hurry and I want to quickly write something down (like a quick todo or something), then I am still using google keep, because editing markdown in the Joplin mobile app and waiting for it to sync, it is ok but not as quick as google keep. (I will not be surprised if there is a solution to this and I am doing something wrong)

Sure. There are plenty of alternatives, and being open source has its negative and positive things.

Self host is a good alternative if you want to play some and want to own your data 100% and I have tried to self-host Nextcloud on a Raspberry Pi once, but I gave up after some troubleshooting when I found that Hetzner offers ready-made Nextcloud boxes with https and all. I then synchronize my encrypted notes through Nextcloud pretty easily. I have never tried the Joplin cloud solution that was created after I chose Nextcloud (as an alternative also to Dropbox).

number6• 4 years ago

I use a syncthing setup with logseq which is FOSS but is also opinionated. Could be something you could use

wartijn_2• 4 years ago

You can create a template for your daily/weekly..etc notes via the templates plugin[0]. And I don't use them myself, but it looks like there are plugins for automatic backlinks[1] and embedding other notes[2] as well

[0] https://github.com/joplin/plugin-templates

[1] https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/automatic-backlinks-with-m...

[2] https://github.com/ylc395/joplin-plugin-note-link-system

e-brake• 4 years ago

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!

alin23• 4 years ago

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

tristanbvk• 4 years ago

I used Syncthing and Joplin on both desktop ans Android and it worked very well.

rroot2• 4 years ago

My only two frustrations with otherwise brilliant Joplin is the sync and (lack of encryption).

Encryption: data isn't encrypted at rest. The author seems to be quite dismissive of the idea: https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/289

But then it's advertised as "end-to-end encryption" but that only refers to data being encrypted while it sits on a sync point. Perhaps within the definition of end-to-end, but might give people the idea that the data is encrypted from the time they enter it.

Sync: I set it to up sync so S3 so I could have mobile and desktop notes in sync.

If I create or edit a quick note, it doesn't get synced automatically! I've set the S3 sync to 5 minutes (the minimum), but you have to press sync after edit.

Last time I looked they were working on a server sync (instead of S3), so hopefully this gets fixed.

kal87• 4 years ago

Joplin's own sync service [1] works seamlessly for me. The basic plan is enough for my needs and is way cheaper than obsidian's sync subscription.

[1] https://joplinapp.org/plans/

TeMPOraL2• 4 years ago

Encryption: data isn't encrypted at rest. The author seems to be quite dismissive of the idea: https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/289

Skimming the thread, the author does have a good point: this is something that should be handled on the OS level, ideally in a transparent way on top of the filesystem. It makes no sense for every app to be handling securing documents on their own. Perhaps we'll get there one of these days.

eitland2• 4 years ago

I used Joplin for some time. It is really good and it has been very stable.

Using Joplin Web Clipper from Firefox I could also snip pages (or parts of pages) into Joplin.

But the most amazing thing is that

- it works on mobile devices as well.

- No lock in: it syncs flawlessly (AFAIK) over WebDAV so I can sync all my data using a really inexpensive Hetzner instance.

Personally I happily used it for a long time but always felt something was missing and never felt completely at home with it.

So now I use Logseq which is a little rough around the edges but which I, for now at least feel very at home with.

srcreigh2• 4 years ago

Can you describe the things you like about Logseq at the moment?

stavros2• 4 years ago

I use Joplin and like it a lot. I wrote some tooling to generate a static site out of my public notes:

https://notes.stavros.io/

robviren• 4 years ago

I have used syncthing + marktext[0] and or ghostwriter[1] depending on the content of my notes. For a daily journal I like to use ghostwriter as it has almost no distraction and it forces me to focus. It just got shifted over to being maintained by the KDE team and I really enjoy it.

I liked marktext over joplin for similar reasons. But I am probably a little overzealous in my search for distraction free note taking. I assume joplin provides more feature sets, I just happened to want less features for what I do on a day to day.

[0]https://github.com/marktext/marktext [1]https://github.com/KDE/ghostwriter

graeber_28927• 4 years ago

Joplin as a markdown note taking app was my gateway drug to Obsidian.

I used to sync Joplin to just my Dropbox, and it worked well for free on all my devices.

Once (and only once) I had a conflict, which from then on I was nervous to get again And I never really liked how top level folders are notes as well, somehow I found that strange.

Obsidian saves markdown files, I use git so I can solve merge conflicts myself, and see the version history, albeit at the price of having to save and sync manually (Ctrl+Shift+C for commit, Ctrl+Shift+P to push, cause I'd rather do that than have it autopush at intervals). I like the UI more too, only I haven't set up Obsidian on my phone yet, but it's possible theoretically.

Tldr: Setup is more hassle, but I migrated my notes (manually) and like the UI, layout, search and git integration better. Joplin was definitely easier to get running for free, and I can easily recommend it to anyone. It's just where I am now, exploring and liking something new, seeing if it sticks.

theshrike79• 4 years ago

I used to use Joplin, but I prefer the Obsidian way where all my documents are just markdown in a directory structure.

The plugin ecosystem seems more viable too, not that I'm using that many.

tluyben2• 4 years ago

I use Joplin with the personal server; I migrated my notes away from Evernote and Notion to Joplin for my personal use. I really like it; it is fast, open source, simple plugin system and very stable (something I cannot say of notion or Evernote).

_def• 4 years ago

I use Joplin and sync it with Dropbox, because after loosing my notes too many times I don't want to be responsible for hosting them anymore. Joplin works and syncs good enough across all devices I use (Linux, Windows, Android).

qbasic_forever• 4 years ago

IIRC Joplin stores notes in a SQLite DB which is a huge no-no to sync with syncthing. Even the syncthing devs warn against syncing SQLite databases. It will seem to work fine until two machines write to the database independently (perhaps each is offline) and then their changes can't be reconciled by syncthing and data is lost or conflicted.

alexktz2• 4 years ago

Notes in Joplin are stored plain text with obfuscated filenames. The only time joplin uses a DB is for indexing.

krimpenrik3• 4 years ago

I used Joplin for some years, really stable and worked well. I used nextcloud with webdev to sync.

Switched over to obsidian couple months ago and am in love, such a great piece of software.

I love the excalidraw integration, game changer

zeruch• 4 years ago

I used Joplin for about a year, then switched to Obsidian. Joplin is/was good (and on mobile was nice and responsive) but Obsidian just (so far) has been a better overall fit.

terminal_d• 4 years ago

This is called transclusion.

tunnuz• 4 years ago

This was like a window in an alternate dimension for me: I had no idea documenting what you do was a thing and the way the author describes it makes it sound like a well-known activity that everybody does. Have I been living under a rock?

Cthulhu_3• 4 years ago

Nah, counter-non-scientific-anecdote, very few people do it. Most of what I do is forgettable and not important. Code is in git and tasks are in jira, websites I want to remember are in my bookmarks; I never think "I wish I took minutes of my day from such-and-such date three years ago".

But to each their own; if this is your jam, by all means. It KINDA feels like justifying your day and activities though. Some people work in teams or environments where they have to justify their time or report what they did the previous day in a daily stand-up, for who it may be relevant.

mundietalk2• 4 years ago

I just installed Obsidian. Tried it. The vibe of the contents that I put into Obsidian has a funny 'Obsidious' tone. I think a neutral vibe is what is required for a generic content editing software. Uninstalled.

gala8y2• 4 years ago

The vibe of the contents that I put into Obsidian has a funny 'Obsidious' tone.

What do you mean? In my opinion UI is absolutely minimal. Not a single place with any kind of branding left - no logo, no 'Obsidian' text repeated all over. Ok, there is 'Choose Obsidian's default color scheme' in settings (totally warranted). Clean as it can be. It is actually unique in that matter of retracting logo/name from any view. There is branding on vault opener/switcher, which is tasteful and just in place - it's good to know what piece of software you're using, after all.

mundietalk2• 4 years ago

I'm talking about the [feeling]. It just imbues everything.

ynab4• 4 years ago

No. You're not going to charge me for taking notes.

raesene95• 4 years ago

Obsidian is free though. Even for syncing it's totally possible to do that wit just git (which is what I do)

callahad2• 4 years ago

Only for personal use. If you're using it at work, you're supposed to purchase a license. https://obsidian.md/eula

You need to pay for Obsidian if and only if you use it to contribute, directly or indirectly, to revenue-generating, work-related activities in a company that has two or more people.

beermonster2• 4 years ago

I'll probably try out both Obsidian and LogSeq at some point. Do their use-cases overlap or are there different goals of each project?

ajvs2• 4 years ago

Depends the style of notetaking you prefer - document or outliner. I prefer outliner because it allows me to slap everything all nicely organised into one massive file.

Another big difference is open-source - Logseq is, Obsidian isn't.

d33d33• 4 years ago

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

- uml diagramming

- task management

- available on github

- active development in the last months and years

- editable

The_Colonel2• 4 years ago

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.

alwillis• 4 years ago

…but it stores the notes in HTML. Which is IMHO more future-proof than Markdown.

No—Markdown is just plaintext, which by definition is the most future-proof format that exists.

HTML is a structured markup language that has multiple versions and tags that come and go. And it’s dependent on a user agent (such as a browser or voice assistant) to render it into something a human can view or listen to.

And while Markdown can be rendered, it’s not required to be human readable.

corncob15• 4 years ago

Obsidian stores all your files as Markdown as well, and has plugins to automatically back up your vault using Git on a set interval. I'm pretty sure across my various cloud sync and disk backup setups my Obsidian vault is fully recoverable from five different independent data sources, only one of which (Obsidian Sync) has any dependency on Obsidian itself.

_ewbb• 4 years ago

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.

flakeoil• 4 years ago

That's more or less what I did as well. But it got a bit messy at the end so I started to use EasyOrg [0] which gives some more structure so it is easier to search on and you also get a useful Agenda/Calendar view where you can plan future tasks and see old completed tasks.

[0] https://easyorgmode.com

deliriumchn• 4 years ago

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

zinfour• 4 years ago

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

jsty• 4 years ago

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

crimsoneer• 4 years ago

Honestly, it's worth paying for Obsidian sync. Sure, you can try and do some git/dropbox style combo, but Obsidian Sync is proper magical along with the mobile app.

raesene95• 4 years ago

FWIW I use Obsidian, and just a private GitHub account and git for syncing, it works well no costs, I just need to remember to use git :)

pwillia7• 4 years ago

webhook?

mnw21cam2• 4 years ago

And there I was all excited, expecting long-term preservation of writing by 3D-printing molten rock.

I'm a strong believer that names of software packages should be chosen to be something that doesn't yet return any results from a Google search.

dwils098• 4 years ago

Tell that to Microsoft, ehm… Windows.

mnw21cam2• 4 years ago

At least then you can google for "Microsoft Windows" and get specific results, but yes it is annoying that it pollutes all the search results when you are looking for sheets of glass.

mavci• 4 years ago

I am very impressed in the detail that the picture in the article is also a screenshot in dark mode when I switch to dark mode. Well done.

pasquinelli• 4 years ago

and it's a very nice looking blog.

JonChesterfield4• 4 years ago

Buried in this is a reference to https://help.obsidian.md/How+to/Link+to+blocks

Turns out a (carefully written) link in one document will render as the contents of some part of another document. Possibly more useful in this context is https://help.obsidian.md/How+to/Embed+files

I've been trying literate programming in obsidian and that looks like a very direct solution to having source code in separate files, which all the tooling definitely prefers, which still renders inline from the main document.

Does broadly work - the ```C ``` style block disables the embedding, so the markdown syntax to pretty print the code needs to be in the source file, not in the file that embeds it. Also the ^block_name syntax can't be on the same line as the closing ```.

drakonka• 4 years ago

I tried Obsidian on Windows early this year and found it to be quite slow and clunky, but it seems like everyone else loves it. Is it that the software has improved since earlier this year, or was it just a local issue all along?

brimwats2• 4 years ago

I've never heard it described as slow, except in cases of purposefully stress teasing (vaults with 100,000+ notes). I've got nearly 10k and it works great on a 10yo laptop.

Sakos3• 4 years ago

I think people are just tolerant. I've used it on an M1 MacBook and a Ryzen 2600 and I've been using it on and off for years. It always feels a bit slow and sluggish, and I still open sublimetext first out of habit because of how much more performant and fluid it feels.

scambier• 4 years ago

They recently released 1.0 (with an announcement on HN too), which changed the interface to something more tabs-centric. It's not faster - it's still an electron app - but it definitely feels less clunky.

ygouzerh• 4 years ago

That's a very good idea to write down what you did during the day, it saved me from a bad burnout. I was working on multiple projects in parallel, and got the feeling that I was doing nothing productive on my day, but was always stressed and tired.

Writing down what you did during the day allows to see that you actually did a lot of things. I put even meeting and technical discussions with others, because it's still takes work time.

happy2code• 4 years ago

I’m using `vimwiki` for years and love it.

I also tried Obsidian but I need it also mobile and I cannot define a storage path for my files.

I just like the freedom, minimalism and flexibility of vimwiki.

codethief• 4 years ago

I cannot define a storage path for my files

I agree that this is very annoying but couldn't you still configure e.g. Syncthing (or FolderSync) to sync things correctly?

sva_• 4 years ago

There's a community plugin called "Remotely Save"[0], which allows you to sync your data on s3-like services. I use this with Backlaze's 10gb free plan.

It took a minute to set up but runs without any issues for me.

[0] https://github.com/remotely-save/remotely-save

JonChesterfield4• 4 years ago

Android's client lets you specify the location of the vault, in which all files/folders are placed.

petepete• 4 years ago

I tried vimwiki for a while but I found I used a tiny subset of its functionality and couldn't get it to respect my choice of syntax highlighting for markdown. It set me off in the right direction though.

The fact that it's _just_ a directory full of markdown files allowed me to easily migrate to my own home-grown setup that reimplements the three keybindings I actually used.

https://github.com/peteryates/dotfiles/blob/master/nvim/.con...

hoseja• 4 years ago

This would be interesting if it was about chiseling a volcanic glass, not another note-taking app.

fefe233• 4 years ago

Oh it's just an ad for some app.

Here I thought he was actually writing things in actual Obsidian. That would have been actually interesting.

whoibrar• 4 years ago

This is just someone sharing their workflow. What makes you think this is an actual ad ?

fefe233• 4 years ago

Seriously? Where do I even start!

| Assumed Audience: People who are interested in working effectively

Do you have this problem? Cue late-night "infomercial" video of women having back pain and unable to reach can of tuna high in the cupboard.

Then you need our miracle cure!

| Then I had a flash of inspiration: now that I’m using Obsidian, I never have to do this again.

Oh look, it solves all the problems!

But wait there's more! Not only does it solve the problems, it completely changes the calculus!

| Obsidian’s block embeds change that calculus entirely.

That's incredible, Bob! I will call the phone number next to my country's flag immediately!!

stavros2• 4 years ago

I had the same problem, but needed something quicker, so I made a small CLI utility:

https://pypi.org/project/dia/

UI_at_80x242• 4 years ago

General question for the Obsidian gurus in the audience.

    Is there anyway to use tab-key mid-line?  I do not want to indent the start of my line, and I'd be happy to have tab-character auto-convert to spaces, but I cannot use this tool unless I have a way to tab.

    I seem to use tab to make columns of lists, usually two or three columns worth.  A decent analogy would be like the hosts file, or CRON.  2+ vertically aligned columns of lists.

    I understand that <TAB> doesn't exist in markdown, but vim is able to convert tab-characters to spaces, is there any kind of plugin that allows this functionality?

axelf4• 4 years ago

That just sounds like a table but with extra steps?

UI_at_80x242• 4 years ago

Are you saying that there is functionality called a `table` that I could use to give me similar results?

I don't need/want a fancy grid, I just make multi-columned lists a lot.

Another similar use-case: recipes!

    1cup    flour             extra fine/sifted  
    1tsp    vanilla           extract is fine
    1/4cup  something else    more cooking words

It's not a lot steps, but if there's a table function I could look into without creating a grid, I could probably use that.

beezlewax2• 4 years ago

How do you guys handle images in Obsidian? I can't zoom or see detail on large screen shots for example. Pretty new to the application so maybe I'm missing something

Mandelmus• 4 years ago

I have yet to find a way to use Obsidian with images (sketches, diagrams) as easily as I would like. If there was a way to combine Obsidian's keyboard-based note-taking features (including LaTeX equations) with graphics and diagrams drawn in an app like GoodNotes 5 for iPad, that would be fantastic.

wilsongoode• 4 years ago

Have you tried the Excalidraw plugin?

krimpenrik3• 4 years ago

Like mentioned, the excalidraw plugin is a game changer

gilrain• 4 years ago

Media management is entirely manual and very bare bones, unfortunately.

BlameKaneda• 4 years ago

You can do:

![[Pasted image 20221028163039.png|500]]

If you want to adjust the width and height, then you can do this:

![[Pasted image 20221028163039.png|500x700]]

belmat• 4 years ago

I use a plugin called Image Toolkit [0]. When you click on an image it opens an overlay that lets you zoom and do some light editing. I started including images in my notes inline, scaled down to about 50px (so they are still roughly recognizable), and clicking on them when I want to see them in detail.

[0] obsidian://show-plugin?id=obsidian-image-toolkit

beezlewax2• 4 years ago

Nice that will do the trick for my needs. Thank you!

tuan3w• 4 years ago

I published my Obsidian vault template in Github more than 1 year ago [1]. It has some templates and tips that I use regularly now. It may help others.

[1] https://github.com/tuan3w/obsidian-template

examplary_cable• 4 years ago

If anyone is interested in. I'm working on a "emacs-like" system that you can also use to take notes in, but it's more line a Outliner(like Roam Research) + Brownser. It's still in development.

https://github.com/ilse-langnar/notebook

srcreigh2• 4 years ago

Nice. I see there's a little piano on there, is that part of the app? One of my projects is always itching to become its own livecoding platform too..

Are there any specific use cases you're working on right now?

BTW, I'm seeing blank page when I run the demo linked from the README. Chrome on Windows.

agentwiggles• 4 years ago

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, (and this is slightly tangential since this doesn't exist for Notion) - I would _love_ a nice way to be able to write guitar tablature in my notes. If some kind of plugin exists for that it would be awesome.

chriskrycho6• 4 years ago

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
    - [<] scheduled something
    - [>] punted something to the next day/etc.

xerox13ster• 4 years ago

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

prithsr• 4 years ago

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 my whole life, and now I can just look back and find the exact date where I did something (the search feature is pretty spot on). It's even improved my retention skills - e.g. "i don't remember what day this happened, but I am positive xyz happened because I remember writing about it". Strongly strongly recommend it to all.

buzzy_hacker• 4 years ago

Do you do this at the end of the day or throughout the day?

tarentel• 4 years ago

Not the op but I keep a record of my work day. I try to do it as it happens but 50% of the time things come up so I'll usually spend some time before signing off to try to capture everything.

pkoird• 4 years ago

The major thing that people overlook in note-taking is "habit". Doesn't matter if you use Notepad, Obsidian or just plain pen&paper, the single most thing that matters is that you do it consistently. And like you said, consistent note-taking is a great cognitive exercise and has long term benefits.

runevault• 4 years ago

I'd say it depends a lot on why. Tools like Obsidian/Notion/etc making it easier to crosslink things has value depending on how you use it. But a taken note is still better than no note even if just for the mental exercise I agree.

chriskrycho6• 4 years ago

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.

ZetaZero• 4 years ago

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

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

dexterdog• 4 years ago

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

bojo• 4 years ago

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.

darrmit• 4 years ago

Obsidian works perfectly fine with iCloud Drive if you're bought into the Apple ecosystem. It also works well with Google Drive, but that doesn't play well with iOS.

krimpenrik3• 4 years ago

I use obsidian with Synthing works like a charm sync it to my phone and laptop and to my server where it gets backed up

belmont_sup• 4 years ago

I do this too for the past 12 years on DayOne! What started off as a “why am I doing this” first entry has now become an almost daily thought splurge.

It’s great for myself that always forget the little, prized memories too.

rchaud• 4 years ago

Diarly seems like a nice tool, and very affordable.

Unfortunately it's Mac/iOS only. I have a Mac but zero interest in using iOS.

kar5pt• 4 years ago

Are you concerned with the privacy implications of uploading every detail of your life to a cloud server?

craneoscopia• 4 years ago

I finally settled into:

- text files (edited with vim using vimwiki format ie. adding ``` %% vim: set ft=vimwiki ``` to the file

- syncthing (@ mobile, desktop and server)

- Markor (@ mobile)

Aperocky• 4 years ago

For the unix fundamentalist out here:

https://github.com/Aperocky/diaryman/blob/master/diaryman.sh

I had this little script aliased from shell, whenever I type `diary` it creates/open the current days' note file in vim.

_bramses• 4 years ago

Update the link to the weekly note. (I can definitely use a templating plugin to make this happen automatically, but haven’t spent the time on that yet.)

Here ya go! (Requires Templater plug-in)

``` Week: [[<% tp.date.now('yyyy') %>-W<% tp.date.now('ww') %>]] ```

chriskrycho6• 4 years ago

HEYO the internet did my work for me! Thanks!

tarr11• 4 years ago

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.

ytechie• 4 years ago

I haven't updated it recently, but this should give you a starting point: https://github.com/ytechie/obsidian-sample

There are some challenges with duplication, and I either keep my own version (focused on what I need to know about it), or I just have a link to the other system.

brightball• 4 years ago

I hadn't seen the block embeds feature. I'm going to have to add this to my workflow.

I typically keep a daily note and then if any one section gets large, move it to it's own note and link it in my daily. The blocks would be a great addition though.

eddof13• 4 years ago

I use obsidian because apple notes lost all my notes amazingly when syncing between two computers and my phone- and my hope is that the markdown file method that obsidian uses in iCloud will be more resilient.

That said I'd rather have something that versions my notes files

darreld• 4 years ago

I'd love to try something like this but my problem is that I routinely use 3 different computers throughout the day(Windows, Mac and Linux. Could this be used with git to keep things sync'd?

mikhailt• 4 years ago

Same here, I need something that's encrypted and cross-platform. Plus a decent price for cloud sync with storage a separate fee if possible.

NickBusey• 4 years ago

Much of what the author does manually can be automated even further. For example, the whole "Working with Embeds" section could be replaced with a DataView query.

I use DataView extensively to great effect. For example, every "Project" note uses the same template, which includes a #Project tag and a Status:: value containing a red, yellow, or green square emoji.

Then a simple query like:

```dataview TABLE Status FROM #Projects SORT file.mtime ASC ```

Gives you a very nice looking, automatically sorted and up to date Project status table.

nitinshivaraman• 4 years ago

After trying Obsidian, notes,Evernote and OneNote, I finally found Logseq and absolutely love it. Anyone else prefer Logseq?

Writing down what I do in Obsidian

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