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Using Obsidian to manage goals, tasks, notes, and software dev knowledge base
- senectus1 6y agoHN hug o death. anyone got a link to what this "obsidian" is?
- ffpip 6y agoNote taking app. It's good. Missing a couple of features. https://obsidian.md https://obsidian.md
- senectus1 6y agothank you
- senectus1 6y agobefore i go trying it out... it looks a lot like a personal wiki? RTF etc?
- ffpip 6y agoYes. Offline notes in markdown. So cross-platform. Great UI, 'Mind-mapping' thing that everybody wants, backlinking to other notes, markdown, offline (so private notes). Other alternatives - roam research, notion, etc
- tmottabr 6y agoif only they had iOS app. Using Notion.io because of that, but i would change to Obsidian when they have it. There is a workaround of storing the md files in iCloud and using a markdown editor like 1Writer to open and edit them. But you loose some functionality with that.
- ffpip 6y agoObsidian stores notes in markdown format. There is nothing more cross platform and future proof in notes, than markdown. You just have to sync a single folder. Google Drive/ Dropbox/ Syncthing, etc. Any solution works. Use any markdown app on iOS - https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=markdown+ios https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=markdown+ios
- wakkaflokka 6y agoI use MDNotes on iOS with my Obsidian vault stored on iCloud and it’s absolutely seamless. Trying to figure out how to implement encryption in my pipeline seamlessly too; Cryptomator might work.
- jakeva 6y agoI've tried it, I liked it. But I can't help but feel like I'm one of the only people who doesn't need an app for 'mind-mapping'. Am I missing something? Asking honestly, this comes up at work a lot. I feel like I can access things in my mind at will. Why should I need to transcribe it in some way?
- raindropm 6y agoI think the problem with general notetaking is, you take note and you'll almost forget about it completely in a couple of day. This style of notetaking software help 'resurface' those information you even forgot you jot down long time ago and make the process of 'discover' new idea much easier, something like that. Well, I mean it behave like our mind, just more tangible, in software form. Also, people forgot much more nowadays because of information overload...maybe that's why some people need to transcribe it into something and relieve their brain's load.
- ffpip 6y agoEven I don't get the idea of mind mapping. Just a gimmick for the productivity nerds imo.
- neuronic 6y agoBe careful. It's unlikely that you remembered what happened during your second day in university without me bumping your neurons a bit. What I am saying is, that often we need an access trigger first even if the memory is technically there. Mindmapping is a way to rewalk the thoughts you once had and reenter a specific state of memory and mind.
- implements 6y agoSeems to be an App to implement a “Zettelkasten“ type knowledge store: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten
- raytracer 6y agoIt does have a Zettelkasten mode but it's not enabled by default. Out of the box Obsidian is more like a wiki with markdown syntax.
- ffpip 6y agoSeems to be down? WebArchive can't access it. Google Cache - https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://joshwin.imprint.to/post/how-i-use-obsidian-to-manage-my-goals-tasks-notes-and-software-development-knowledge-base+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=in https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:... Google Cache seems to be just a proxy thats loading resources from the main site.
- sali0 6y agoObsidian is a fantastic app and completely free. You also store the data yourself.
- Brajeshwar 6y agoMy current working model (WIP). 1. Write in Markdown. Stay as less markup as possible and tend towards plain text. 2. Organize/Categorized into folders; such as -- parenting, entrepreneurship, startup, homelab, books, etc. 3. Choose a really simple publisher (Jekyll for now). I sprinkle the least front matter in the header of each file. So, I can publish the selected ones online for me, friends, and family. 4. Let Obsidian look over it (it drops just one folder .obsidian), write with it sometimes. I don't want any tool taking over, chewing it and making smart decisions for me. My focus are those files inside the folders. I should be able to just replace Jekyll or Obsidian in future without losing the integrity of my content.
- rorykoehler 6y agoMy favourite thing about obsidian is it made folders redundant. Now my notes structure is more like my thinking structure. Scattered but organised via bi-directional linking and tagging. It's a great way to discover new insights from your own thoughts.
- capnorange 6y agothis is the setup I keep going back to(I've tried Roam, Obsidian, Tiddly) - VimWiki + TaskWarrior + TaskWiki.
- gorgoiler 6y agoCould you elaborate as to why?
- capnorange 6y agoThe reason is mostly I couldn't replace my current workflow using other tools. 1. open-source. 2. One command away from my editor(I only use desktop for taking notes), also synced to my dropbox in case. 3. Amazing extensibility with plugins and custom scripts. Eg: bugwarrior + pomodoro(using Timewarrior, I've used this a lot when freelancing, not so much now) + some custom scripts. 4. Journaling - custom generated template of what I need to records/daily tasks etc. 5. Viewports in taskwiki are amazing, eg: for any project related notes I can do write `# Task | project:Pro1 and +PENDING` to list pending tasks in Pro1, you can also configure to use tags like development, bug reports etc. I couldn't find another tool that is as extensible. The downside is you need to dedicate a weekend to understanding and setup!
- tbabej 6y agoHappy to hear you find it useful!
- capnorange 6y agothank you for you work!
- z3ncyberpunk 6y agoCheck out Trillium. Open source, has a web clipper extension as well as a self hosted docker instance for Dropbox like syncing
- Jugurtha 6y ago
- gorgoiler 6y agoAfter having used Bear, Notable, and Atom + plugins, I’m realizing I don’t really want an app to manage my notes. I just want the notes, plus a tool to traverse them that’s got a bit more beef to it than Finder.app. I’d like to use a more powerful app like the one promoted here, but I feel desperately uncomfortable tying my notes [in] to a piece of proprietary software. I feel like that was a mistake I made already, and don’t want to repeat. It’s almost like Obsidian et al are highly featureful filesystem browsers, but where the only files one can have are markdown files. What about if I want to style a real PDF in Asciidoc? It’s really common for a note to evolve into a document. An idea becomes a lesson plan for a class, which morphs into a handout with tables, admonitions etc. What about if I want to represent some idea with a quick spreadsheet? Or a sketchup? It would be fantastic if those were somehow all represented as first class documents in the filesystem, as markdown is inside the current wave of proprietary markdown editors.
- xzel 6y agoboostnote.io might be a good tool for you. Its basically a markdown renderer + code coloring with some extra search and other features. The first version is open source and I believe the second version also will be (but not positive). you can also store your folder of notes in a dropbox folder and get decent syncing out of the box. I've been using it for two years now and don't have any complaints. I will have to admit I haven't moved over to their second version yet so I might be missing something.
- raytracer 6y agoObsidian is basically a "markdown renderer + code coloring with some extra search and other features" too. Notes in Obsidian are just regular markdown files that sit in a directory on your hard-drive. The notes can be version controlled with Git, synced with Dropbox, etc.
- xzel 6y agoYes I thought one of the things he didn’t like about Obsidian was it is closed source / proprietary. I do think they overlap pretty heavily. I’m personally going to give Obsidian a try tomorrow and see how it compares.
- Maha-pudma 6y agoNever heard of this before. Sounds like Zim-wiki, which is what I use. Does pretty much everything this can do plus is completely free.
- cel1ne 6y agoOne question for all users of knowledge-bases like this: How often do you write something down and look it the next day and realize it's not relevant anymore because of reasons like: • you memorized it • it's not as important as it seemed yesterday • it's a todo and having it there actually nags you and prevents you from completing it • it creates some other kind of mental load: while skipping over it, it grabs your attention, which then prevents you from attending to other tasks on the list. I have a theory that GTD helps only few, for most people it just makes them feel better because they are now spending time creating lists instead of doing what's on them.
- read_if_gay_ 6y agoI mostly use my wiki as a place to store actual information and use a different system for managing todos. I would agree that wikis aren’t really fit for that, if that’s what you’re saying, but that’s also not their intended purpose.
- raytracer 6y ago> it creates some other kind of mental load: I find it's actually the opposite. Writing things down means I can forget about whatever it is and focus on the task at hand. > it's not as important as it seemed yesterday This is a good thing in some situations. I generally write down ideas whenever they appear. Coming back to the ideas in days/weeks/months helps to provide some perspective. If it still looks like a good idea, it can be acted on. Bad ideas can be discard or ignored. It's a better outcome than spending a day getting side tracked only to wake up the next day to realise the idea was rubbish. It doesn't hurt to have a backlog of things for those slow, inspiration free days either.
- kavir 6y ago> it creates some other kind of mental load Agree with raytracer, that it works contrary to this. Writing things down in a system that you can reliably go back and check, tells your brain to calm down about this thought. If required, you can always reference it later. You will need to classify points as either tasks or general information you want to store for later. The cool part of tools like Roam, Obsidian, is that you can create bi-directional links. So if you are intentional about this and if you're referencing something related later, you will come across this point and it may be useful then.
- rorykoehler 6y agoI use obsidian and dropbox with markdown mobile apps (text editor on desktop)> It's teh best setup. Way better than roam.
- myrandomcomment 6y agoCanceled Evernote a month ago. To many bugs. Using VIM at this point. Honestly thinking of going back to a notebook. Only issue is I cannot read my own handwriting sometimes ;)
- read_if_gay_ 6y agoLook into vimwiki.
- rymurr 6y ago2nd that. I keep coming back to vimwiki after forays into other tools. It isn't perfect but its reliable and I can find my notes when I need them
- dmortin 6y agoA knowledgebase is for storing thousands of notes and quickly retrieve them when needed. Searching dozens of notebooks for the relevant info is not scalable.
- flo123456 6y agoWith plain text formats such as Markdown search is just one grep away. Using ripgrep it’s also quite fast.
- randomchars 6y agoI think parent was referring to this: > Honestly thinking of going back to a notebook
- dmortin 6y agoYes.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoUsed Evernote for a while, not even paid, but it doesn't offer anything (for me personally) that a flat folder with text or markdown files wouldn't cover. Then looking at the downside, I don't own the data and if Evernote decides they've had enough, all my stuff could be lost. Tried doing plain files again (via Notable because people said so, but that also doesn't really offer anything an editor with markdown support (cmd + click to open other file) doesn't offer itself), but by then I didn't really need to keep notes anymore (I passed beyond the "research" phase of my current project).
- dmytton 6y agoI moved my notes out of Apple Notes and into Markdown inside text files last year due to the bugs I encountered. This means I can sync them with whatever product I like (currently OneDrive) and open them on any system (currently macOS) with any app that can parse Markdown (currently iA Writer). It also means whenever any new app comes along, I can play around. Usually what I want is something that loads very quickly and has a minimal UI that allows me to focus on writing, but also allows me to search all files quickly. iA Writer ticks all those boxes, and also has support for simple #hashtags so I can organise the notes. Where things become more difficult is if the app adds a lot of custom functionality that is either specific to that app or adds lots of custom metadata to the files. Then you start to lose some of the above benefits, particularly cross-platform. I looked at Obsidian but found the UI to be heavy and slow, and lots of extra functionality I wasn't interested in. I've tried a lot of apps[1] but always come back to iA Writer. [1] https://davidmytton.blog/the-best-note-taking-apps-for-mac-markdown-open-format-cross-platform/ https://davidmytton.blog/the-best-note-taking-apps-for-mac-m...
- refresher 6y agoI tried Obsidian but prefer Foam[0], just because I enjoy using VSCode. Once it gets materialized backlinks I suppose it will be similar enough. [0] https://foambubble.github.io/foam/ https://foambubble.github.io/foam/
- phre4k 6y agoCan't you already navigate with the tree view instead of materialised backlinks? What's the benefit? I prefer to link my sites organically inside of text in the page. E.g. on a page about Linux I'd write GNU/Linux is an [operating system](../os) based on the Linux [Kernel](../kernel). Tada, two backlinks without having to list them. If there's no link on the page it's not important. Do you see problems with that approach?
- refresher 6y agoI actually do like the 'explore backlinks' pane for Foam so it would be of some navigational use for me. They list reasons for adding it as: > Make every link two-way navigable in published sites > Make Foam notes more portable to different apps and long-term storage (via https://foambubble.github.io/foam/materialized-backlinks https://foambubble.github.io/foam/materialized-backlinks) Though I may be getting confused between the backlink differences that Foam, Obsidian, and Roam offer. A list of forward links per document would actually be useful as well, which IIRC neither Foam or Obsidian offer at the moment. Obsidian also shows the user 'unlinked mentions' along with explicit backlinks, which is also a nice feature that Foam lacks.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoI just want a simple kanban board with dependency graph. Like Trello but with dependencies.
- Kosirich 6y agoMicrosoft Azure DevOps Board is free, so you can use that and it has dependencies
- phre4k 6y agohttps://kanboard.org/ https://kanboard.org/ has dependencies. What do you mean by 'dependency graph'? A graph showing relations and backlinks like with Obsidian? Or graph in a programming sense where you can access elements programmatically?
- tunesmith 6y agoI gather you mean an actual dependency graph, since that's what you said. :) Most task software with dependencies don't support graph data structures. I regularly use Flying Logic for this sort of thing - I make a huge dependency graph, and then I create a collapsible group that encompasses the stuff that is active. The part of the graph that is "below" that window is stuff that is already done, and the stuff that is "above" that window is stuff that can't be started until I do stuff in the active window. ("below" and "above" can be reoriented to "left" and "right" if you prefer)
- adamsdebra90 6y agoTry Restyaboard which is better than Trello in all aspects. It has more features and free to use. So you can use that and it has dependencies.
- yulaow 6y agoI think I almost dedicated the last ten years to try to solve my own problem about taking notes for tasks/goals. In the end I come back defaulting to paper-and-pen for day to day projects related notes, and cherrytree for reorganizing them weekly in a digital format.
- MrDresden 6y agoJust installed Obsidian to give it a quick test, and I must say I am impressed. I've been using Gollum for my personal wiki, but may just move over to Obsidian. Does anyone know if you can write your own plugins for it?
- pps 6y agoSoon. https://forum.obsidian.md/c/developers-api/14 https://forum.obsidian.md/c/developers-api/14
- francis-io 6y agoFor me, I'm unwilling to invest time in an app thats not open source. Other key things for me would be a web gui, mobile gui, self hosted and easily backed up. Trilium notes is the best thing I have found so far.
- jabirali 6y agoI suppose “self hosted” and “easily backed up” works fine since Obsidian is supposed to work on local MarkDown files which you can store and backup in any way you want. Not sure why you’d need a WebGUI since the app appears to be cross-platform; personally, I tend to view web interfaces more as a last resort when there is no native app available. I’m not sure a WebGUI makes sense either if you’re storing your data in a local folder. As far as I know, they don’t have a companion mobile app though, and that’s a deal-breaker for me too.
- slifin 6y agoI think what most people don't see coming is that Wilker Lúcio was hired by Roam Research he is the author of Pathom and gave this talk recently: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS3i3DTUnAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS3i3DTUnAI It's about connecting many graphs together, the killer app in this space is to figure out how to connect these graphs together such that teams and communities can grow connections on a massive scale There will be many challenges in doing that particularly around selection, per edge permissions likely leveraging Clojure's namespaced keywords to get global attributes This will mean a major re architecture of Roam Research, I predict most Roam clones are going to get absolutely blindsided by this Roam today is ~just~ a datascript database on the client being kept up to date with firebase For now if you want open source Roam keep an eye on https://github.com/athensresearch/athens https://github.com/athensresearch/athens
- immigrantsheep 6y agoMy problem with apps like these it's that they are always working on almost everything but not really. Lately I've been testing a few things and then I got back to Org-mode. Works on my desktop, works on Android with Orgzly and works on my iPad with Beorg.
- msamwald 6y agoI tried using Obsidian, but I could not resolve the uncertainty of what should be a separate note file vs several items inside a note file. I then tried various 'outliner' applications (Dynalist, Roam, Workflowy). With these kinds of apps, there is hardly any friction between document and content granularity levels; everything can be just one big tree / directed graph. I finally settled with Dynalist [1] -- it recently introduced backlinks and is the far more mature, sleek and feature-rich option compared to Roam. [1] https://dynalist.io/ https://dynalist.io/
- gauchojs 6y agoWhile I love Dynalist design, their forum and the simplicity... Roam is evolving quickly and has (what appears to be) little features that make it much more useful to me. More like a living, organic thing. Eg: I really enjoy [[doing this]] to a concept and turning it into a page in less than a second...
- O_H_E 6y agoBtw, obsidian is from the same makers of dynalist.
- marvion 6y agoThis was crossposted to the todoist subreddit and and I already said this there: The overhead that these systems need is my worst nightmare. I tried obsidian, because I saw how people use notion, roam and obsidian ro manage tasks and as knowledge base... but I just can't imagine me doing this. I programmed a Bot for todoist and at one point I developed a github > Todoist sync, to manage my work on the Bot... at on point it almost was comical how many additional tasks I ended up with, just to make it happen. I tried obsidian and quickly tried to use Typoda for markdown, because even writing markdown comes with an overhead... additionally I always need to install 3rd party apps to even access my knowledge.. I'm still looking for the perfect system, but always to back to Todoist for tasks and a simple static file generator for my knowledge base(docsify).. I can edit and access it from everywhere and dont have much overhead. What I also dont get is the lack of API of theses systems. Afaik notion still don't have one, and even roam doesn't. For journaling and brainstorming, I build a Todoist function that creates and links a Dropbox Paper directly to the task in Todoist... this way I already have a task and it's out of sight when I'm done... and it only requires a browser. I envy everyone who can use these apps though. It does seem to be a nice way of offload stuff of the brain.
- wittyreference 6y agoI was initially skeptical of Obsidian, but... (1) It’s not proprietary - it’s a browser +/- IDE for markdown files. I point it at the folder in my Dropbox directory where I already keep all my md files. It’s a new front-end, but doesn’t lock me into anything. (2) As an extension of 1, I can continue using NotePlan as my calendar/todo on my phone (which builds everything into md files), and Kiwi to access all of the above on my phone as a personal wiki. (2) was already my workflow and knowledge base; Obsidian just made for a nicer editing/browsing tool on PC. The key is that, as what is essentially a wiki, both the files/notes and their interrelationships are conserved/non-proprietary, regardless of what happens to the chosen software in the future. No lock-in for any part of my calendar, workflow, or knowledge base, and all three can point to one another because it’s all just md in the same folder.
- graphpapa 6y agoThis sounds like a great setup thanks for making me aware of Thes these tools; noteplan & kiwi
- MiroF 6y ago> (1) It’s not proprietary I would call requiring a paid commercial license if you plan on doing commercial use "proprietary." That was the deal breaker for me, as I'm more than happy to continue using Foam until a free Obsidian-like client comes along.
- wittyreference 6y agoI meant to convey it's not a proprietary format - no lock-in of my data.
- kderbyma 6y agoI just started using MindForger which is very similar. I will definitely give Obsidian a look because I love these ideas - thibkjng notebooks. check out MindForger - it is open source and quite simple to review as it's mainly one maintainer.
- kderbyma 6y agoGitHub repo is here: https://github.com/dvorka/mindforger https://github.com/dvorka/mindforger
- brodo 6y agoDoes anyone have a working org-mode setup with back-links?
- leotaku 6y agoNot me, but this guy[1] seems to have a pretty interesting setup using backlinks with Org. Other than that, org-roam[2] is becoming popular nowadays. [1]: https://karl-voit.at/2020/07/22/org-super-links https://karl-voit.at/2020/07/22/org-super-links [2]: https://www.orgroam.com/ https://www.orgroam.com/
- gregwebs 6y agoI am still using Simplenote because mobile works really fast and the sync stays up to date. The approach here of syncing markdown files with icloud seems like it might work well enough. The lack of linking between notes is definitely the missing feature of Simplenote. I like the approach here of trying to sync markdown files with iCloud
- digital_voodoo 6y agoI wish Obsidian (or an alternative of some sort) could pick up Devonthink's "AI" and work through both my markdown and my PDF files. No task management, planning, etc. Just plain reading, thinking and writing. The quest continues...
- kevinslin 6y agoif you are looking for an open source version of obsidian, I would check out https://dendron.so https://dendron.so (disclaimer, I'm the author) it supports all the same features and built on top of vscode. use it to manage my personal knowledge base of 20k md files
- fudged71 6y agoI've tried Obsidian, but the data structure is far inferior to Roam Research and not worth wasting my time with it. With Roam I know that my notes are building a rich forest of hierarchies and networks that will be more useful in the future.
- selykg 6y agoDid you read the linked article? Sounds like some people are having some issues with stability of Roam. It's one of the things first talked about in the article.
- Syzygies 6y agoI'm a mathematician who scripts everything I can. I've been thinking about mind-mapping for decades. My breaking point: I have DropBox folders for 1770 math papers, that I periodically read on computers and tablets. The significance of most of these papers is lost to me. I want to be able to browse this collection in a "supermarket shelf" topology. Most of creatitivity is not planned; planning tends to stifle creativity. Rather, a frenetic mind is fortunate enough, after months of fruitless wanderings, to encounter the right set of ideas in close enough proximity to notice. For example, a PCB protoboard has the correct 0.1" spacing to guide a router jig for making a pasta guitar. Who knew?! Ideally one traverses a private web site with links to every asset. The associations need to be both manual and automated, logical and accidental. For example, time of creation or visits is critical data for determining proximity. Looking at each PDF in plain text to attempt to infer proximity would be a great application of deep learning tools, leveraging existing proximities as training data. On a larger scale I have repeatedly urged the American Mathemetical Society to open up its MathSciNet cash cow to be a premier playground for machine learning. Unlike computer science, mathematics does have a detailed index of all published research, through the efforts of many volunteer reviewers. However, math is crippled by many archaic beliefs: That ideas are organized by fields such as number theory, and there is a single global worldview specifying this organization. That the value of MathSciNet is its hand-curated organization. I believe that we're crippling a generation of mathematical progress by not allowing mathematics to be at the forefront of mind mapping efforts, with many competing voices/tools describing its organization and facilitating idea browsing. Autocomplete is still at the "pager" stage of development, with "smart phones" yet to come. We could all benefit from the cloud autocompleting each of our mind-maps. Mathematics is a relatively small, constrained domain where shared mind-mapping and autocomplete could first flourish. I've separately used a text file as scratch paper many days for the last fifteen years, saving every file. I can retrieve much useful information through full text search. I am reminded however of Don Knuth's adage "Premature optimization is the root of all evil," and the smaller optimization problem of how to best organize physical receipts. Excessive organization is wasted effort and a form of neurosis. I scan lots of documents but not every receipt; they all go in boxes dated by quarter, vacuum packed after a year. When I really need a receipt I can find it, but the effort to file has been properly balanced with the effort to retrieve. Same with text files; full text search works. It would be a mistake for me to put more effort into the structure of these files. Rather, through scripts and AI tools, I can evolve an indexing exoskeleton around these existing unstructured raw materials. I need mind-mapping to manage assets, not to create a private web site of my thoughts. And there cannot be a user/programmer dichotomy; we each need to script additional associations into our mind maps. That belongs in exoskeleton, not cluttering up primary text.