Diving Into Obsidian
New steps in a new notetaking system.
A few months back, I wrote about being fed up with Evernote as a notetaking app and organization system for my writing. While initially enamored with it, slowly over time Evernote has gotten more interruptive with less quality. At the time I wrote that last post, I was contemplating switching to Notion. Since then, I’ve actually gotten set up with Obsidian thanks to recommendations of a friend.
Most of my outbursts online re: Evernote are negative, but the post I wrote held genuine tenderness for the platform. Evernote helped to collect many years worth of writing. It forced me to accept that I am writing, I am making progress. So, thank-you Evernote, but I am ready for a new chapter with Obsidian.
Tonight, I started the official note migration process into Obsidian. I’ve already had a few days with Obsidian, perusing Themes, settings, and plugins.
If you take a look into Obsidian, you’ll quickly encounter its raving fans. “Obsidian changed my life!” is a common claim. I’m naturally skeptical at such superlatives from people, but the more I look into Obsidian, I see why it may work so well for people.
Obsidian is extremely flexible. Although it’s not an open-source program, its “moddability” (for lack of better term) means users can essentially build it to do what they want it to do. Imagine a LEGO set or Minecraft blocks for a productivity system that you tailor for your own needs.
How customizable Obsidian can be could intimidate new users. However, the service does a fairly good job of keeping things simple out the gate. It does make me think about the nature of software, thought, and organization. Is Obsidian essentially an operating system? Are our brains operating systems?
Looking forward to completing the transition and getting more writing done.
Do you use Obsidian? What are some of your favorite plugins?
If you don’t use Obsidian, how do you organize your work or writing? How do you balance digital systems and physical ones?
Talk to you later. PS, yes I made it back to San Francisco.
Darlene