A Year of Obsidian
After my friend brought it up several times, I finally decided to download Obsidian and set it up. Making use of the Daily Notes feature, I know exactly when I did, November 30th 2023.
- Setup Obsidian
- Submitted [[The Chaotic Stoic]] for publication in [[Spectre of War]]
- Published Lunchtime in [[The Next Horizon]]
- Meeting for [[Master's Thesis]]
- Published [blogpost](https://fleker.medium.com/is-open-access-worth-pursuing-00541836e4bc?source=rss-baa42a5b27c5------2) on [[Open Access]] for Education
By that point, I knew I wanted to focus more in the coming year on Digital Zen. Beyond just having a bunch of files and data scattered across a bunch of different apps, I wanted to consolidate and make sure that the software I was using was making my life easier and not busier.
This was something that made me hesitant to use Obsidian to start with. My friend called it a “second brain” which felt complicated. They tried to get a git process running on my phone to check in files regularly. It seemed like more work.
But other organization apps had their own issues. I had tried to use sophisticated apps like Trello and ZenKit, which have a lot of bells and whistles. In fact, I found myself spending my time with the bells and whistles rather than actually doing the tasks on the list. This Digital Bureaucracy was something I wanted to avoid.
So I figured I’d try out Obsidian again, and a year later I’ve kept using it.
Why I Like Obsidian
I use my phone a lot. I’m writing this paragraph as I’m traveling on the subway on my phone. A lot of these tools work great on a laptop but falter in mobile UX.
Obsidian has a good mobile interface. Sure one can nitpick, but I do believe they have made mobile work well in a way other apps have not.
It works offline first, which is great because I rarely get good service underground.
So I’ve started putting more notes into my Obsidian vault. Beyond daily notes, it’s become a useful place to collect bookmarks, membership IDs, highlights from reading, blog posts, and my science fiction stories.
My Obsidian Setup
I have been trying to follow the principles of Zettelkasten, which Obsidian does well. Putting it in simple terms, Obsidian can be likened to a wiki for your life.
I read Digital Zettelkasten, which is quite short but gives you a solid introduction to the idea. It isn’t specific to any one app, but it should help you get started.
You can be flexible with your approach. That can be intimidating, since any approach works. But nobody is scoring adherence to arbitrary rules, so flexibility can be useful. This flexibility extends to the data you put into it. As everything is just simple Markdown files, it’s easy to store them and move them around.
My files are stored in a folder in Dropbox, which allows me to sync my Obsidian vault across all of my devices. I have an app on my phone, DropSync which downloads the files and allows me to access them as regular files.
Obsidian Plugins
What is nice is that Obsidian doesn’t require any specific layout or anything. It’s a simple text editor at its core. But it can be augmented by plugins to give it functionality better fitting your workflow.
I’ve seen a lot of different workspaces and plugins, but I have only added a few in order to keep my workspace minimal and performant.
I’ve currently installed Charts, Commander, DataView, Find Orphaned Files, Instapaper, Markwhen, and Letterboxd for Obsidian.
That last one, Letterboxd for Obsidian, is one I wrote earlier this year. It’s fairly straightforward to write new plugins, using a TypeScript-based platform, and I have a few others in development.
These plugins have been helping me consolidate data and achieve Digital Zen.
Spreadsheets and Live Data
I’ve been making full use of DataView in particular. Prior to this, I had been using a few spreadsheets with custom formulas to keep track of a number of different things in my life. Even simple things like Christmas gifts could be neatly placed in a spreadsheet.
But these required an Internet connection to be updated, making it hard to use when I’m underground. So I’ve found ways to use DataView and have pursued even more concepts since then.
I’ve also transitioned my personal OKRs from a spreadsheet to an Obsidian document.
window.getPriority = (key) => {
const entry = dv.current()[key]
return parseInt(entry.split(',')[0])
}
window.getMultiplier = (pri) => {
return Math.pow(2, -parseInt(pri))
}
window.parseKr = (text) => {
const regExp = new RegExp("([\\w\\s->:.,?!;+]+) \\(P(\\d)\\)\\s\\(([\\d./]+)\\)")
return regExp.exec(text)
}
window.scoreOkr = (p, priority, scoring) => {
const scores = scoring.split('/')
let score = 0
if (scores.length === 1) {
score = scores[0]
}
if (scores.length === 2) {
// X/Y
score = scores[0]/scores[1]
}
if (scores.length === 3) {
// Y->X->Z
score = (Math.min(scores[0], scores[2]) - scores[1])/(scores[2] - scores[1])
}
if (p) {
return score*Math.pow(2, -parseInt(priority))
} else {
return score
}
}
window.scoreCat = (cat) => {
const entries = dv.current().file.lists.values.filter(v => v.section.subpath.startsWith(cat))
const krs = entries.map(entry => parseKr(entry.text)).filter(v=>v)
const scores = krs.map(kr => scoreOkr(true, kr[2], kr[3])).reduce((prev, curr) => prev + curr)
const sum = krs.map(kr => getMultiplier(kr[2])).reduce((prev, curr) => prev + curr)
return parseFloat((scores/sum).toFixed(2))
}
window.scoreOverall = (cats) => {
let sum = 0
cats.forEach(c => {
sum += scoreCat(c)
})
return (sum/cats.length).toFixed(2)
}
dv.header(3, `Overall: ${scoreOverall(['Create', 'Connect', 'Digital Zen'])}`)
dv.header(3, `Create: ${scoreCat('Create')}`)
dv.header(3, `Connect: ${scoreCat('Connect')}`)
dv.header(3, `Digital Zen: ${scoreCat('Digital Zen')}`)
- Write: SWE Articles (P2) (1/5)
- Write: Op-Eds (P2) (0/8)
- Write: Sci-Fi (P1) (13/26)
Wrapping Up
I’m going to write a longer article about my current productivity system. You’ll see Obsidian plays a central role in it, serving as a central hub for all of my data.
Why Obsidian? After spending a lot of time trying a lot of programs, I’ve decided it works the best for me. It works well on mobile, offline. It provides me with the flexibility I need to get things done.
With its plugin system I am able to create pages that have dynamism. They can reload and help run computations just like a spreadsheet.
So after a year of Obsidian, I’m am keen to see what it can do in the next year to help me get things done and not keep me busy.