Starting Obsidian
andrewtsao • 30 Jul 2021 •
I’m enjoying this already. If 200WAD has made me fall in love with the consistent process of writing, writing more has made me want to link all my ideas together, and writing on LIfelog has made me more familiar with writing using Markdown. All these little Lego blocks seem to lead me up to this moment where I am writing into a minimal environment where there is no noise, just my thoughts on the page.
To be completely honest, I’m dreading the idea of digging through my past notes to migrate everything to this new environment (a common pain when it comes to switching or picking up a new tool), but after understanding how Obsidian works, it really reassures me how this is something I can stick to in the long term. The fact that everything is stored locally via text files does make me feel like it’s the best “future-proofing” I can do. With this tool being free, I no longer have to worry about the subscription fees that always seem to creep up the longer you use it.
Going forward, the first thing I would like to do is do my daily writings here and then migrate them to Lifelog. This noise-less environment seems to facilitate how I intend to get my thoughts out. It’s also incredibly helpful that Lifelog’s post uses Markdown as well for formatting so copy & pasting wouldn’t create any problems (on frustrations I had with writing on Notion).
Obsidian is another reminder of why I just love technology. Just when I feel like I have a good grasp of systems that best support me, I’m proven wrong and wrong again. As someone who’s tinkered with so many different systems to find one that works for me, I can immediately recognize why it’s a game-changer for someone like me. .
Onward!
Comments
Oooh nice! One benefit of using markdown which I never foresaw. How do you manage 2-way [[backlinks]] though? Since that’s not recognised in markdown…
I tried the whole writing in Osbidian then posting elsewhere, but felt the extra layer as friction. How do you feel about that?
@therealbrandonwilson Obsidian fits into the category of tools like Roam Research to allow you to create your PKM, or Personal Knowledgement Management system where you store your notes, learnings, writings. The idea is to also provide you the ability to “link” these writings, the same way we sometimes do in Lifelog to refer to something we’ve written about. But instead of using URL links, Obsidian relies on backlinks & tags to make this happen.
The Youtuber Linking Your Thinking’s passionate pitch about Obsidian definitely sold it for me and I get it now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x54XJrECvk
As someone who’s delve pretty deep into Evernote & Notion, I feel all the main points he addressed!
@jasonleow Still learning but spent basically an entire day on it. Can you elaborate a little more on it is not recognized in markdown?
From what I’ve tried so far, I’m not AS concerned about 2-way backlinks as when I was in Notion because the Obsidian’s Tag/Backlink view on the right-hand side allows me to see where the initial backlink was created from. That feels enough for what I’m trying to accomplish.
I definitely still feel a little friction (less so when I attempted to do the same thing from Notion to here). But my intention of being to store and connect all my daily writings still outweighs that feeling.
I still remember how painful it was to get all my 200WAD writing one by one so they don’t get lost.
@andrewtsao the double square brackets [[ ]] are not part of syntax for markdown, so I’m wondering if that means you got the additional step of having to edit away the double square brackets before posting them here…
Re: 200wad, didn’t you download the markdown versions of your writings? Btw, if you ever need all your writings downloaded from Lifelog, let me know.
@jasonleow I’m still trying to find the best way to write using Obsidian but from what I’ve seen the power users don’t see to write [[]] within the note. Instead, they always include in the footer a Tags, Reference, & Related section where they would add those backlinks or tags.
I didn’t know there was an option to do that! But I’ve duplicated a lot of the writings in my Notion database so at least I have that. And yes, I would love to get all my writings downloaded! How can we make that happen? 🙂
@andrewtsao Ah I seeee. That’s good then regarding the [[]]… I always felt those were like visual speed bumps when reading, especially in Roam. Glad there’s workarounds in Obsidian (obviously I don’t use it enough!)
I can manually download it for you if you like, and then email/file transfer to you. But it will be in JSON file format though (and within that, you’ll find your posts in markdown)… would that work for you?
@jasonleow Yes that works! Thanks for doing that for me. Let me know what’s the easiest method for you.
Here’s my email just so you have it: atsaotsao@gmail.com
No problem, will do. :)
So tell me more about exactly what you’re doing? I have no idea what Obsidian is other than a type of rock. I have been searching for a way to consolidate all my posts from a total of four different sites…