I read a lot in the forums and on the Discord. I’m hesitant to jump over to Obsidian and the reason is that the tools is meant for something grater then my work notes that a pretty basic. I only write in bullets and (I don’t want outliner) and saving some PDFs Excels and Word files time to time.
I have my own business whit 15 employees, all my notes are in Evernote. HR Notes, Marketing plans, notes and files from sales department etc… I know Evernote and to be fair it’s a perfect app. On paper, it can do it all. The latest update (v10) made the app sluggish. So sluggish that I’m not using it as i used to because sluggishness enjoys me and i don’t have any patience. I do share notes from times to times with the personnel
I have been trying Notion. Well… it’s even slower than Evernote. I tried Craft, they have a perfect iPad app and I love it! But… they don’t have a windows client and I use iOS together with Windows. Their Windows client is still in beta. I’m on windows 90% of the time and don’t want to rely on the website.
So…i found Obisidan. It’s a high learning curve! I think I have learned to use it like a pro, sort of. I played with the app for a couple of months and install a bunch plugins that I like and need.
The issue is, when i read on the forums like Mac Power users, Obisidan Forum, and Discord. It feels like I’m using Obsidian wrong. It feels like almost everyone works as a researcher or a writer, studies. I don’t take books notes or save highlights from Kindle or read wise. I don’t take atomic notes, I don’t use Zettlekasten.
Am I using a tool that is meant for something else? Somethings greater? Am i using a scalpel to cut my meat instead of knife? Formula 1 car on a street race?
The real question here is ‘do you already have a system that works?’. If so why bother changing it. If not then Obsidian will probably do the job but keep it simple.
The good thing about Obsidian is that it can do simple things to complex things. One doesn’t need to go crazy and trick it out. It works just fine for simple note taking. If it feels comfortable and is getting the job done, don’t worry about all that other noise…
When you’re in general happy with Evernote and just don’t like the new version you can also downgrade to Evernote Legacy (i did the same since I also didn’t like v. 10)
Well, since you care enough to make this post, that probably means you’re seriously thinking about your workflow. If you think your workflow is fine, however, don’t bother experimenting. It can be hard to try new workflows especially if there’s a barrier to entry, so don’t be overly ambitious in planning a whole new work-paradigm with any new tool you try. The only reason I dove in and started seriously learning about Zettelkasten is I found deep flaws in my work performance that I wanted to fix. Getting Obsidian was one way of poking around to see what I could do better.
People do all these insane optimizations with their workflow through obsidian, but really, the only two things you need to use obsidian are to know how to type, and the [[link]] syntax. Do that, and you can get all weird and nitpicky as you discover ways to optimize what you’re doing given the other options offered by Obsidian. My hot take that might make some PKM nerds on here mad is that these highly optimized and complicated workflow systems people develop around Obsidian are inherently unhelpful. You can maybe draw inspiration from them or grab some basic ideas from them, but don’t worry about following them, or looking too deeply into what other people are doing with Obsidian. You will eventually develop something unique to you.
This
This is why im exploring Obsidian. To evolve my workflow and let the app handle some stuff for me. Like backlinks.
In Evernote i have a dedicated notebook where I keep my Daily Notes. What I find extremely cumbersome is that I need to manually copy the link to my other notes and paste it into my Daily Note for references. That’s also the main reason I started to look for other services.
I agree with you on this. It’s not on them it’s on me. It’s an inspiration to see what others create and how they push the limit of what a service like Obsidian can do. Even if it makes me feel like a first-grader
I would phrase it that the optimized and complicated workflows may be ends in themselves. People enjoy doing it for its own sake, like beautifully designed an calligraphed bullet journals. You can be very productive bullet journaling with a cheap Amazon Basics notebook and pen, but some people like to be fancy and that’s ok.
And then there are talented programmers who knock out a brilliant plugin first thing in the morning … because they hadn’t had coffee yet and didn’t have the focus to do anything difficult.
I think part of what motivates me and my own pushback is I’m always asking myself: Am I actually getting work done or this is useless overhead I’m adding by doing all this meta-cognition? To be frank, I’ve also developed my own complicated PKM system and that comes across with my published Obsidian vault. There’s also the question of do I “waste” my time learning PKM now in order to work faster later?
I think it’s great that some people get a joy from organizing. Creating order from chaos is satisfying. My only worry is that I don’t want it to be mistaken for actual productivity. And also, I want to calm newbies out here by telling them that the point is that a complex PKM should be something that emerges on its own and not something you plan ahead of time. At least that’s what’s worked for me - someone who’s a total lost cause when it comes to planning my time or my activities, even with Obsidian.
