Having used Obsidian for 2.5 years, I want to share some fundamental “principles.”
These come from my experience—you don’t have to follow all of them. But I personally find them extremely useful for quickly getting familiar with the Obsidian.
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Free yourself from the burden of “creating a note.” You can create notes casually, even if they’re just two sentences long.
Don’t hesitate because you think, “Is this worth creating a note…?” It’s 2025—a few words in an md file taking up a few KB won’t destroy the world. Be bold and create notes! -
File names aren’t that important either. Just write something that roughly reminds you of the content. You’re not a librarian, and this isn’t a library. There’s no need—at least not at the beginning—to devise some complex naming or numbering system.
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A follow-up to the above: Remember, you can always delete files or rename them. Don’t obsess over “perfectly crafted notes from the get-go.” You’ll never reach that shore—never. So just relax from the start, okay?
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You can use backlinks or not, but try to maintain your note properties. However, don’t violate Principle #1. Let templates handle the properties—just focus on writing the actual content.
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If you do use backlinks, remember this: Unresolved links are completely valid—even recommended! Even if you have an empty
[[Empty Link that never exists]]sitting there for a decade without ever turning into a real note, it’s perfectly legal. You won’t be arrested by the [[
Backlink Police]].
And not using backlinks in Obsidian is also completely legal! (But if you want a fancy graph to show off, backlinks are essential.) -
If you don’t want to deal with attachments: Use the
[[wikilink]]format and dump all attachments into a single folder. That’s it.
As long as you don’t open that folder, you’ll have an experience almost like Notion—no need to worry about “attachment management.” -
Of course, you will eventually need to clean up useless images or control vault bloat. So: check out the Image Converter and Nuke Orphans plugins—they’re must-haves for image management.
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But don’t go overboard—you don’t need many plugins to take good notes. Don’t let plugins become your rabbit hole trap, I beg you. I’m already at the bottom of the abyss, and I don’t want to see another poor soul fall in—run, run—!
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Forget about folders for now. Here’s the thing: You can’t “grow a forest”—you can only “plant many trees until they become a forest.”
What this means is: You won’t figure out “how your notes should be organized” when you only have a few dozen notes.More importantly, it’s 2025—“search” is far more practical than “organization.”
Instead of agonizing over where to place a note, adding a string of search-friendly keywords (like on an eBay page) might be more useful! For example:
OB Obsidian beginner advice guidance sharing rambling let-me-teach-you
Make sure you can easily find it later when searching!
Don’t worry about messiness—treat your notes like your own home! Toss digital socks around like confetti!
Last—and most fundamental—principle:
These are your notes, and you can write them however you want! Ignore what others say, including me!
References
Two pieces of material have had a huge impact on my current perspective. If this were an academic paper, they would rightfully sit at the top of the “References” section. So, I sincerely recommend them to you—
How I use Obsidian — Steph Ango
Kepano’s sharing about how he uses Obsidian
Most of my “letting go of obsessions” originated from this article. After reading it, the burden of using Obsidian felt about 30kg lighter for me. At least.
In case you don’t know Kepano—wait, does anyone not know him? He’s the current CEO of Obsidian! I mean, this is a CEO who actually uses his own product deeply—why wouldn’t you take his advice? Absolutely top-tier!
How Obsidian Fixes Note-Taking’s Biggest Problem by JayTheDevGuy
In fact, you could also completely skip my lengthy text and just watch this video by JayTheDevGuy. It’ll take more time, but it’s totally worth it. Plus, you get to see some really polished handmade animations!