Maybe this is a silly thing.
But one place I feel friction when creating notes is that when I make a new note, and link it to others, I feel obligated to go to those linked notes and manually create links within them back to the new note. Tonight I was wondering: is this necessary? When I watch videos of people demonstrating their zettelkasten setups, they rarely seem to do this.
Am I the only one, or is it such a standard practice that it’s just assumed to happen?
It’s a matter of preference and what you’ll find useful. The Backlinks core plugin makes it not strictly necessary, but putting them in the notes as actual links makes them available outside of Obsidian.
Ask yourself, “When I’m looking at the note I just linked to, will I need a link back to this one? Will I want one (and how badly)?” If you’re looking at a note and wish you had a link to another note, you can always add it then (of course that doesn’t help in the case where a link reminds you of the existence of another note).
I’d say if it feels too high friction, don’t feel obligated. I do it sometimes but not consistently.