#1

The idea is to discover areas in your knowledge base that haven’t been reviewed in a longer time. With a digital garden analogy, it’s similar to looking around for weed and fixing them.

Some implementation thoughts:

  • Custom slider that filters by how long you haven’t accessed a note (looked at it);
  • Should you need to explicitly say that you’ve reviewed a note or not? (being explicit would mean clicking a button, for example);
  • I like Trello’s card aging power-up. It’s visual and fun to look at.
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What is your Personal Knowledge Management problem?
Programmable "open random note" with custom conditions
Show 'time since last edited' in File Explorer (note age)
#2

I had some notes on this in my vault!

Note Age, useage, revisits, links

  • tapping into this data as another form of context, interactivity, serendipity, networked thought value function
  • visually depict older, long forgotten, highly link - little visit/use lately, vice versa, etc
2 Likes
#3

I don’t know exactly the best method to visualize/explore it. But is there a way for Obsidian to know when a note has been opened, viewed, edited, etc? Perhaps this age view could just tap into this data if so?

#4

We know but it’s the info on your file system, we do not keep track of them separately. That means we do not distinguish between whether Obsidian accessed/modified the file or Dropbox did.

That may not be desirable in this case, because many apps could touch the file; doesn’t mean you’ve looked at the note though.

1 Like
#5

It’s great! Can’t wait this plugin is applied for Obsidian.

I also have some addition. How if make “note/file status” that gives a sign for:

  • This note is needed to revisit or reviewed (as your idea)
  • This note is needed to reflect (since we just have created it, but not yet to think deeply about it)
  • This note is needed to continue (not finished yet)

This “note status” can be seen in the graph view by note node color. Let’s say:

  • Green node => for healthy note (finished note, already reflected, frequently linked, reviewed for recent time)
  • Yellow node -> For need maintaining (need to review, need to reflect, or need to work on it again)
  • Red node -> For unused/old note, empty note (since we created backlink for it).

The note, which is first created and empty, it will have a red. When filled, it will get yellow. If we are sure that the note is done and already reflected, then we can click the note icon (at the corner of note) and it will get green (click back to get yellow again, if unsure). And the note will be yellow again if no longer used/reviewed. For note that has a few links to other notes (as Fovea’s idea), it will fastly become yellow. For note that has a lot of links, it’ll be very slow to become yellow. Also for a note that already frequently reviewed, it’ll be very slow to become yellow again (it’s like our brain memorizing system!)

I have another idea. It’s “note comment.” We can give a short comment on our note. So in the graph view, when we click a note node once, it will pop up our comment on that note. I think it’ll be helpful to remind us of what needs to do with that note (sometimes I forget since there’s a lot of notes). double click the note to open the note as usual.

PS: Thanks a lot, the Obsidian team. I’m so grateful. Obsidian help a lot to do my Quran project.

3 Likes
#6

This “note status” scenario really resonates with me. I’m using page icons in Notion for that:

Screenshot from 2020-07-01 10-41-54@2x
Screenshot from 2020-07-01 10-41-54@2x707×587 41.2 KB

Basically some custom icons that I upload to each note:

  • tree -> There’s a bunch of stuff written in that note.
  • growing -> There’s some of the stuff in there, but it could be expanded upon.
  • sprout -> There’s like a sentence or two written in there.

When I look into my “Topic Forest” (idea borrowed from Valentin Perez), I can quickly asses what I will get as a result before I click on the note.

The closest I can get to it now is to add something like 1-5 at the beginning of note’s name. This would be helpful, as it would allow me to add emojis to h1 tags to achieve similar results:

I’ve also thought about abusing tags for the purpose (add #1-5 to a note, allowing me to search for all notes that need to be worked on), but from a discovery perspective, it’d still require me to click on a note to see the which of the tags I’ve associated with it.

4 Likes
Use H1 or front-matter title instead of or in addition to filename as display name
#7

Would really like to see this plugin. :slight_smile:

#8

I’d love to be able to add similar icons to Obsidian notes. The icons could appear next to the notes in the left-side menu.

You’ve given me the idea to create three similar folders (sprouts, growing, trees).

#9

That’s a great idea.
Maybe this could come together with a spaced repetition functionality.
Two birds with one stone.

1 Like
#10

God idea, but being able to disregard journal notes would be essential to me.

1 Like
#11

I have old notes that no longer make sense because I forgot the context.

So this idea would go along with a more general system of reminders, e.g., to finish a thought that was jotted down in haste but is valuable enough to think more thoroughly about later. It would in essence be a physiological state monitor (of busyness or distractability) to prevent forgetting the train of thought that makes the brief note discernable.

1 Like
#12

I still think this is a great plugin idea. I also submitted a feature request to make this kind of gardening easier to do within the Obsidian interface:

1 Like