Posting an update on the idea I mentioned in 2023: Obsidian and Paper Make Good Friends: Analog Note-Taking and Digital Discovery. I’ve been on hiatus for mental health reasons, trying to give my brain a rest from information overload.
But I have to say, writing more physical notes has been essential to this recovery, and using Obsidian to keep track of these has been really great for supporting and enabling this effort.
The process is extremely minimal. I write a note on a 3x5 index card with the date and time, and a descriptive title, as a unique ID, e.g., 20250620 09:51 — This is a title
I then write the note, whether it be a personal reflection, idea, quote, learning from academic research, etc.
Then, in Obsidian, I have a single index file. Just one. This file contains a list of the index card titles, e.g., 20250620 09:51 — This is a title with tags next to them. This lets me use my preferred capability of Obsidian as a means of easily cataloguing and resurfacing my handwritten notes. I do not copy the content of handwritten notes into Obsidian, only the title. The idea is to focus on handwriting and Obsidian-enabled cataloguing.
I’d like to improve on some things. I’m still figure out my system, i.e., “life areas” and the activities and topics within, but Obsidian affords me the flexibility of changing this easily and quickly versus if I had set it up in a handwritten index or something. I’d also like to find a way, probably easy CSS, to make the tags smaller to take up less visual space–let me know if you have a snippet.
This process is meant to be low stakes. It encourages me to do more by hand, to slow down, to avoid burnout, but lets me take advantage of Obsidian’s search and tagging without obsessing over doing everything in Obsidian and constantly trying to figure out how I will use it. So far, so good, and enjoying this balance.
Hope you are all happy, healthy, and safe.
Examples below, sorry about my handwriting.
Analog example:
Digital example:
