I’ve been using Obsidian for a few months now, and one thing I struggle with is keeping my construction project notes organized. Between material lists, job estimates, and scheduling, things get messy fast.
Does anyone have a workflow or folder/tag structure that works well? For example, I’ve tried separating notes into folders like “Estimates”, “Material Takeoff”, “Project Photos”, and using tags like #roofing, #metal, etc., but it still feels chaotic.
Also curious: how do you incorporate your cost estimates or contractor quotes into Obsidian? Do you link to external docs, embed spreadsheets, or simply keep things in Markdown?
Would love to hear how others manage project‐based information in Obsidian so it’s both easy to find and reliably updated.
I’m not a contractor. I’m a writer, with project duration times ranging from hours to months for completion. I have a very simple and folder-heavy Obsidian setup.
A simple project might be a single note in the root folder. Once I have two notes, I create a folder for that project, and all documents and images for that project exist in that folder. Reference materials for the project, including PDFs and Microsoft Office files, are stored in another application.
I also try to maintain a folder note for each project, containing links to other documents, status updates, and the most important information about the project — deadlines, status updates, contacts.
Have you tried Bases yet? Because if you start using templates well, you can use properties to manage a good view in Bases. And Kanban view is coming soon, which will be awesome.
Some of the plugins I’ve used:
I have been using the “Kanban” plugin for a couple years. It really helps with structure and pushing projects through columns by workflow/status. It can use templates to keep things a bit cleaner. So if you make a note from a Kanban card, it can automatically apply a template with all the properties you need to fill out.
I started to migrate towards the “Projects” plugin. But the repository was made read-only, so it isn’t being developed anymore, unless someone else picks it up? But I think Bases and the Bases Kanban view will replace what I was hoping to do with this plugin.
Try out the new plugin “Notebook Navigator”. It’s awesome! It makes navigating your vault feel so much nicer, in my opinion. It makes having a folder structure instantly more useful.
It lets you zoom in on folders so you only see that folder, or tags.
So I have a hotkey (Ctrl-Shift-A) to open up the dual-pane folder view. Click on a folder OR tag (and you can choose your favourite tags) to quickly focus. And then close the dual pane view, and have a clean list of all the notes in that folder. And you can navigate with hotkeys to cycle through notes.
You can pin items to the top, and those pins are stored per-folder. So if you have a Projects folder, you can have different pinned items than at your vault root.
I also don’t use tags too much. But I do keep a small number of important tags, like #WIP for all my active notes. And now in Notebook Navigator I can pin items inside the #WIP view if they are the most important to focus on.
There’s a hotkey to create notes in the current folder. (and many other hotkeys and features I haven’t learned yet.)
And lastly, don’t be afraid to NOT use Obsidian for project management. If it isn’t suiting you, you might need to use a dedicated PM or task management app. Some apps support Obsidian URLs so you can link directly to your Obsidian notes. There are some projects where I use Linear app to track issues. And most of my schoolwork is still managed in my calendar and Apple Reminders (though I have notes in Obsidian).