A year ago I moved my notes into Obsidian. Like most people I started by watching setup videos and building an elaborate system. Most of it is gone now. Here’s what’s left.
Few folders, many links
I started with a deep folder tree. Now there are five top-level folders:
Inbox/
Notes/
Projects/
Daily/
Attachments/
Everything that isn’t a daily note or tied to an active project goes in Notes/. Structure comes
from links and a handful of index notes instead of folders. When I can’t decide where something
goes, it goes in Notes/ and gets a link from wherever I’d look for it.
Daily notes as the default entry point
The daily note is where I write anything without thinking about where it belongs: meeting notes, commands I ran, a half-formed idea. Once a week I skim the week and promote anything useful into a proper note.
Plugins I kept
- Daily notes and Templates (core). Enough for my needs.
- Dataview, but only for two queries: open tasks across projects, and notes created this week.
- Git for syncing and history. My vault is a private repository and commits every 10 minutes.
I removed everything else. Each plugin was another thing to update and another way for the vault to look different on my phone.
Writing notes I can find again
The biggest change was in how I write, not the tooling:
- Titles are statements or questions, like “How restic retention works”, not “restic”.
- One idea per note when it’s something I’ll link to. Long logs are fine in daily notes.
- A short summary at the top in my own words. When I come back months later, that line is what tells me whether I’m in the right place.
What didn’t stick
- Elaborate tagging. Tags drifted, links didn’t.
- Graph view. Pretty, never once useful.
- Reading highlights auto-imported from everywhere. I never read them again.
The system I have now is boring, which is the point. I spend my time writing notes instead of maintaining the system.