Obsidian is a Markdown editor on steroids. It's my core tool for developing my Second Brain.
The methodology of how to tailor Obsidian to the way you work is mainly through plugins. More often than not, someone asking about capability in the help forums will be instructed to download and install a plugin.
Plugins come in two flavors: Core, and Community.
The Core plugins ship with Obsidian. It's just a matter of enabling them in the settings.
The Community plugins are built by the community to extend the functionality of Obsidian. Right now there are over 2,500 Community plugins.
These plugins make Obsidian flexible. It can be overwhelming being able to go in so many different directions.
I'll run through seven of my favorites and explain why I like them.
1. Homepage
I'll start off with a simple one.
Homepage lets you set a single note, or a workspace, or a graph, or any number of things, that display automatically on startup.
Right now, I have it set to show my Tasks page that I put together.
There is also a button (it looks like a house!) that appears on the sidebar that pulls up the page.
This is a useful plugin to make a “hot button” for your most used resources in the vault.
2. Dataview
Dataview is for queries across notes. Write some code and you'll see output on your page with the query results, live from the vault.
If you've done anything with SQL (Structured Query Language) then Dataview Query Language will be very familiar. There's also the ability to use JavaScript to write queries.
I use Dataview to construct and display queries for:
- notes that I need to update
- tasks I need to do
- articles I need to write
- links that I need to form between my notes
Constructing queries lets you customize reports from the information in your vault to inform you as you like.
3. Workspaces Plus
When I published my Obsidian Starter Kit for Content Creators, I didn't know about Workspaces Plus.
I set up what I called Dashboards in the vault. They were all single notes with links to other notes. I still really haven't gotten the hang of opening the other notes and positioning them where I need to have them.
Workspaces lets me save configurations of notes laid out, so they show up in place. I'll be modifying how I work in the vault to use workspaces instead of dashboards.
4. Tasks
This is a relatively new addition. It's a plugin that adds some capability for dealing with tasks, due dates, recurrence, and organization of them.
I had tried it some time ago, and it wasn't quite where Todoist was in terms of ease of use. For whatever reason, though, I haven't used Todoist in a while, and probably will cancel it next time around. It's not expensive, but I shouldn't be paying for anything I don't use somehow.
Getting Tasks back into Obsidian will help me to have them front and center a bit more. Both Todoist and Obsidian are easily available, but switching back and forth between them is additional friction, and it appears, enough that I don't really use Todoist as much as I should. I've ended up just checking everything off near the end of the night so that I keep my streak going, and that's not really a good way to use it.
5. Note Refactor
Note Refactor offers a quick way to create atomic notes from a single note that deals with notes from a book, or my daily journaling.
I can highlight the text and it will pull that text into a new note. I title the note as I create it. With my current settings, what's left behind is a link to the new note.
Modularizing ideas in this way makes it cleaner to link them. The links from other notes point to a single idea rather than a bunch of ideas.
6. TagFolder
The “file explorer” feature in Obsidian is note-based.
TagFolder creates a similar explorer, but based on the tags in the notes.
In my Obsidian Starter Kit for Content Creators, I have a number of simple tags that tell me what kind of note I'm looking at, and where it is in the creative process (draft, published, etc.)
I can also see quickly which notes don't have any tags at all, so that I can go back and add them in as appropriate.
7. Templater
Templates reduce friction and automate the creation of consistent notes.
Templater is the third most-downloaded community plugin. (Dataview is second.)
I only use a small fraction of Templater's capability but it lets me create notes easily with different templates for different content types. I want to start notes differently if I'm writing an article, as opposed to composing a reference list, or writing a journal entry.
Efficiency comes with consistent use.
I'm sticking with Obsidian for my written content creation so that I can gain efficiency with it.
Too many times I've given up on tools and had to start the learning curve over again.
The plugins I use with Obsidian may change, but I'm sticking with it for a while.
I want to go alongside you with your creator journey! I share my insights in my Solid Cash Tips newsletter.