Going back to Obsidian

Back in 2020 and 2021, I was a heavy user of personal knowledge management (PKMS) tools. Initially Roam Research, where I built up a graph of around 1000 notes, and next Obsidian, when I wanted more control and ownership over my notes.

Last year, at some point, I stopped using Obsidian, in an attempt to go back to a simpler setup for my note taking.

Drafts: where text starts

That journey lead me to Drafts, a tool whose tagline "Where text starts" accurately describes its powerful and unique position in the crowded note-taking app space. Drafts is not the final resting place for your typed words, but just the jumping off point, with complex system of 'actions' that allow you to take, push and wrangle those notes to go wherever you want them to go, in whatever format.

Drafts has been the tool I've been using to publish blog posts, take meeting notes, and keep a movie watchlist for the last year.

Obsidian: super-powered markdown notes

Now I'm back to Obsidian. If you haven't heard of it before - it's a massively flexible tool that boils down to a markdown editor, with interlinked notes and plugins that turn it into a knowledge management system.

One of the main things that I love about Obsidian is the Daily notes functionality. It is a nice hook to think about and structure your day, and to build in habits around journaling and keeping track of media consumption.

I'm now working to find a balance between permanent notes in Obsidian, and using Drafts as an entry point for notes to make it into Obsidian if they aren't fully ephemeral. Importantly, also - trying not to get too lost in the fun process of setting up these tools, and actually using them to enhance my thinking. WIP