For some time now, I’ve felt a need to pay more attention to what I’m thinking about things.
“Don’t spend much time thinking about what other people think. Think about what you think.”
The Daily Stoic, by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
I tried doing meditation for 5 minutes every morning. I would focus on my breathing and notice when my mind drifted. Often, I would think about things that were important to me.
It was beneficial to become aware of my thinking, but I needed a way to write my thoughts down so I wouldn’t forget them.
Writing down my thoughts about topics and things going on in my life helps me to define and clarify my thinking.
As a part of my morning routine, I journal with a prompt, “What’s on my mind?” This helps me write about my thoughts, but tends to ramble.
Now that I’ve moved from Day One to the Obsidian daily note to journal, I do have the ability to add links, but it still tends to ramble and is not organized by topic. This makes it more difficult for me to return to what I’ve written and modify or expand it. So I still need a separate area to record my thinking.
I needed a separate area to write down my thoughts and organize, link, search, and retrieve them. The Obsidian app has provided that means.
Using Obsidian to Collect and Develop My Thoughts
I’ve had a negative history with Obsidian. I was turned off by its ugly and spartan interface and by the exaggerated claims made by fanboys about the app. I took a few webinars about Obsidian but stopped using it after some experimentation. It didn’t work for me.
It was not until I worked through MacSparky’s Obsidian Field Guide that I understood how the app worked and how I could use it as a place to record and develop my thoughts.
In the Field Guide, MacSparky describes using Obsidian to record and develop his personal OS. His description inspired me to try it for myself.
See my blog post, Obsidian: the Good, the Bad, & the Ugly.
The Benefits of Using Obsidian to Record and Develop My Thoughts
• The Obsidian interface makes opening a new note and recording my thoughts easy. There are clickable icons and menu items to start a new note. The keyboard shortcut Command-N also opens a new note.
• The left sidebar lists folders and notes in a clean, straightforward format that makes it easy to locate notes when I want to make additions or revisions. Expanded folder contents are identified by a thin line on the left running along the contents.
The real value of recording my thoughts is the ability to return to them to make additions or revisions. By having a specific place to record and access my thoughts, I can allow my thinking to incubate over time and add those insights to my thoughts.
• Obsidian makes it simple to create new links and potential links. Linking files helps me find related material and see connections between thoughts.
Typing two left brackets and typing text creates a link and brings up pages with the same wording as the text to link to. Selecting one of these pages creates a link in the note and a backlink in the linked note.
If you want to create a new link, you can do so with a right-click “Create this File” command. Or, you can move the pointer to another location and click on the link to create a new note linked to the note you’re working on.
• Obsidian can be easily searched. Obsidian has a quick search function, or you can index the Obsidian files into DEVONthink and use DEVONthink’s excellent search function.
I keep almost all of my multimedia, PDF, MindNode files, and just about anything else in DEVONthink. Obsidian doesn’t handle many file types, so it’s not a viable option for my “second brain.”
In one highly customizable search, I can search all my files, including Obsidian. I find using DEVONthink’s search more straightforward and productive than Obsidian’s built-in search.
• Obsidian’s font size can be globally changed. As I get older, I find that often, the default text in an app is too small for me to read comfortably. Obsidian provides the means for me to increase or decrease font size, thus making it more useful.
Using Obsidian to Record and Develop My Thoughts is a Work in Progress
As I think about different topics, I write notes. If appropriate, I link my notes to others or create prospective links I intend to develop later.
When I started, I did not build any structure in advance. I am allowing the notes I write to determine the structure.
In the several weeks I’ve been using Obsidian, I have gone from having all of my notes at the root level to having several folders collecting related notes. When I have numerous notes on different aspects of the same topic, I prepare a “hub page” that defines a topic area and lists links to the notes I’ve made.
I anticipate that my organization will change as my collection of notes grows. I’m unsure what it will look like in the future, but that’s OK. It’s an evolving system that will change as I learn what works and what doesn’t.
Some talk about Obsidian as “where I do my thinking.” While that’s true for me to some extent, I still find using a mind-mapping app like MindNode invaluable. I use MindNode when organizing and thinking through a detailed project, like writing a blog post.
Visualizing my thinking, graphically moving thoughts around, and attaching them to others helps me see gaps in my thinking and organization. It creates a much better outline of my thoughts than an outline in Obsidian. I can think through multiple ideas and concepts more clearly in MindNode than Obsidian.
Start Your Personal OS to Collect Your Thoughts
You think about many topics. Why not benefit from writing those thoughts down to define and clarify your thoughts?
Once written down, you can return to them and revise them as your thinking changes.
An Analog or Digital Format?
You can use either an analog or digital format. You can purchase a paper journal to write down your thoughts.
While a handwritten journal is acceptable to write down your thoughts, it has some significant limitations. If you want to revise or add to your initial thoughts (which you will), will you have room to do so? Moreover, how do you find your thoughts about a topic if they are scattered through one or more paper journals? While people have devised complicated indexing systems, the hassle is not worth the benefits.
A digital format provides the simplest and most robust set of features for recording and revising your thoughts:
• You can quickly search for any word or phrase in your writings to locate your thoughts.
• You can create links and backlinks to link your thinking.
• You can easily revise old notes.
• You can make unlimited notes, not restricted by the number of physical pages.
How to Choose a Digital Notes App
There are many excellent apps specifically designed for taking and storing notes. Here are a few of the more popular apps:
• Evernote.
• Apple Notes.
• Notion.
• Craft.
• Obsidian.
Each of these apps has strengths and weaknesses. Compare the features of each, the cost, if any, and the way the app looks and functions. You don’t necessarily want the app with the most features but rather the ones you need.
In the past I’ve used Craft to create and develop linked notes, but I find it easier to use Obsidian for this purpose. It makes it easier for me to create links and potential links, and to navigate to return to a note.
Look at the list above of the benefits of using digital apps. Use those benefits as a way to evaluate the different apps available.
Most apps have free trial periods. Try out an app and see what works best for you. Find an app you enjoy working in.
Tiago Forte wrote an article about finding an app that fits you: The 4 Notetaking Styles: How to Choose a Digital Notes App as Your Second Brain. You may or may not find his approach helpful to you. The best thing to do is try out the apps for yourself.
If you decide to use Obsidian as your notes app, I strongly encourage you to purchase and work through MacSparky’s Obsidian Field Guide. You can choose between a standard edition and a Plus Edition that adds about ten hours’ worth of additional material.
There’s no better way to learn about how Obsidian works and how you can potentially use it. David Sparks is a master teacher, and in videos, both explains concepts and shows you how they function in Obsidian.