Taking notes using Obsidian

I didn't use to write much down. I used to keep everything in my head, where things change a lot and are forgotten. Now my main note taking app is Obsidian. Its main appeal to me was that the notes are formatted and stored as plain Markdown files. That means I am not locked in to Obsidian if it ever goes away or I want to change my note taking app. The app's design and philosophy seem to respect the user. Its biggest feature though is its web-style structure. You make links as you write that connect to other notes you've made, and over time you have a web of notes all interconnected. It looks cool and is maybe a more natural way of thinking as opposed to something like a folder/file structure. Here's what it looks like:

I discovered Obsidian from watching Randy's(a game developer) videos. He was using Obsidian as a "digital garden" to help him design and develop his videogame. It seemed cool so I downloaded it. I was immediately pretty stumped. I didn't have anything to write. What I did then, was I picked something from Wikipedia, and tried to learn and explain the topic in my own words. After that I dug deeper, and picked a relevant topic that was mentioned before, made a link to it and wrote about it. This would naturally form a web of stuff, with links back and forth. I found it very satisfying.

I didn't continue doing the Wikipedia thing much, but I moved my diary to it. I used to write my diary to an app called Daylio. When I started using Obsidian, I asked myself how I store my important data. I realized my Daylio entries are in a proprietary Daylio format with Daylio's own backup system. That rang some alarm bells in me, so I started writing in Obsidian, in markdown. I can back up my data how I want and trust that it is readable for the rest of my life. I still need to make a script to import my old notes from Daylio to Obsidian. I should make a blog post about that.

As I used Obsidian as a daily diary app, I started learning to write about things that require more mental processing, like difficult life choices, or brainstorming and collecting ideas. This has been a useful skill, and it's fun to see how my thinking has developed and what I was thinking a while ago. This has been a positive feedback loop where I learn to offload more of my mental space to written notes, building a second brain. Building a Second Brain is a book I need to read btw. Here's my current web/graph

The app is free for personal use, but if you want to synchronize your notes between different devices you have two options:

• use some free 3rd party solution like a google drive syncer
• Obsidian Sync, which is a 1st party service for syncing notes and settings between devices

I wanted to have my notes on my computer as well as on my phone, so I needed some kind of sync. First I tried a google drive solution, but it was a hassle and felt unreliable. Then I subscribed to Obsidian Sync. I pay around 10€ per month for it. I think that's alright since it's a product I use every day and respect the devs for. It has worked really nicely between my laptop, desktop pc and Android phone.

Using Obsidian also forced me to learn markdown, and learning markdown inspired me to create this website that lets me use markdown to write content to a html website.

In short, yay for Obsidian and open formats!