My Obsidian setup
I've rebuilt my notes too many times.
The old pattern was always the same. I'd discover a new app, move a few files around, invent a neat set of categories, and convince myself that this time the system would finally stick. A week later I was spending more time deciding where a note belonged than writing the note itself.
That is a very silly way to avoid thinking.
So my current Obsidian setup has one goal: make it easy to leave useful traces while I'm working. Not beautiful notes. Not an impressive graph. Just enough structure that yesterday's thinking is still there when I need it.
Everything else is optional.
The rule: write first, classify later
The biggest change wasn't switching to Obsidian. It was giving up on sorting things perfectly at the moment they appear.
When I'm in the middle of debugging something, I don't want to choose between "client", "Elixir", "architecture", "bug", or "future blog post." I want to write down the error, the thing I tried, and the weird little clue that might matter tomorrow.
Classification can wait. Capturing can't.
That's why the busiest place in my vault is intentionally temporary. New notes, pasted links, rough outlines, and half-formed thoughts land in one holding area first. During a quiet moment I either move them somewhere more useful, merge them into an existing note, or delete them because they were only useful for ten minutes.
That last option is underrated. Not every note deserves a future.
Notes as workbench, not museum
The notes I use most don't look polished. They look like a desk while work is happening.
Here's a made-up but representative one:
markdown
There are tasks in there, but it isn't a task manager. There are links, but it isn't a bookmark archive. There are decisions, but it isn't formal documentation.
It's a working surface.
That distinction keeps the pressure low. I can make a mess, change my mind, paste a command, leave myself a warning, or write a clumsy paragraph that later becomes a cleaner one. When the work is done, the note is still useful because it explains how I got there.
Future me rarely needs a perfect record. He does appreciate a few breadcrumbs.
Daily writing is my release valve
Some thoughts don't belong to a project yet.
They might turn into a blog post. They might be a reaction to something I read. They might just be me trying to figure out why a particular implementation feels wrong. If I force those into a named project too early, they either get over-shaped or disappear.
So I keep a simple dated file for loose writing:
text
The format is deliberately boring. A heading, a few paragraphs, maybe a tag if I know I'll want to find it again.
markdown
Most entries never leave the vault. That's fine. The point is to keep the threshold low enough that I actually write. Published writing usually starts badly and privately; Obsidian is good at giving those bad first sentences somewhere to exist.
My vault has very few doors
I don't want a deep filing cabinet. I want a few obvious places to put things.
The broad buckets are:
- Capture for anything that hasn't earned a home yet.
- Work for active client, product, and open source notes.
- Writing for drafts, outlines, and ideas that may become posts.
- Reference for commands, snippets, checklists, and things I look up more than once.
- Archive for work that is done but still worth being able to search.
That's it.
The names are intentionally plain because plain names survive mood swings. If I need to think for more than a few seconds about where something goes, the buckets are too clever.
I rely on search for the rest. Search is better at finding an old phrase than I am at predicting the perfect category six months in advance.
The app almost disappears
Obsidian can be made very busy. I try hard not to.
I keep the interface quiet: file list when I need it, search when I need it, editor most of the time. I don't use the graph as a dashboard, I don't build a homepage for my vault, and I don't want a plugin to turn notes into a second operating system.
The useful parts are small:
- Quick switcher to jump to a note without touching the mouse.
- Search because names are never as reliable as remembered phrases.
- Templates for the few notes I create repeatedly.
- File recovery because losing text is a uniquely annoying kind of failure.
- A minimal theme with most visual noise removed.
That's about the shape of it. I have experimented with more, and some of it was genuinely clever. The problem is that clever plugins make me want to maintain the setup. I already have enough things to maintain.
When Obsidian feels like a folder of Markdown files with a good editor on top, I'm happy.
What stays out
Keeping things out of Obsidian matters as much as deciding what goes in.
I don't run my calendar from it. I don't run my task system from it. I don't track every habit, every book, every person, or every idea that crosses my desk.
Tasks in particular need a different kind of trust. They need due dates, review, recurring schedules, and a clear answer to "what should I do now?" Notes are allowed to be incomplete. Tasks aren't.
I also don't treat the vault as the final home for everything I write. Once a blog post starts to look real, it moves into this site's repository. That's where it gets edited, built, and published. Obsidian is where the clay starts to take shape, not where the finished piece has to live forever.
That boundary keeps the system from becoming sticky in the wrong way.
Why Obsidian stuck
The boring answer is portability.
My notes are files. Real files. I can open them with Obsidian, Vim, VS Code, Finder previews, or whatever replaces all of this later. If the app disappears, the notes remain exactly as dull and readable as they were before.
That changes how the tool feels. I don't have to trust Obsidian with my entire thinking life. I only have to trust it to be a good interface over a folder I already control.
And it is.
Fast enough. Flexible enough. Local by default. Markdown underneath. A little ugly if you let it be, pleasantly quiet if you remove enough furniture.
That's all I wanted: a place where work-in-progress thoughts can land, useful scraps can be found, and writing can start before it knows what it is.
No grand theory. No perfect system.
Just a boring setup I actually use.