For a long time, I’ve used the P.A.R.A. method for organising my notes in Obsidian.
This method, from Tiago Forte, breaks down your notes into one of four categories:
- Projects — notes related to projects you’re currently working on
- Areas — ongoing topics of focus or interest in your life
- Resources — files that you think are going to be perpetually useful, referenced in many other projects
- Archive — a storage silo for all the notes that you don’t think you’re going to need to reference in the future
This article will talk about the first one in particular — projects, covering the plugins and strategies I use to manage my project folders in Obsidian.
Let’s get started…
Building a project note
Project notes are the key to the organisation of tasks and notes relating to my projects in Obsidian.
I’ve talked a lot about the plugin Folder notes, saying it’s one of the most useful project management options I’ve encountered in the app.
This still holds true today, and I want to cover the content of the notes that I currently use to behave as a summary and index of the tasks and notes in my Obsidian vault.
The two key plugins in this situation are Dataview, and a new solution in my workflow — Todoist Sync Plugin.
Dataview renders a list of all the notes within the project folder so I can get an overview of the content, using this code:
```dataview
LIST
WHERE contains(file.folder, this.file folder)
AND category = "notes"
```
This shows the notes in the folder that aren’t of a special category
(and so are the default “notes”).
I’ve used Todoist for longer than I have Obsidian, for managing various tasks and goals, so the use of the app has become very natural to me, to the point that I don’t want to switch task management solutions.
The Todoist Sync Plugin materialises these related tasks in the relevant project note. This means I don’t have to open Obsidian to see the related actions that are going to elevate the project’s progress.
I can have the quick capture capabilities of Todoist, along with inboxing and clarifying steps that the app provides, combined with linking and elaboration in my Obsidian vault.
I wanted to share a complete template for my project notes, including both the Dataview script and the Todoist Sync Plugin script so that you can see exactly how I manage something like this at the moment:
I’ve found that having the tasks on the project note keeps me more accountable and on track to complete the work that needs to be completed.
This is because I’m seeing the project notes more than the actual project section in Todoist — when something’s in my face like that constantly, I have to pay attention and execute otherwise I’m permanently aware that I’m not prioritising correctly, or that I’m procrastinating.
What’s useful, is that I can check off the tasks in Obsidian, with this change mirrored in Todoist automatically.
Because my Todoist is filled with a lot of tasks that aren’t project-relevant, keeping my eyes off of the app and on my notes instead is a lot more streamlined, meaning I’m exposed to fewer options of things to do that aren’t going to truly help progress my work.
You can customise this project note further if you want.
For fast-moving projects previously, I’ve had a QuickAdd macro to capture ideas to the relevant file, for quick reference in the future, because many ideas deserved to be captured, but not many deserved their own note in the project’s folder.
Instead of using the Todoist Sync Plugin, you could manage your tasks entirely in Obsidian, adding them to the project notes directly. With the Tasks plugin, it’s entirely possible to build a fully-fledged task management system with due dates, start dates and priorities, right with the program.
If you have a really large project with many files in the corresponding folder, you can customise the Dataview views as well…
Something I use in my vault that’s similar to this is my Content folder, which contains all the outlines for the articles that I write. In the folder note for this folder, I have a different Dataview list for every platform that I write upon, using information from the category
property in each content note.
This could be transferred to project notes if the project in question has a lot of different note styles in it, from quick capturing during an online call to more detailed note-taking when reading resources.
In the end, as I always preach, you have to find the balance between complexity and minimalism that’s going to help you be more effective but at the same time not overwhelm you. Most of my project notes simply contain a list of the relevant files and tasks, just for a simple overview that keeps me on track and organised.
I hope that you’ve enjoyed and learned something from this walkthrough of my Obsidian project management solution. For a long time, it’s been something that I’ve gone about managing in the app, and I’m not stopping any time soon. Thanks for reading!