Table of Contents
It was well over two years ago that I first found out about Obsidian now, and I can’t remember how it came to my attention either.
All I remember was that I thought that this app would be a great solution for all clicking about between Notion, OneNote and more that I was doing.
I needed something that was going to break me out of my shiny object syndrome rut.
Today, I’ve been using Obsidian consistently for over the last two years.
The system within the app has changed slightly here and there, but since I launched my system for everyone to use a bit less than a year ago, I’ve been working the same in my vault consistently.
Recently, though, I noticed that I never really gave an entire outline of how I work in my vault — the plugins that I have and the systems that I use to create work, so I thought I’d do that in this piece.
Welcome to the complete run-through of the details of my Obsidian system.
Projects I use Obsidian for
I say a lot that I’ve used Obsidian for the last two years but less of you might know what I’ve been using it for…
First and foremost it’s somewhere I can write down my ideas and thoughts. This inspires pieces of writing that I can choose to share on the internet or just keep the pieces private for personal reference.
In the vault, I have systems for writing pieces which include using bullet-pointed outlines and writing in another pane…
It means that I can access quickly the plan for the piece I’m writing (the example above being me writing this piece in my Obsidian vault) and seamlessly change the outline into a full piece in my head and write down the resulting work whilst in full flow.
Whilst I’m studying at university too, I’ve been using Obsidian for all of my notes and writing. In the past, I’ve shared articles about how this works in terms of creating AI flashcards and beaming them to my flashcard app but since then, I’ve tried to focus more on the tasks that are going to make a difference in my study.
This meant stopping procrastinating making small automations that might help a little but are more likely a waste of time.
Since I’ve started using Obsidian in my study the plugins and methods that I’ve used haven’t changed that much, as I’m just keeping things low maintenance so I can work on other projects at the same time.
I’ve written about these plugins before but I’ll tell you about them again here-
- Pandoc Plugin to export essays as PDFs when they’re ready to be submitted
- Citations Plugin to help get citations into my work from Zotero with minimal effort
- Qmd as md so I can edit my essays and reports in Obsidian and have all the functionality of the Quarto markdown format
- Shell Commands if I want to export these .qmd files into PDFs as well
I try and keep things streamlined so that I’m not wasting time. This keeps my job as easy as possible, emphasising creating and building.
Since last year, when I launched PARAZETTEL (more on this system below), I’ve been using Obsidian for all of my business organisation and progress too.
It’s been great to be able to keep track of something so important in the same space as all the other content I value so much. Using Obsidian has played quite a large part in my life in the last couple of years.
I mentioned some academia-specific plugins earlier, but I’m going to go into a bit more detail about other plugins that I use now…
Important Obsidian plugins I use in my vault
One of the reasons I loved using Obsidian so much from the start was the fact that there was so much granularity in the plugins and features you could use in the vault…
You could truly make the app yours, an ideal environment to work in — that is if you could get past the shiny object syndrome caused by having countless plugins available to choose from.
It took some work to build a system I was happy with, but now I have something in this app that I’d never be able to get anywhere else and I’m not likely going to switch.
You can make these changes to features through core plugins and community plugins but for now, I’m going to go through the most important community plugins in my system…
- Dataview and Folder notes — I’ve lumped these two together because they work together in my system. I combine the two to make index/folder notes for each important folder in my vault, creating a point from which I can overlook all the content of a certain topic or project I’m working on at the moment. I’ve written more in the past about how these two work together so if you want more detail then go to this piece…
- Readwise Official — I consume content from Kindle, Medium, podcasts, Twitter and more, and there are a lot of insights and ideas that come from there that I want to save and make accessible. Readwise aggregates my highlights in my Obsidian vault where I can use them in projects or as inspiration for notes in my Zettelkasten. Because I’m a student and I’ve been around since before they introduced Reader, Readwise is a very affordable subscription for me considering the service’s features.
- QuickAdd and Templater — I wrote about these plugins when I was talking about the best Obsidian plugins for power users and they’re still plugins that I use every single day. They automate the quick capture of information in my vault and the quick automation of repeated addition of metadata as well so I don’t have to write the same thing every time I make a new note. Very useful…
The plugins in the list above have been the ones that I’ve stuck to most religiously since using Obsidian so in the interest of keeping things short(ish), I’ll move on to the folders and underlying system I use with these plugins…
My folder organisation and PKM system
Again I’ve touched on this system many times in the past but I’m going to talk about it in this guide for the sake of having all the details in one place…
Back when I started to use Obsidian, I was very into the Zettelkasten method as it was becoming popular. I heard lots of people saying that it was a great approach for managing ideas.
However, I struggled because there were other projects I was trying to get on with and Zettelkasten isn’t designed for keeping up with projects, changing details and creating resources.
One system that is, though, is the PARA method from Tiago Forte — not long after I struggled with just having the Zettelkasten Forte released his first book Building a Second Brain and I devoured it and loved every part of the method.
But I didn’t want to lose Zettelkasten when switching over to PARA (which was much more adapted for project work).
So eventually, I came up with an idea to fuse the systems into one. I called it PARAZETTEL and it became quite popular with the online audience reading the early ideas about it that I was sharing.
As for how it works — putting it simply, it’s Forte’s PARA Method with a slight modification to the Areas section…
Projects — project folders for each current project that I have running, containing relevant information and content to do with this project (The same as the PARA method really)
Areas — Here’s where the main change and fusion of both systems takes place — instead of having folders with individual content of important areas, I changed the Areas folder into a Zettelkasten to keep its set of features in my vault at least in part. To this day, it’s worked fantastically. I can link my ideas together using Obsidian’s backlinks and build this hive of ideas and thoughts that I can dip into when I want inspiration for use in other Project or Resource folders.
Resources — these are folders about general topics that contain notes that I might want to reference in the future. This is where the Readwise folder is, which contains all the notes from Readwise that are imported. It’s also where my ‘Content’ folder is, where I write all these pieces and plan them (not part of any project, although back when I started and was less confident, every piece I wrote had an individual project folder).
Resources are almost a catch-all for content that doesn’t belong to a certain project or into the Zettelkasten but that I know will be useful in the future when I need it again.
Archive — this is where all the stuff that is no longer useful goes. It’s to make sure that, if I do need it back, the content is not completely deleted and I can recover it, but it’s to keep it out of the way of the active content in my vault. It’s where the folders of completed projects go to live and it’s where other content that’s been completed or shared goes too.
This way, I’ve developed a system that has all the benefits of the two most popular methods for managing knowledge — the PARA Method and Zettelkasten.
The PARA method remains to help me do actionable work and complete the projects that I’ve got in front of me, and the Zettelkasten helps me develop ideas and bring more understanding and depth to the knowledge that I put in the system, useful then to complete the projects because the system actually has apparatus for this too.
I teach people how to use PARAZETTEL, in more detail with a demo vault that they can download for Obsidian and start using, but I think the best way to go about developing a personal system is to do what I did…
Even if you start with a template or inspiration like the PARA method or Zettelkasten, eventually you’re going to notice that you want something custom for yourself. And that’s when you take elements of different systems and build something unique.
I always say to people who end up using PARAZETTEL as their own system that I’m more than happy if they eventually turn it into something that’s uniquely theirs because that’s what I did myself — PARA Method and Zettelkasten existed before me, PARAZETTEL did not.
Users of the system are more than welcome to incorporate it into the next evolution of PKM systems in Obsidian and beyond.
You can do this by paying attention to your work and how your system should be set up to make things easier for you…
Reviewing, updating and improving your system
This is something that I still find myself doing now and again. I clear things out of the vault, bring it back to the basics and make sure it’s a simple place to work.
For example — I noticed recently that I wasn’t making full use of the Zettelkasten in my system. Rather than working with ideas, I was bypassing the part of my creative process where I develop them into something worth sharing and I was noticing the decrease in creativity that came from this…
Instead of continuing this way, I went back to writing a lot in the Zettelkasten. Now I’m back amongst the best of my ideas I’m as creative as ever with what I’ve been putting out.
So find your equivalent — your system is something that’s supposed to help you, not hold you back. If there are parts of it serving as bloat and distraction, get rid of them.
Come back to the core processes of working with your thoughts and ideas to make sure that you stay closer to your creative and productive essence.
To round things up
This brings me to the end of this (rather long) complete guide about the tools, systems, plugins and cleanup and re-centring processes that I use to make sure that Obsidian remains the best place for me to do my work.
I hope that it’s something that’s inspired and informed you as to why you should be using Obsidian for your PKM like I am.
Check out the other pieces I’ve linked to within this one for more details on certain concepts, demonstrations and ideas and give me a follow if you want more content like this.
As always, thanks for reading!
If you like the sound of the fusion of the PARA Method and Zettelkasten that I mentioned here, you can check out PARAZETTEL in more detail below.
You can get a free short email course talking about how the system developed naturally from work I was doing. Check it out…
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