Obsidian is the Winamp of productiveness instruments. If you happen to’re as historical as I’m, you would possibly keep in mind that one of the best a part of that once-ubiquitous music participant extension was the large variety of plugins and themes you might set up to make it higher, all of them constructed by fanatics.
Obsidian is an effective note-taking utility by itself, full of every kind of options: You may arrange notes in folders, hyperlink to notes from different notes, and even use superior choices like Mermaid diagrams. However like Winamp, Obsidian actually shines when you dig into its in depth plugin ecosystem. There are over 2,000 Obsidian plugins out there as of this writing, and you should use them to mainly flip Obsidian into no matter you’ll be able to dream up.
Many of those plugins are small in scope, granted, however not all of them. A number of the extensions are in depth sufficient to exchange total purposes you would possibly in any other case be utilizing. Here is how I used Obsidian plugins to exchange 4 completely different productiveness instruments.
Your kanban app
My actual kanban board is filled with secrets and techniques so get pleasure from this pretend one.
Credit score: Justin Pot
I was an enormous fan of Trello, as soon as a humble private kanban planner. Fifteen years of bloat and upselling imply that utility is unrecognizable at the moment, which I am superb with, as a result of Obsidian works higher for me than Trello ever did. I owe all of it to the Obsidian Kanban plugin.
Set up it, and you’ll create as many Kanban boards in Obsidian as you want. Each card can embrace as a lot textual content as you need, formatted the identical approach you’ll the rest in Obsidian. That features hyperlinks—each card can hyperlink to the pages you are utilizing to handle your tasks.
I am a contract journalist who writes for a handful of publications, together with the one you are studying now. I sometimes write round 20 articles a month, that means I at all times have a number of tasks on the go. I exploit an Obsidian Kanban board to maintain monitor of the whole lot. I’ve columns for “Plan to jot down this month,” “Plan to jot down this week,” “Outlined,” “Submitted want edits,” “Edited not invoiced,” “Invoiced not paid,” and, lastly, “Paid.” This method permits me to see the whole lot I am working one in a single place, and monitor my progress on all of them. I actually do not know if I may handle my workflow with out it. And, as a result of I additionally do all of my writing instantly in Obsidian, I can bounce straight to a venture from my dashboard.
This is only one instance—I am positive you’ll be able to consider different makes use of. However maybe my favourite a part of this method is that each kanban board in Obsidian is, in actuality, only a markdown doc that mixes a couple of lists, that means I can export them and maintain an archive, even when I cease utilizing Obsidian.
Your journaling app
Credit score: Khamosh Pathak
Lifehacker has written so much about journalling apps over time, and I personally have extensively examined each instance you’ll be able to consider, a number of instances. All of them have execs and cons, and I am not going to faux that Obsidian is one of the best instrument for everybody. What I’ll say is that I exploit Obsidian for my private journal, and I can not think about utilizing the rest.
My colleague Kamosh has already written about utilizing Obsidian as a journalling app, so I am going to refer you to him for extra on get began. However I am going to add that I like to recommend putting in the journal assessment plugin with the intention to commonly look again at earlier entries. You may also look into Obsidian’s templates characteristic if you wish to use the identical define on your journal each day. I used it to create one thing much like a bullet-journal, with questions on my day.
Your read-it-later app
Credit score: Justin Pot
A couple of months in the past, Obsidian launched Obsidian Clipper, which saves webpages to your private “vault.” That is an extension for each main browser that means that you can save total articles from the net. That is helpful for analysis, however it additionally means you should use Obsidian as a substitute for read-it-later purposes like Pocket or Instapaper. Simply arrange a devoted vault for articles you wish to learn later, level the plugin towards that vault, and open your read-it-later vault each time you wish to make amends for your backlog. You may even do issues like spotlight or add your personal notes whilst you learn, all with out having to pay for a subscription.
Your to-do app
Credit score: Obsidian Duties
The issue with many to-do apps—and the explanation Lifehacker will seemingly by no means cease writing about them—is that everybody has completely different productiveness wants and no single app can serve all of them. When you’ve got by no means discovered a to-do system that is excellent for you, that is comprehensible.
But when that is you, and you are a fan of Obsidian typically, look into the duties plugin. This instrument goes via each single observe in your vault and collects the entire markdown activity lists you have created. It is an ideal add-on for those who already use Obsidian to stipulate your tasks. The extension additionally means that you can add due dates, together with recurring duties, and set your priorities.
