Obsidian Workflow

I have overhauled my Obsidian setup for keeping track of my personal and work notes. I took a break away from this tool to play around with Craft, but I found that it didn’t offer the customisability that I wanted. I popped back to Obsidian for the first time in a while and discovered a wealth of new features and community plugins, some of which are insanely powerful.

My current workflow revolves around Things3, DevonThink and Obsidian. This is still a work in progress and it changes all the time. I think that there are probably more fancy automations that are available between DevonThink and Obsidian, but I am yet to find time to discover them.

My primary notes folder is stored in My Documents on my Mac, I use Syncthing to sync this to a central file server (more on this later) This is then pushed out to my Desktop Mac Mini. For iOS devices, it was a little tricky. I thought I could use the server to back up via rsync to the iCloud folder in iCloud Drive. This worked when it was run manually, though trying to schedule it via cron it kept failing with permissions errors. I got fed up and gave up, I will probably use obsidian sync for this.

Initial capture

For initial capture I am using things3 on iOS and OSX . I can create a new todo in my Notes project and jot down some rough ideas. This is even better now since the latest update allows the use of markdown.

Vault Layout

I have all new notes default to the inbox, where I can decide what I want to do with them after I have made them.

My default content template is powered with the Templater plugin from the community plugins, see the example below. Copy and paste if you would like to use it. Also let me know if you make any changes you think I might like.

---
tag: 🌱
date: <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD", 1) %>
modification date: <% tp.file.last_modified_date("dddd Do MMMM YYYY HH:mm:ss") %>
status: 🟥 🟧 🟩
date updated: '2021-08-15T14:01:28+01:00'

---

`ad-info
Summary:
`

## <% tp.file.title %>

- Source:
- Author:

## Notes

<!-- The main content of my thoughts really -->

### Links

<!-- Links to definition pages -->

For book notes I use the following template:

---
tags: 📗
date: <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD", 1) %>
status: 🟥 🟧 🟩
---
## <% tp.file.title %>
- Author: 
- ISBN:

`ad-info
Summary: 
`

## Key Ideas
<!-- The main content of my thoughts really -->

## Further Lines of Inquiry
<!-- What remains for you to consider? -->

## Quotes
<!-- Notable quotes with reference to their page or location -->

## TODO
- [ ] 

## Resources

—

I am also using the data view plugin to create an index view / overview of the status of the notes in my Notes folder. See the example below:

---
tag: 📚 
date: 2021-08-16
modification date: Sunday 15th August 2021 13:26:38
---

Reference [[🗂 Key]]

##  Not Yet Started

`dataview
list
from "🌿 Notes"
where status = "🟥"
sort file.name asc
`

## In Progress

`dataview
list
from "🌿 Notes"
where status = "🟧"
sort file.name asc
`


---
## Tasks
`dataview
task
from "🌿 Notes"
sort file.name asc
`

This allows me to see lists of the notes related to their status and corresponding todo’s. I like this as I can go directly to this note and see on what areas I need to work quickly and simply.

DevonThink is a dumping ground for any reading material that needs to be processed. I use the clipping tool to grab pages of the web and then read them in DevonThink. I was using Evernote, but the recent change in pricing structure means that if you are on the lower tier you get constant annoying pop-up’s asking you to upgrade!!

Plugin’s I Am Using

Quick List of the plugins I am using:

  • Dataview
  • Admonition
  • Advanced Tables
  • Kindle Highlights
  • Markdown Prettifier
  • Metatable
  • Natural Language Dates
  • Paste URL into selection
  • Templater
Howard Colin @hdc_digital