Summary

The author has discovered an effective personal knowledge management system using Obsidian to organize bookmarks within topic-specific notes, enhancing the utility and relevance of saved resources.

Abstract

The author initially struggled with managing bookmarks and read-later services, finding them inefficient and prone to being lost amidst various platforms. With the adoption of Obsidian, a note-taking application, and the Auto Link Title plugin, the author began incorporating bookmarks directly into notes on specific subjects, categorizing them under "Resources" headings. This method offers flexibility, context, versioning, and purpose to each saved link, fostering a more selective and customizable approach to managing information. The author highlights benefits such as the relevance of resources when revisiting topics, the ease of maintaining simplicity due to version control, and the ability to imbue each bookmark with a clear intent, which has led to the creation of specialized "radars" for media recommendations. This system has not only streamlined the author's personal knowledge management but also improved the ability to share targeted recommendations with friends.

Opinions

The traditional method of using browser bookmarks and read-later services was inadequate for the author's needs.
Integrating bookmarks into Obsidian notes provides a more organized and contextually relevant way to manage information.
The author values the flexibility of adding personal notes and alternate locations to saved resources.
Contextualizing bookmarks within topic-specific notes ensures they are seen when most relevant, enhancing their usefulness.
Versioning with git allows for a history of changes, making it easier to keep information current and relevant.
Each resource is saved with a specific purpose, which helps in being selective and intentional about what is saved.
Specialized "radars" for books, movies, shows, and music are deemed more useful than general bookmarks or content-specific services like Goodreads.
The new system has improved the author's ability to provide friends with tailored media recommendations.
The author believes that browser bookmarks should be reserved for frequently accessed websites and tools, aligning with their intended purpose.

Obsidian Is the Bookmark Manager I Never Knew I Needed

How often do you access your bookmarks in your web browser?

If you’re like me, almost never. I used to bookmark lots of pages, organizing them into folders and subfolders of topics. I later began saving articles to read-later services. And as the internet consolidated into social media platforms, with their own systems of follows and subscriptions, I began saving things there.

Yet I was missing something. Some way of holding on to resources that wouldn’t get lost to a particular platform, or simply never surface, much like my mass of bookmarks from the early days.

As I began exploring personal knowledge management, and using Obsidian, I created notes about subjects that interested me. I then began saving resources related to those topics in the notes themselves — anything that I wanted to look into later, or recommend to others who were interested in the same topic.

How This Works for Me

I use Obsidian with the Auto Link Title plugin, which fetches the webpage title when a URL is pasted. This provides a good starting point for most links. It’s what would be saved as your bookmark’s title if you were bookmarking the page in your web browser. (Some other note apps do this automatically as well.)

I put most links under a “Resources” heading toward the bottom of my notes. It’s simple and clean, and most of my notes only have a handful of resources.

If my list of resources for a particular note grows into the double digits, I tend to identify some patterns and break the list into subheadings. A common one is “Books”, containing the books that I’m interested in or found valuable on the topic.

My Favorite Benefits of This System

Some of my favorite benefits of this system include:

Flexibility. As much as I love data consistency and structure, being able to add notes about links, save alternate locations, or link to other notes with offline content has proven invaluable.

Context. I only see my bookmarked resources when engaging with their related topics. This makes resources more valuable when I do see them, and keeps them out of mind when I’m focused on other topics.

Versioning. Since I’m using Obsidian, which operates on plain text files, and am versioning them with git, all of my bookmarks and resources are saved in snapshots. If I remove resources, they’ll still exist in past snapshots of my notes. This encourages me to keep things fresher and simpler than I might otherwise.

Purpose. The process of selecting where to save a resource imbues it with purpose. My bookmarks folders tended to be more vague, since hundreds of folders and subfolders would be tedious to traverse. My resources in Obsidian are often tied to small, specific notes. Rather than worrying I will never see them again, I know that when I do, they’re going to be relevant to what I’m thinking about.

Selectivity. With purpose comes selectivity. If a resource lacks purpose, it is less likely to be added to my notes. I naturally ask myself “Why do I want to save this, and where will it be useful?” which exposes when a resource won’t be useful.

Customization. I’ve created special notes for books, movies, shows, and music that interest me. I call these notes “radars” because they hold things that are on my radar.

I’ve found my radars vastly more useful than bookmarks, or even queues on content-specific service like Goodreads or other media-tracking services. I can write about why I wanted to consume the content, who recommended it to me, quotes that excited me about it, and links to articles or places to watch.

I’ve found myself referencing my radars when friends are looking for something to read or watch. Recently one friend was feeling down and browsing Netflix, and I quickly scanned my list and found something that I’d yet to watch, but was well reviewed, matched the vibe she was looking for, and that was noted to be on Netflix. She started watching and loved it. If it had just been on a crowded watch later list, I don’t think I would’ve realized it matched what she needed.

Conclusion

I love this system of saving bookmarks as resources. I am finding resources when I can use them, almost like magic. Books and other sources of information are surfacing when I am most keen on exploring a topic further, rather than just being an ever-present weight on my mind for something to read next.

My browser bookmarks now exist solely as shortcuts for frequently accessed websites, and general purpose tools. Probably as the browser gods intended.