Sending Drafts to Obsidian
Taking Action to move notes around
Note taking apps are all the rage!
They have been for years, and there are so many to choose from.
I have been using Obsidian for a few months now, and from a work perspective had a great little workflow set up.
However, since I was made redundant, the entire vault I had created has become null and void.
The documents I created, including all the templates, are worthless.
What to do? It feels like a total waste of my time; even though I can think of it as a learning experience to fulfil other ambitions with Obsidian.
I decided to create a new vault, and moved some generic items into it, so I could retain them.
I realise I should have just re-purposed the one I already had, but I wanted a clean start!
Configuration
First of all, if you’re not already aware, the configuration options in Obsidian are obscene.
I mean, totally, over-the-top, mind-blowing, obscene.
There are so many ways to customise how it looks, the plugins to use (whether they are core to the application, or third-party downloads) and when I first started with Obsidian is scared the living daylights out of me!
Where to start?
Well… I’m not going to cover any of the options here. That’s for another story, and there have already been plenty of those about Obsidian.
Drafts
However, I do want to explain one way I found that makes it slightly less over-whelming.
I discovered a way to interact with Obsidian, from outside, which meant I could add notes easily, and quickly, without fear.
Introducing Drafts.
OK. I’m not introducing Drafts; I’ve been a user for years, and just today my Pro subscription renewed. It’s a costly(!) £17.50 for the year, and probably one of the best value apps in the App store.
It is only available in the Apple ecosystem, so apologies to non Apple users, the rest of this story won’t help you.
Action Stations
Apart from the fantastic note-taking features of Drafts, the power lies in the Actions that can be taken on each… draft.
Whether formatting a document, or sending a message via WhatsApp or pretty much anything else you can think of, Drafts also has an Action to post to Obsidian.
I love it.
I can fire up Drafts on my phone, or MacBook, write whatever I want, with formatting if I so choose, and run an Action that posts it directly to my Obsidian vault.
Alternatively, there is an Action that can post to a specific folder.
I have created a Drafts INBOX folder. Any documents in here need to be triaged and actioned accordingly.
It’s simple, but effective.
These Actions can be found in the Drafts Directory, a repository of all sorts of actions you can install.
Checkout below to read more about the two actions I mentioned above.
Don’t get me wrong. Not every note created in Drafts is sent to Obsidian. Many of my notes are transitional. They don’t last forever.
However, those that need to be stored for any length of time are sent over the border into Obsidian, for filing.
Drafts is in my iPhone dock; so it’s quickly accessible.
Quick type, select the Action and “Bam!” it’s been sent to Obsidian.
It’s stupidly simple to do.
Have you tried Drafts? Do you use Obsidian, either for Personal Knowledge Management, or for something else entirely.
Please comment and let me know.
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