When should you consider switching to Obsidian

Summary

The article discusses the practical considerations for switching to Obsidian as a note-taking application, emphasizing its utility for professionals who need efficient and reliable note management.

Abstract

The article critiques the note-taking app community for focusing on personal knowledge management (PKM) enthusiasts rather than the practical needs of professionals. It argues that professionals are more concerned with the effectiveness and longevity of their note-taking tools, often already using common office applications like Word, Excel, OneNote, Google Keep, or Evernote. The author suggests considering Obsidian when current note-taking methods fail to provide a complete picture due to limitations in categorization and tagging. Obsidian's features, such as easy linking, backlinks, the Dataview plugin, and a single information vault, are highlighted as solutions to these issues. The article also points out the convenience of Obsidian for quickly starting to write and its extensive plugin community that can address diverse needs. However, it acknowledges that Obsidian may not be suitable for team collaboration where version control and change tracking are essential.

Opinions

The author believes that most discussions around note-taking apps, including Obsidian, overly cater to PKM enthusiasts rather than focusing on the needs of professionals who simply require an effective note-taking solution.
There is a criticism of the time spent on setting up and maintaining a note-taking system, which may not be practical for professionals.
The article suggests that traditional note-taking apps with tagging systems are insufficient for organizing complex information that doesn't fit neatly into categories.
Obsidian is praised for its linking and backlinking capabilities, which improve upon traditional tagging systems by allowing for dynamic and automatic updates.
The Dataview plugin in Obsidian is seen as a valuable tool for creating summary pages that aggregate necessary information from various notes.
The author appreciates Obsidian's standalone nature, which facilitates immediate note-taking without cumbersome steps.
With a large number of community plugins, Obsidian is recognized for its potential to meet a wide range of user needs, although it cannot be guaranteed to fulfill every specific requirement.
The article advises against using Obsidian for team collaboration due to its lack of version control and the inability to track changes made by different users.

When should you consider switching to Obsidian

Most articles about Obsidian or other note-taking apps seem to have forgotten that note-taking apps are primarily for people who need to take notes, not PKM enthusiasts. They aren’t going to spend weeks researching the “best note-taking app for them” and then hours every week tending to their “garden”.

A key problem I see in the PKM forums is people proudly showing off their setup and the hours it took them. There are debates about whether Notion or Bear or Roam Research or Obsidian is the best app.

But professionals could care less! They just need their note-taking app to work for their needs; they need to know “Why is this so much better than the way I take notes now?” and “Will this be around in a few years?” And they’ll not be starting from zero. They’ll already be using something available in the office, like Word, Excel, OneNote, GoogleKeep or Evernote.

So when should you consider using Obsidian?

You’re worried that your notes are no longer telling you the whole story

You might have a massive set of notes lovingly built up in Evernote, Google Keep or OneNote. But you can’t shake the nagging feeling that the info about a person or issue isn’t all in one note because few notes neatly fit into one category.

Traditional note-taking apps will have tags, but that’s just note enough because it assumes you (1) know what tags you’ll ever need and (2) you tag consistently. In my experience both seldom happen together. In Obsidian, 3 things will help:

Easy linking and backlinks are the solution to the problems with tagging I mentioned. A link is easily created by typing “[[” and Obsidian will detect other notes with the same link for you. If you need to change that link in the future, Obsidian will update all the existing links for you automatically!

The Dataview plugin allows you to create summary pages that bring necessary information together. So you can easily reference other notes and those references will be updated automatically.

Keeping all your information in a single vault means that all your information can be related to each other. No need to worry that since it’s in a different folder, it might be missed.

When you should use Evernote, Keep or OneNote

When you need to collaborate with your team. I had experimented with using Obsidian with a team but the generally accepted position is that Obsidian isn’t it since you can’t do version control / management, or know who made the last change to a note.

Take a look at the rest of my articles on Obsidian:

Let me know what you think in the comments or just leave a clap for me. Thanks!

When should you consider switching to Obsidian

You’re worried that your notes are no longer telling you the whole story

It takes too many steps to start writing

Your current app can’t do X

When you should use Evernote, Keep or OneNote