i saw a couple of people writing a post like this, and i am also a person who believes it's important to have my notes in plain text files & accessible in years to come, but i haven't seen much discussion of the system i use. so here goes, here's how i use Obsidian:
on my phone, grudgingly. it takes like 30 seconds to open! every time it opens it seems to reindex everything? honestly i can't believe i still use such an aggravating piece of software.
... but i keep using it because i don't know of any other app that is vaguely functional and can also open an external folder of text files on Android (i used to use Gitjournal, but it stopped working)
which i need because i keep my notes synced with Syncthing, which runs on my computer & also my phone & also my old computer in a cabinet upstairs that also runs Plex.
and i use Syncthing rather than Obsidian Sync because a) i am cheap and b) i don't use Obsidian. i use an app called Zettlr. i like it! it doesn't have a complicated plugin system, it is largely unfussy & works fine. basically like Sublime Text, except instead of my notes being entirely unsaved tabs that it kept alive for years at a time, they're... saved tabs that it keeps alive for years at a time. and there's more of them.
how i organise my notes in Zettlr: honestly, i don't, really? mainly the notes i want to look at are at the top of the list of recently edited notes in the sidebar. some stuff i will add a tag to - but after a burst of enthusiasm at the start, this has settled down to a few basic tags like #tomake for project ideas. other than that i just use keyword searches to find stuff. often note files end up running on quite long - i keep work logs for projects when i'm coding, and have had to break those up when they hit a certain length - initially because there was a text rendering speed bug, but now just because it's boring to have to scroll to the bottom to add new notes each time.
i don't keep each idea separated into a individual note, each linking to each other like a brilliant constellation - i find i don't, honestly, have that many ideas, and those that i do have are fine rattling against each other in my head. it's nice to write things down, it's nice to have a default place to write them, but i don't really need need to formalise the process of applying one idea against another and building up a scaffolding for that knowledge. maybe if i did a PhD. i'm going to try to not do a PhD.
i do have a folder called "diary" for when i just want to write about my current emotional state & situation. that's mainly about hiding those notes from myself when i don't want to do that, tho.
also i do, okay, yes, use the zettlekasten unique id filename thing. so when i make a new note it's automatically titled something like "20230920010027.md". mainly this is useful so i don't have to think about what to name things & have some kind of record of dates even if i have a major file metadata accident. and then i put the title as the first heading in the document, and that shows up in the sidebar just fine.
but which Obsidian on my phone doesn't pick up on (it used to), which makes it honestly incredibly irritating to use.
anyway, pro forma, but also true, the traditional phrase that accompanies these posts: "i wouldn't necessarily recommend this system for anyone else, but this is what works for me." although, honestly, it doesn't work all that great for me. it would be nice if i had a reasonable note taking experience on both my phone and my computer, but it seems to be impossible within the arbitrary constraints i have set for myself.
i do also have a lot of thoughts about software solutions which could help get me to that promised land - but that's another blog post entirely (and also probably about three to four years of dedicated work)
