Why Obsidian

I've been an Obsidian user on and off for some time although prior to last month, it had been lying dormant on a Intel Mac that gets too hot for comfort. I returned to paper and pen because at my heart, I am a notetaker Explore my notes, annotator, doodler, scribbler, and list maker. Still, despite my affinity for paper (I'll show you some of my leather traveler notebook covers and the chunky journals I like to make), I've been using my phone's Note's app more and more.

That's fine for random thinking. But not for brainstorming when you are writing a book and need to connect ideas in a easy way. In the recent past, I've used linked chapters in MS Word, still struggling to get the hand of Scrivener, and have tried the free online service, Ellipsus.

Obsidian feels like some apps I've used and really liked but can no longer use as I mostly use a PC and a iPhone. Bearapp and, Ulysses which are both for MacOS only, were my go to apps back when our family was a Mac fam. And let's not forget Drafts. The difference between those apps and Obsidian is less about what it offers and more so about how it feels.

And it feels so natural to write in markdown while also having the ability to make templates. I've yet to fully use the catalogue backlinks, but I plan to in the next year as I commit to using Obsidian as my primary digital brain.

Mostly, I am trying to use Obsidian as a digital brain, notebook, and knowledge dump. It's becoming a place where I write, distraction free, and where I think in a mess of incomplete sentences.

I don't have a plan--maybe I will find my way back to writing as a daily habit. And I don't quite have a process yet, but what I do use quite frequently, is the Obsidian Web Clipper plugin and reader. I've installed templates from Steph Kepano, the CEO and creator of Obsidian, who shares their entire process. I recommend checking it out because it will answer way more questions than I can at this point.