Obsidian Users Grapple with Data & Workflow
11 posts across 2 communities in the last 30 days; 91% from r/ObsidianMD.
“The software is great, but the data is the important thing. Obsidian data is plain Markdown files, living primarily on your local machine. You can open them in anything. If you're overly dependent on plugin functionality to use your files, that's your own problem. Obsidian can't…”
“I love Obsidian and use it a lot But my final articles are run through R with quarto. Outputs can track all my stuff and if I have to switch things up in the code of my statistics, everything gets updated without issue. [re: I used Obsidian for research notes for over 3 years…”
“I used Bear for years until my workflow with agents showed that Obsidian was much better. Now my workflow is starting to outgrow how Obsidian makes cloud access (not) possible. Just pointing out that for lots of recent adopters, we’ll move on the second something has a more…”
Obsidian users are debating the integration of social media data, facing plugin issues, and experiencing burnout related to productivity pressures. Concerns revolve around managing large datasets, maintaining focus, and avoiding overwhelming workflows.
SOURCES (20)
“I used Bear for years until my workflow with agents showed that Obsidian was much better. Now my workflow is starting to outgrow how Obsidian makes cloud access (not) possible. Just pointing out that for lots of recent adopters, we’ll move on the second something…”
“You have something similar in obsidian which are bases [re: File-based Notion alternative]”
“I've tried Obsidian several times and dropped it as many times. I've come around to it again. When I was working, I used a tree-based information manager to good effect. I often had to work with Engineering Change Orders. So I might: Have a tree for ECOs Have a branch for each ECO Have a twig on an ECO branch for every document that had to be changed by the ECO And this was fast and easy, but: it was hard to share the document, it was hard to view two branches at the same time, and cross”
“Obsidian's data is just a folder of markdown files, so you can point any agent there and then Obsidian and LMStudio / Codex / Antigravity / whatever just become different interfaces to your vault. For scheduled tasks, some agent platforms have that built in or you can use cron. And that's basically the point of the thing I've been building for myself for the past year - an agent harness that works with your markdown vault, aimed at knowledge work other than coding. https://github.com”
“I need to summarize and categorize user needs by organizing information from various sources. That’s where Bases comes in incredibly handy. [re: What are some features in Obsidian that everyone seems to like but you just don't get it?]”
“The software is great, but the data is the important thing. Obsidian data is plain Markdown files, living primarily on your local machine. You can open them in anything. If you're overly dependent on plugin functionality to use your files, that's your own problem. Obsidian can't take your access to your files away. [re: Surprised to see Obsidian on the Artcraft chopping block]”
Obsidian works well as the place they all end up, the hard part is getting them out of each app. For ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the official route is the data export…
“Coming from Notion, the thing most people go looking for first is databases. In Obsidian the closest match is properties plus Bases. Properties are the fields at the top of a note (status, date, tags), and Bases is a core plugin that shows every note with those fields as a table or cards you can filter and sort. That covers most of what a Notion database did. It also fits the daily note setup suggested above. Put a property or two in the daily template, like the project you worked on, and a base”
“I love Obsidian and use it a lot But my final articles are run through R with quarto. Outputs can track all my stuff and if I have to switch things up in the code of my statistics, everything gets updated without issue. [re: I used Obsidian for research notes for over 3 years, but it just didn't work for final draft]”
“I'm looking for applications of Obsidian to the above areas. In particular - organisation of workflows : gather, organise, interpret, integrate, story tell, publish - management of research...keeping track - family tree structure and annotations - integration of digital images and assets - item coding structures.. - use of dataview and bases - use of Canvas and other visualization tools - use of other helpful plugins - publishing finished outputs - linkage - input and output of data from Obs”
“I've been using Obsidian to keep track of gigs and to collect information for my public speaking jobs. The way I set it up is through a 'home page' that lists stuff via dataview, so I can see at a glance what job is coming up, what emails I sent to my vault to process and what web pages I clipped that I haven't read yet. Basically, I combined the functionality of ClickUp with Instapaper. All of this works well for me, but since I see so many people emphasise linking and back link”
This Week in Obsidian - A Tuesday newsletter for Obsidian users
“In The Markdown Database Pattern , Rufus Pollock lets us in on an open secret: how Obsidian’s (or Notion’s) bases work https://md-handbook.com/blog/how-obsidian-or-notion-style-workflows-handle-the-markdown-database-pattern/ #markdown #markdowneditors #bases submitted by /u/Wordius [link] [comments]”
“Rufus Pollock lets us in on an open secret: how Obsidian’s (or Notion’s) bases work https://md-handbook.com/blog/how-obsidian-or-notion-style-workflows-handle-the-markdown-database-pattern/ submitted by /u/Wordius [link] [comments]”
“Any thoughts about possibly sending them to the Dr's patient portal (if available) well in advance to give the staff some time to consider the information and possibly formulate clarification questions or possible lines of action? Watch for what restricted formats the portal will accept.”
“Beyond Plain Text: Expanding Obsidian’s Connection Concept to Build a Closed-Loop Architecture for "Knowledge Base + Object Storage + Lightweight Publishing"”