One Year with Obsidian Notes App- a Digital Luhmann Zettelkasten

365 days – one year – ago I started using Obsidian App as a kind of substitution of a Niklas Luhmann Style Zettelkasten which I never had. I was using OneNote and Evernote as well as Salesforce Notes (and still using every day it for other use cases) only to take notes. My New Year`s resolution at January 1st 2021 started with the discovery and usage of Obsidian Notes App and since this point I am using it every single day.

I am not going to offer a full tutorial here or deep dive into markdown language which I am still not know in every single aspect.

I just want to share to share my favorite use cases in my daily life:

Summarize my meetings and calls

Here you can see that I am summarizing a call with my focus partner “Microsoft” (Prefix: “F_”) and write down project start and end of the Microsoft 365 Tenant-to-Tenant Migration with our Product “Quest On Demand Migration ” (using Hashtag #ODM). I also mention that Deal Registration is needed with a dedicated Hashtag. In my role it is very important not to forget that my partners need to register deals. Sometimes I need to chase them and I can easily search for all notes with #DealRegNeeeded. Later I copy it into Salesforce to share it with my team and company. I am also planning to invite Microsoft Customer Success Manager (#CSM) into our weekly “Alex & Ragnar Show” with my Streaming Buddy Alexander Eggers (#AlexUndRagnarShow).

2. Working with Obsidian Notes everywhere

My Obsidian Notes are stored in my OneDrive and every day is capsuled as one single .md file. Very easy to open and edit on other devices, SmartPhones and Tablets. No need to upgrade to Professional Version which is about 50 US$/year. I really like Obsidian and supported them with purchasing the catalyst license.

3. Learning about dependencies and discovering similarities

I use the Graph View Plugin to find out patterns, discover unknown similarities and dependencies – and get inspired about new content ideas or find the needle in the haystack.

What are my plans for 2022?

I have subscribed to a few Obsidian YouTube Channels and learn a lot there, especially about new plugins. I don’t have plans to move away from Obsidian but I am not using it for every purpose. My Tasks are still managed in Salesforce (company-wide), M365 Tasks with Planner (Microsoft Teams or M365 Group-wide) and MeisterTask (my personal tasks and ideas for content creation).

I get a lot of value from writing kind of cryptic notes which are full of Hashtags and only make sense in the context of my personal Obisidian Usage – very effective, quick search, and easy to manage in daily life.

That`s the spirit of Luhmann` s Zettelkasten.

What about your New Year`s Resolutions?

Do you plan to change your daily habits around Note-Taking and Task Management?