Success with Obsidian

Maybe the trick is just to write about and document things you actually care about.

I have written about my varying levels of success with Obsidian on this blog over the last year or so. It is quite obviously an incredible tool for writing Markdown. It is probably the single most feature-complete Markdown editor in the world. But my ability to mold it into an effective “second brain” has not been successful.

…until the last few days. Something has clicked for me.

I think it’s as simple as actually writing and documenting things that you care about.

For me, that’s American politics, health, biology. Things as disparate as the work of Ray Peat. Great man theory. The San Antonio Spurs. A bunch of random stuff that I’m interested in, and following every little thread.

I’m starting to enjoy documenting these things and finding connections between them. When I was using Obsidian and trying to build a second brain in some of the styles that I see online, I didn’t feel an immediate pull to come back to it.

It’s basically just not doing things because other people are doing it. Like, if someone is very into quoting a ton of podcasts and books, and that’s the primary thing they care about, that’s great! It’s just not really my style - at least, not yet. What I’m enjoying is making little pages for things I care about. For instance, what is Glycine? Why is it important?

When I started documenting things I actually cared about, on my own terms, in my own style - I’m enjoying it a lot. It’s becoming a useful way to learn more and synthesize information. My vault is growing!