PTPL 066 · A Radical Obsidian Vault Shakeup, 6 Months Later

PLUS four cutting edge audio note taking tools to check out, including Drafts

Welcome! I’m Ellane, and this is a once-a-week summary of things that are helping me to simplify and future-proof my digital-analog workflow.

Speak your words onto paper

When I need words on paper but would rather talk than write, I usually reach for Drafts. It’s remarkably accurate. Here are three more audio note taking tools to check out.

Drafts is also great for getting text directly into your collection of text files, whether they live inside an Obsidian vault, or are accessed from another app that writes to locally stored text files.

Adventures in Plain Text (and a little paper)

At the end of February this year I moved

out of my luxury Obsidian condo on the hill into an empty apartment in the country. All my nested folders — gone!

My ultimate aim: have no more and no less than what I need in a space that only contains my words. I haven’t deleted my old vault, the two year old wonder, the playground, the lab for everything I’ve learned about PKM thus far.

Six months have passed since those words were penned. I’ve let the tide of life shape my notes without too much conscious thought. ✅ indicates what I started doing in February that I’m still doing today, and ◀️ shows what I started doing that I’m now handling differently.

• ✅ The PARA method is still going strong. It’s very simple and intuitive for my way of working.
• ✅ Journal folder is still flat. I haven’t felt any need to divide months into 12 separate folders.
• ✅ Words from other people are gradually making their way back into my vault, but only as I make the time to add my own commentary. I use Omnivore as my read-it-later service, but haven’t — and probably won’t be — setting up automatic importing. I’m taking notes in Drafts for each book I read, and manually moving those into my vault once I’ve finished the book.
• ◀️ Recipes are back! But only those I’ve tried and loved. I recently digitised my sister’s 30-year-old recipe collection, complete with a photo of each well used, food stained card. So many memories in each family favourite!
• ◀️ Must, Could, Should folders have been abandoned. I now have a single file for all my tasks, using the TaskPaper syntax and accessed in TaskPaper, Taskmator, or Obsidian, according to which device I’m on, and which set of features I’m looking for.
• ◀️ General notes are now in their own top level folder (called ALL THE NOTES), as I began to find it distracting to constantly see them in a long list. Accessing these notes in The Archive is still as easy as pointing that app at my notes folder.

Working through and cleaning up All The Notes is happening sporadically at best. As I come across a note, I evaluate it, then clean it up or trash it.

How has your personal knowledge management structure changed in the last six months? Are you feeling better or worse about how things are running now, than you were at the beginning of the year?

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