What makes Obsidian GTD worthy ?

G

gtdstudente

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GTDers

Any perspectives and experience in what makes Obsidian GTD worthy would be most GTD appreciated

Thank you very much

As you see GTD fit. . . .
 
It's not perfect by any means for GTD, there are apps that are more specifically designed with GTD in mind. BUT, it is accessible from everywhere and any device, is simple, is easily modified in more ways that you can imagine, can be adapted to almost any style of working and how you think but does take time to figure out what you will or won’t use. It's a software leatherman of tools. Good enough in many ways but perhaps not best in breed for anything specific. For me at this point in myGTD journey it fits the bill. I'd rather have 1 tool I learn very very well than several with better features that I never have time to really work with enough to understand how to use it. Plus the file over app mindset is critical to e the odler I get.
 
Obsidian is great for GTD because of its flexibility and the ability to link notes together, which makes tracking tasks and projects easier. You can customize it with plugins like Daily Notes and Kanban to fit your GTD workflow perfectly. Plus, having your data stored locally gives you peace of mind.
 
Obsidian is, first and foremost, a solution to store notes (on steroids).

You do not need more than notes to run GTD.

There you go.

If one wants more, one can use add-ins for task management (the powerful tasks plugin, or, as I do, the kanban plugin).
But in essence, this makes the lists just prettier.
No more than lists are needed.
 
I too use obsidian but purely as my main reference tool. Its great for that "out of the box". I think truly using it for your list manager would require some tweaking but as mentioned the extensibility of Obsidian makes that pretty easy to accomplish and customize to your needs. I particularly like a very well made Todoist link plugin that allows me to add tasks to todoist from any note. Quite nice for my needs.
 
Ger80C said:
Obsidian is, first and foremost, a solution to store notes (on steroids).

You do not need more than notes to run GTD.

There you go.

If one wants more, one can use add-ins for task management (the powerful tasks plugin, or, as I do, the kanban plugin).
But in essence, this makes the lists just prettier.
No more than lists are needed Grow on Social Media.
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Obsidian can support GTD effectively by using backlinks, tags, and structured note templates for projects and next actions, combined with daily/weekly reviews and task management plugins.
 
Folks, I’m sorry, but maybe I’m just too stupid to be trusted with that kind of power. Or maybe I’m too lazy. I’ve played with backlinks, tags, et cetera and most of it is more trouble than it’s worth. Obsidian is particularly troubling to me on grounds of security, maintainability, et cetera. Don’t tell me that my data is all there in ASCII files if the system to use it is not working. I wish you all well, honestly, but no. Really, really no. Life is too short.
 
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mcogilvie said:
Folks, I’m sorry, but maybe I’m just too stupid to be trusted with that kind of power. Or maybe I’m too lazy. I’ve played with backlinks, tags, et cetera and most of it is more trouble than it’s worth. Obsidian is particularly troubling to me on grounds of security, maintainability, et cetera. Don’t tell me that my data is all there is ASCII files if the system to use it is not working. I wish you all well, honestly, but no. Really, really no. Life is too short.
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They're not ASCII files, they're Markdown. Plain old .txt files with a different extension (to tell software to format according to Markdown) but are just .txt files. Obsidian is actually incredibly simple software at its core -- much more simple than pretty much any other software mentioned in these forums.

Obsidian is also significantly more secure and maintainable than most software that has come before it. Again, they're just text files. By default, Obsidian is 100% local. It never touches the internet, which is the safest place your lists can be. You can choose to have your files touch the internet in whatever way you want, because they're just files. You don't have to use the sync provided by the company like you do with Evernote, or Onenote, or Google, or Omnifocus, or Nirvana, or everything else. YOU have the power to make the sync as secure as you like. Or not sync at all.

And maintainability -- nothing maintains better than Obsidian files because they're just .txt, one of the oldest computer files in existence. If Obsidian's software stopped working tomorrow you'd have 100% access to every single note and its content through whatever other app you choose to use. Heck, now you can use Notepad on Windows 11 to read Markdown files, or just read it as plain text (which was the entire point of markdown; to be human-readable text formatting).

I encourage you to read up a bit more on Obsidian, because I think perhaps you have an exact opposite understanding of how it works and what it does.
 
devon.marie said:
They're not ASCII files, they're Markdown. Plain old .txt files with a different extension (to tell software to format according to Markdown) but are just .txt files. Obsidian is actually incredibly simple software at its core -- much more simple than pretty much any other software mentioned in these forums.
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Actually, I use Markdown every day. I was using ASCIi in the same sense you are using the .txt suffix. However, txt files are not treated in the same way by all editors and operating systems.
devon.marie said:
Obsidian is also significantly more secure and maintainable than most software that has come before it. Again, they're just text files. By default, Obsidian is 100% local. It never touches the internet, which is the safest place your lists can be. You can choose to have your files touch the internet in whatever way you want, because they're just files. You don't have to use the sync provided by the company like you do with Evernote, or Onenote, or Google, or Omnifocus, or Nirvana, or everything else. YOU have the power to make the sync as secure as you like. Or not sync at all.
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I am not under the illusion that I can make sync as secure as I like, and I am not interested in maintaining general-purpose open source software on my devices. Been there, have a closet full of t-shirts.
devon.marie said:
And maintainability -- nothing maintains better than Obsidian files because they're just .txt, one of the oldest computer files in existence. If Obsidian's software stopped working tomorrow you'd have 100% access to every single note and its content through whatever other app you choose to use. Heck, now you can use Notepad on Windows 11 to read Markdown files, or just read it as plain text (which was the entire point of markdown; to be human-readable text formatting).
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As I tried to explain, it’s the maintainability of the software, not accessibility of individual files. And I haven’t used Windows in decades.
devon.marie said:
I encourage you to read up a bit more on Obsidian, because I think perhaps you have an exact opposite understanding of how it works and what it does.
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I think I have a prettty good understanding of how it works and what it does. I’m just no more interested in using it for GTD than I am in using a Jupyter notebook for GTD, just for different reasons. I understand that you may be enthusiastic about Obsidian. That doesn’t mean that others with different opinions are uninformed.
 
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devon.marie said:
And maintainability -- nothing maintains better than Obsidian files because they're just .txt, one of the oldest computer files in existence. If Obsidian's software stopped working tomorrow you'd have 100% access to every single note and its content through whatever other app you choose to use.
Click to expand...
@devon.marie Just like Bear on MacOS/iPadOS/iOS? You can choose to synchronize your notes between devices via iCloud or to NOT SYNCHRONIZE. You can export your whole notes database to one huge markdown file or to gazillion markdown files. And it's… beautiful (thank you @mcogilvie for recommending it).
 
I use Obsidian for most of my reference material, and to track projects. I could additionally use Obsidian to manage my GTD @context next-actions, but I prefer paper for the simplicity. I was using EverNote since 2008 for the same, but made the switch to Obsidian in early 2024. What I like about Obsidian is that it works on ALL the operating systems that I use, that is works perfectly at a simple level, that it also works perfectly at a complicated level should I desire such control, that it stores my data with encryption in transport and at rest for the synchronization that I pay for, and finally that it stores my files in a standard and open format that I could easily migrate to another tool if necessary.
 
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