Using Obsidian Strictly as Zetelkasten

Something I’ve given a lot of thought to is how to use Obsidian in the right way without too much clutter. What do I want to do with a combo of all these apps?

Zettelkasten/Cards/Concepts/Obsidian - Zetelkasten and PKM, perhaps separate vaults for these things. Other stuff I write, like songs, poems, stories, essays, podcast scripts and the like would be kept in Ulysses so I could easily publish them.

Writing as thinking? Store it in Obsidian.

• Fleeting Notes
• Notes about literature I consume
• Permanent Notes that are atomic
• Daily notes as a way of seeing when the learning occurred
• Inbox flow for Readwise and Matter highlights for processing

DevonThink - Reference materials. Any article worth saving, receipts, little pieces of scratch stuff like codes and confirmation numbers and flight plans, etc. This could also include agendas, lesson plans, that sort of thing.

• Saved articles or PDFs
• Courses or info content
• Videos/YouTube
• Podcasts that are worth savings
• Workouts
• Lesson Plans & Meeting Agendas
• Receipts, speeding tickets, confirmations, etc.

Writing or using reference material? Use DevonThink.

Drafts - capture tool, easy access. Can spawn out to Obsidian, DevonThink, and other places.

• Anything that will eventually end up in another system
• Scratch notes like where I parked that I need access to regularly but don’t want to go all the way into DevonThink.
• Reference materials that I need often, like the copier code or whatever. Apple Notes could also fit the bill here, but I’d rather just stick to Drafts.

Writing something down quickly and want to eliminate friction? Use Drafts.

DayOne - Keeping track of what I did. The overlap here could be that if I learned something or had a serious insight, I may copy that over into Obsidian.

• Events of the day
• Private thoughts about friends and family
• Venting or writing about deep feelings
• Photos that I want to remember

Writing a log of what you did over the day? DayOne.

Ulysses - writing app. This is for writing anything that could eventually be published, like song lyrics, podcast scripts, blog posts, essays, stories, etc.

• Podcasts
• Stories
• Essays
• Scripts
• Books
• Poems

Writing something for eventual public consumption (like a blog post)? Ulysses.

#fleeting Related: productivity