Hello All! Hope everyone is enjoying the northern autumn or southern spring!
For those who use both Obsidian and a note app (e.g., evernote, apple notes, onenote, etc), what is your through process on what content to store in obsidian vs the note app? Obsidian is quickly growing on me. The major ‘pain point’ is working with associated non-text files like embedded images and/or files (e.g. numbers, pdf, etc).
Maybe this is due to where I am on the Obsidian learning curve. Or maybe there are legit reason to separate content into multiple apps. Thoughts?
In short… things I want to keep into the medium to long term future I put in Obsidian. Transient notes such as planning a day trip or some ideas for a meeting or article go in Apple Notes.
Other files are a pain in terms of linking with Obsidian. I keep them in EagleFiler and I can create links to them. The downside is that only works on my Mac, and I usually have my iPad at meetings.
Most notes go into Obsidian for me, but I also supplement with Apple Notes for a few things. One Apple Note I use the most is where I parked my car. I keep that pinned and just update it everytime I park in a new spot. I also have a packing checklist in there which I use everytime I go on a trip. I also use Apple Notes for times when I want to save a random thought when I’m driving or walking and can’t type. I will then transfer it to Obsidian if I want to save it or Things if it is a task.
And my final use for Apple Notes is as a scanner. Anytime I need to scan a document I use Apple Notes. I either keep the document in Apple Notes or if I want to archive it, I will save it to my file system.
How do you use Apple notes to track where you parked your car? Do you just write down the location, or do you do something fancy with location services?
When I park and I need to track the location, I just drop a pin or mark the spot as a favorite in Apple Maps.
I could probably be more deliberate about how I use Apple Notes. Right now I sort of have random things in there, such as our favorite orders from a couple of takeout restaurants we frequent. I’m watching this thread for ideas!
I’m on windows now for work, and I can see potentially using OneNote and obsidian together.
A little fancy, I’ll drop a pin and attach it to the note (via the share button). Then I’ll put a description in the note, something like corner of Madison and 47th or 4th level of parking lot, near elevators. It might seem redundant to both drop a pin and save it to the note, but I find the written description is just as important when you’re in a large parking lot with thousands of cars.
I’ve also been in situations where the location of the dropped pin wasn’t accurate, but I didn’t notice because I was unfamiliar with the area.
If your iPhone is connected to your car with bluetooth it will automatically pin the location in Apple Maps. I use it all the time without doing anything for it.
Obsidian is where I write down my thoughts. My weekly reviews, life planning, concepts I’m interested in and want to learn more about.
I go back and forth between Apple Notes and Evernote for the “other stuff”. This is the more quick jot downs of information, confirmation numbers, URL’s, packing lists, receipts, instruction manuals.
I’ve moved entirely into Obsidian. My tactic for those cases is a separate folder for the attachment files and transclurding them into the Obsidian notes. Oplus the open in default app options for those links gives me all the integration I really need.
Most of the time I just have a separate folder structure for LibreOffice files and PDFs which are about the only external apps I use.
I use each app for what it’s best at. Notes and their images go into Obsidian, Numbers sheets and Affinity suite docs go either into their iCloud folders or the project folder in ~/Documents, code goes into ~/Developer. I occasionally store PDFs in my Obsidian vault, but most of them live in a folder in ~/Documents.
To keep things organized independent of app or location, I use the PARA method.