Over the years, I've flip flopped in my use of tech. I've found something I liked right up until another new shiny thing appeared. I've migrated and done new setups more times than I can remember.
In the past few years, I've tried hard to curb this tendency and, most recently, I've gone back to some old favourites.
Obsidian
Obsidian has been an on and off constant since around 2022 when I first came across it. Ali Abdaal posted about Roam Research. It sounded amazing. I took a look but found the cost prohibitive so Googled alternatives. Obsidian came up. Essentially free, I downloaded it and got going.
I jumped in with both feet and soon had a complex setup with plugins galore. It became unwieldy and I was spending more time managing Obsidian than I was using it. Gradually, I started using other tools — Drafts, Bebop and Nota.
But this year, I revisited Obsidian — partly because I dived into Claude. Obsidian had improved. The mobile app was no longer glitchy, which had been one of my big frustrations years ago. And I decided, from the outset, that I was going to keep things simple. Basic plugins.
Claude Adds Another Layer
Claude has added another brilliant layer. I use Obsidian like a bucket. I can drop in various notes — from Telegram, from Bebop, via Lightpage, Tana and Voicenotes. Everything is amalgamated in my Daily Note: my logs, my web clippings, my random thoughts, notes I've drafted.
Claude will draft an atomic note for me, based on something I've written, referencing other related notes. It's giving me a more complete experience and showing me what's possible. Resurfacing the connected notes is something I wouldn't manage easily on my own.
Of course, the value of Obsidian is the local, plain text format. Despite not always using Obsidian, my notes sat waiting patiently — accessible in different ways. Now, Markdown is paying dividends because it's the format Claude can work with.
What Does This Give Me?
Productivity when I'm short on time. I wrote this in Claude, with instructions to tidy it up, add in related notes and backlinks and publish. For my digital garden, I'm not concerned about 100% creative integrity. I want to capture my thoughts in a fairly rough and ready way, have an editor review and tidy them up — as many writers do — and get them out there.
Joining the dots in my vault is a massive thing, though. It gives me great joy seeing connections made in my Daily Note. It reminds me of themes I've been exploring and makes me think about new possibilities.
Tana as the Origin
I've started using Tana as the origin of my logs. I tweaked my Supertag setup and separated out Journals and Logs. Now Claude pulls in my Logs and adds them to my Daily Note. Why? Because I can. I'd like to get to the point where my Daily Note is my single source of truth — an amalgamation of key inputs from my day.
I'm loving where I've got to so far. Much of it is now automated. I just need to create, drop something into one of the tools and it flows into my Obsidian bucket. It feels like genius.
Related: The Obsidian Renaissance · The Magic of Claude and Obsidian · The Claude Rabbit Hole · What I've Found Using Claude · Kortex or Eden · Revisiting Tana · Why I Love Voicenotes · My Lightpage Guide, Neo