Welcome and happy Friday!

Organizing files is hard. Last week we talked about naming files. Let’s say you’ve decided on the perfect name for a note, now what? Where does the note go now?

Digital files have always been a challenge for me to organize. I just don’t care about organizing them most of the time. I drop everything in a single folder, and that’s good enough. Surely I’ll be able to sort them out if I need to in the future.

But this is not a good long-term strategy. I can’t count the number of folders I have now that are chaotic and unuseable.

For some reason current me says “you can figure it out later” but later me says “what is this garbage??”

Do you know the feeling?

This is why I’ve never “clicked” with any of the previous note taking apps I’ve tried.

Evernote? Garbage can.

Drafts? Garbage can.

Apple Notes? Garbage can.

Twitter Bookmarks? Flaming garbage can.

How did I solve this problem? Part of the solution was Obsidian itself: spending time in Obsidian is so much fun that I organize more intuitively. The other solution was Maps of Content.

Maps of Content

Maps of Content are huge. They make organization easy and intuitive. And unlike folders, they’re not binary: one note can exist in any number of MOCs, or zero MOCs, depending on what makes sense.

My main Obsidian vault has over 5,000 notes in it now, easily ten times the number of notes I’ve kept in any other system. But somehow, they all feel more accessible and organized than any other system, and that is largely thanks to MOCs.

If you have yet to start using MOCs, or if you want to learn more about reducing friction with MOCs, check out my full write-up here:

Obsidian for Beginners

I suspect, if you’re on this mailing list, you already know your way around Obsidian. But if not, I also published an article this week on getting started with Obsidian.

I go over a ton of information in this 3,000+ word article, complete with a handy table of contents. Even if you’re an Obsidian pro, I hope you’ll give it a look, I’m proud of how it turned out.

Syncing Obsidian

I was asked on Twitter this morning about how I sync Obsidian between devices.

And well… it’s complicated. I have five different devices all running different operating systems that all use Obsidian, so my system is likely a little beefier than most people need.

There are many ways to sync your Obsidian vault, all with their own pros and cons. For my money, the best premium option is Obsidian Sync, it does everything you need and is effortless to set up. But if you’re looking for free or non-subscription sync services, the waters get a little more murky.

Fortunately there are a lot of good resources out there for how to do this, and I continue to find more every week. Here are a few of my favorites:

• ​Syncing on iOS using git and Working Copy​
  • This is a great guide, comprehensive and clear, but the Working Copy app is a little pricy.
• ​Syncing on iOS using git and iSH​
  • This method is free but finicky, and I find it doesn’t work with big vaults (or old iPhones)
• ​Backing up Obsidian with git for free​
  • If you don’t know anything about git, this is my guide intended to teach you how to use it with Obsidian.
• ​Just use Dropbox​
  • Works best with Android and desktop computers. Not sure if it would work with iOS. Free and easy, if your vault isn’t too big.
• ​Group syncing with the Remotely Save plugin​
  • This looks great for teams, and the Remotely Save plugin supports many different cloud services, which is nice.

That’s all for now! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reply to this email.

Ciao~

Tim