How I use Obsidian (mid 20203)

Dashboard

My home dashboards shows a 3×3 grid:

  • 3 columns – Area
    • Ecological – Green Dynamics
    • Work process – Orange
    • Other interests – Red
  • 3 rows – Priority
    • High – Green
    • Medium – Orange
    • Low – Red

Projects in the top left being the highest priority, going down to the bottom right.

Each card in the canvas shows a heading section containing a dataview query.

The metadata menu plugin adds further customization:

  • Priority
  • Status

I use the normal dataview queries over JS (Javascript) to avoid delays.

Other cards include:

  • Ongoing research – to the right of the grid.
  • Completed projects – to the right of Ongoing research.
  • Source inbox – to the left of the grid.

File colour also signifies priority through the supercharged links plugin.

Ribbon

Commander and workspace plus are in my top 10 community plugins for a reason.

When used together, I have buttons for workspaces like:

  • Home – main dashboard
  • Temp – checkpoints of writing work
  • Course – dashboard for lessons
  • Book – longform writing setup
  • Fantasy – world building planning

There are different orders of the buttons in each workspace.

Other buttons in the ribbon:

The bookmarks give another option for quick navigation, often used when working.

Adding Projects

Using the Quick Add plugin makes creating a project easier:

  • Essay idea
  • Essay project
  • Story
  • Video
  • Podcast
  • Research
  • Source
  • Book
    • Technology
    • Detail
    • Environment
    • Character
  • Course
    • Lesson
    • Plugin

The template choice is my most used.

Multi choices give me folder options.

Having a macro for the essay projects lets me do multiple quick adds at once:

  • Create Essay file – use the essay template
  • Create Background file – use the background template
  • Store both files in the same folder – using the {{value:name}} option
  • Have 1 input box – for the value of the folder and essay project file name

Having templater lets me link the background research to the Essay project file on project creation.

Writing plugins

To make writing a little easier, I use:

Footnote shortcut for adding new footnotes and navigating between the reference and the inline location.

LanguageTool for spelling and grammar checking.

More about the Template Pack

This template and future versions are in the template pack.

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About me...

Yes. That space background is my wallpaper. My first selfie turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

I’ve been researching how we learn since I was 17, and now at 27 I’ve coached, taught and advised more activities than I thought existed.

Over the last 3 years, I’ve helped thousands learn technical software.

Now I’m all-in on sharing insights into educational science.