My PKM journey
I've tried a LOT of Personal Knowledge Management software in the journey for the perfect way to record all knowledge I want to save.
TL;DR: I've tried a bunch of apps to try and replace a combination of Todoist and Obsidian. What software and system do you use to keep track of personal knowledge and tasks?
What I'm looking for
There are three different attributes I am looking for in a PKM, in the following order:
- Ease of use. I need whatever I use to be really easy and frictionless to record information with. If there's too much resistance to getting information into the application than I probably won't end up saving it and I'll just forget about it.
- It needs to be easy to surface relevant information but also browse through less relevant information. This one is sort of a few sub categories. On one hand, I need reminders, due dates, and the UX to make sure that I don't miss certain tasks. On the other hand I need to be able to categorize and view all recorded entities - tasks, as well as pieces of information unrelated to tasks. This means I want to be able to categorize the information in a way that allows me to filter down from a larger list or from completed tasks - the best way to do this is usually tags.
- I like to use software that doesn't allow the developers to access my information; usually this is done through end to end encryption. This is especially important in a PKM because of the volume and sensitivity of the information being recorded. However, this is last on the list because I use multiple devices which introduces additional surface vectors if someone were to try and get my information. End to end encryption is just a nice to have.
- A bonus, being able to share tasks in a secure and easy way with my significant other.
Where I've been
Todoist
I won't make you read the whole post to find out my favorite... it's Todoist. I've used it for years! It really locks down that first attribute, ease of storing tasks. Todoist makes it really easy to add tasks, move tasks, and reschedule tasks. It's a simple and functional task manager that really works for me. I basically use it to keep track of everything across several projects. I roll over most of the tasks from day to day until I'm able to complete them. For tasks that need a reminder I add a due date - the reminder system is pretty basic but it works. It's the app I keep coming back to after trying all the others. But being primarily a task manager it lacks the ability to store information not related to tasks. Like information about people, places or things. So I searched for another app.
Obsidian
I'm trying this out on Obsidian right now! It's a wonderful piece of software that has full end to end encryption. I use it as a sort of digital "safe" for information I definitely don't want to lose. Unfortunately Obsidian lacks some critical functionality:
- Tasks are just checkboxes. There are plugins that can help you handle them better but the native UX for managing them is just copy, paste, and delete.
- There's tagging and folders but there's no real way to move through lots of semi-related pieces of information. I like a big list of stuff that can be filtered down, not lots of scattered documents. All of the linking and tagging happens in the middle of the rest of the text and a list of backlinks at the bottom of the UI.
- Maybe this sounds silly to you the reader - but basically it's all just too manual. If Obsidian had a sort of "parent note" at the top of each folder - like Notion which I'll cover next - it would make Obsidian a lot easier to use. Instead I always have to choose between a new block in a note, a whole new note or a folder. I'd love to be able to write out stuff as I think of it and then move stuff into sub folders - or lists - more easily.
- It's expensive for a journaling app with a relatively basic feature set. Note to note linking and cloud sync are just expected features at this point for an application like this.
Between Todoist and Obsidian I am able to meet all of those listed attributes:
- Todoist makes it easy to enter information and make sure I remember it when I need to. I can write a reminder in Todoist to make sure I record information in Obsidian.
- It's pretty easy to keep track of a lot of relevant tasks and other pieces of information in Todoist. For information that I need longer term or isn't related to a current task, it goes in Obsidian
- Obsidian is end to end encrypted. Anything related to sensitive stuff goes in Obsidian.
- Todoist allows setting sharing at a project level. So this makes it pretty easy to share tasks.
After using this system for awhile I started to see cracks forming. Todoist makes it easy to keep track of tasks but complex projects are often hard to manage. It's easy to lose track of tasks that are further out then a few days without using obtuse filters. Obsidian is difficult to use on mobile and having to transfer information from Todoist to Obsidian is frustrating. There are probably Obsidian plugins I could use to manage some of this but then I'd have to evaluate each one for data privacy concerns. And paying so much for Obsidian it's a little frustrating to have to rely on community plugins.
So I began looking for a new application, one that could do it all.
Notion
I still use Notion for a few different very specific things. I could probably use Obsidian or some of the other apps I'm about to talk about for these things. But I really like Notion - when it first came out it blew me away! It did so much stuff! It's great for keeping lists of well categorized pieces of information. It has great support for tagging, and the aforementioned folder / page hybrid. It's basically a wiki software combined with a task manager. A few issues keep me from using it as my main application:
- Like Obsidian it's hard to use on mobile. Especially for complicated stuff like moving through lots of different pieces of unrelated information.
- The reminder system is clunky. Since everything in Notion is a "block", reminders are tied to them. I think if I put a lot of time and effort into building a process for keeping track of my tasks it could work. But again, I don't really want to spend that much effort when I have system that already mostly works.
- There's no end to end encryption and nothing but a true / false value assigned to your user keeps employees from accessing your information easily.
A great piece of software but ultimately one I moved away from after a bit and back to Todoist.
Workflowy
This was the first time I felt a real paradigm shift. Workflowy is basically a really big list. Every bullet on the list is a "node" and you can zoom into nodes endlessly. So you can go from seeing all of your information to seeing very specific pieces of information very quickly and easily, even on mobile. And entering information is a breeze, you just add it as a bullet and then move it to where you need it. It's amazing for what I like to do, which is start with a general idea and build more and more specific information. For example, when going on trips I could create a "trip to place" bullet. Workflowy has amazing support for two way linking lists - basically you can change a list in one place and have it updated in all the other places its linked. So I could have a packing list that I link to the trip to place bullet. Or I can copy it and add to it. You can see all the possibilities and the UX makes it seamless.
The real killer here for me was the lack of reminders. The way to handle due dates in Workflowy is to literally type the date; there are UX solutions like a pop out calendar that handles this for you. And then you can filter down to bullets that contain that date. In theory it works well but it requires me to make sure I am looking at the right information when I need to be instead of the other way around. I tried using Todoist to supplement this but ended up having to constantly check both to make sure each was properly updated. If Worflowy had a way to assign reminders to bullets so a notification popped up that would make this the perfect app. In fact, I might give it another try after writing this out!
Lastly, it doesn't offer end to end encryption.
Twos App
This is the other app that got really close to being perfect. Twos App is the software that touched the sun and lost its wings. It does everything! It's sort of similar to Workflowy where you can have checkboxes (tasks) and bullets (pieces of information). You also have lists. So you can start a "shopping list" that sits outside your daily tasks, and you can fill that list with items you need. Then when you are ready to go shopping you can move that shopping list into a "day" and it's automatically a task. It also has a pretty good reminder system.
The problem with Twos App is unfortunate: the bugs. I found it doing odd things like reordering items, separating them out of lists and just generally glitching out. My theory is that the app is so feature packed that the systems start to conflict with each other. I've seen they are going to release a new major version soon so I might give it another try.
This is getting way too long! Just real quick some others I've tried:
- Capacities. A lot of protentional, like a more structured version of Notion. It shares a ton of the same features and functions similarly. But everything revolves around "objects" which are basically just... templates. There's no inheritance or ways to compose objects that would make something like that really powerful
- Amplenote: Another app that is close in theory but one big thing is it lacks the ability to tag tasks. You can only tag notes, which tasks live inside of. There are UX solutions for this but it's pretty clunky. It also supports end to end encryption but on a note by note basis? It seems like another situation where if I put a lot of time in I might be able to get something working but just doesn't seem worth it.
- Loqseq: End to end encrypted! Great support for tasks! But I think it's just still too underbaked. The sync feature is still in beta and requires you to pay in the form of donations? They basically tie your account to the donations you make and then give you access. Seems not worth it for the current set of functionality. It also lacks task level tags, like Amplenote.
- I've also tried Day One, Daycast, Standard Notes, Legend, and probably a bunch of others I'm not listing. I almost forgot about Ticktick.
So this brings me to my question: what application and system do you use?
Okay, I gotta argue with one point you brought up - Obsidian is not expensive. The software itself is completely free for both personal and commercial use, and there are multiple 100% free ways to sync notes between devices that don't require paying for Obsidian Sync, such as git, Syncthing, hosting your own Obsidian sync server (assuming you got the preexisting infrastructure and the know-how), using a free tier of an online drive, etc.
Wait, you can host your own obsidian sync server? Well, I know what my next few hours are.
Personally I really just don't want to put the time into doing any of those things. Git is easy to screw up if I'm not paying attention. Syncthing or my own server would either require spending money or time to set it up.
Part of using a software like this, for me, is not having to worry about those things. I also want it to be as fault tolerant as possible. I don't want to delete the wrong E2 instance and lose all my stuff.
What I meant to say is that when placed up against other solutions that have built in cloud sync it is definitely on the side of expensive. However I am definitely recognizing that there are much cheaper ways to do it and I'm lazy.
I'll echo @hamefang - I'm not really sure what's going on in this part. Yes, you can choose to pay for Obsidian Sync, but you can use every feature in the app for free without that. And like hamefang said, there's plenty of free ways to sync things yourself. As for "note to note linking", it seems like you're implying that this functionality is behind a paywall, which makes me think I must be misunderstanding you; links between notes is pretty much the foundational feature of Obsidian. It definitely does not require a subscription to use.
I'm also kind of surprised you refer to Obsidian as "a journaling app with a relatively basic feature set." I won't go into detail as I'm not interested in an argument, but (a) IMO journaling is only one possible use of Obsidian (one that makes pretty limited use of its capabilities) and (b) between things like Canvases and Bases and the wild stuff you can pull off with markdown + YAML, I'd hardly say that it has a "relatively basic feature set".
Edit: I was considering making this a separate comment but decided against it. This is not intended as a defensive fanboy argument, I just think there's some things you might not be aware of in Obsidian that could address your needs.
I'm a little confused what needs you have that Obsidian doesn't seem to be meeting, specifically as described in these parts:
You can do this by searching for a tag (or tags) or selecting it from the list in one of the panes on the right side of the screen. Again, I feel like I'm not clear on what you want here.
There is a plugin that does this (I'd have to look up the name of it, I don't use it myself). I realize you said you didn't feel like you should have to use plugins, but it seemed like that was mostly due to your idea that Obsidian is expensive.
I guess I haven't used similar PKM applications enough to know why this is a point of friction. What's the alternative? The way I use my vault is that I have an "inbox" of scraps that I quickly create, jot down stuff in, then leave in the inbox to be formatted and categorized later. There's even a very nice (third-party) quick capture app on Android I use to send things to my vault when I think of them or come across them randomly.
I haven't found a good to-do solution with Obsidian yet (though I honestly haven't looked very hard, I have a very picky set of requirements for that), but I really do think everything else you discuss can actually be done with it. Though again, this is assuming I'm interpreting your needs correctly. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have!
I probably should have expanded more but my post was already super long and I was actually trying to cut it down some. When I say "journal app" I am definitely being reductive. It's kind of a spectrum between Obsidian, where it's totally free form, just notes, folders and tags. That's compared to something like Todoist which is 100% about tasks. Then in between you have Notion, Workflowly, etc.
The problem with folders is that I end up forming giant buckets of notes that don't relate well to each other. Then it becomes difficult to find stuff later because it's all over the place. Using the search or backlinks pane is clunky. I want something I can browse information with. And gosh forbid I end up 5 sub folders deep. It's difficult to figure out at what level I should stop nesting. Notion, Twosapp and Workflowy are a bit better at this. Basically when everything is a bullet searching and filtering become first class pieces of functionality because it's inherent in the UI.
Obsidian is a great piece of software and I have a lot of appreciation for the folks that make it.
The plugin issue is more of a time and effort concern than anything else. Again acknowledging I'm probably just lazy.
This is the hardest part for me, and where a lot of information gets lost. I didn't really make it clear in my post but I have ADD and it's very easy for me to lose focus. Any friction between learning and entering the information often means I will second guess whether or not it's worth entering. With Obsidian it goes like:
On mobile this is SUPER annoying, especially when I try to use headings or time stamps. If I forget to leave a new line at the top of the document then I have to awkwardly press on the screen trying to find the right spot until I can enter a line break.
This may seem really trivial but for me it's often the difference between saving something or not. With Todoist I open the app, hit create task, and type. The information is assigned to my inbox and I know to look at it later.
Then, later when I'm moving stuff around, just copying and pasting feels so repetitious. Todoist and some of the other apps allow me to move tasks around. Again, seems trivial but it makes sorting things a lot easier.
Obviously Todoist is a todo app with a different goal and feature set, I guess I'm looking for more of a hybrid between the two.
Appreciate you diving into the conversation and sharing your experience with Obsidian! It's given me a bit to think about.
Nah, you mention the ADHD later and it makes perfect sense that you need something low-friction. You say shortly thereafter that "Any friction between learning and entering the information often means I will second guess whether or not it's worth entering." I don't(?) have ADHD but I 100% get this. I wouldn't have Obsidian on my phone at all if not for the quick capture companion app (Android, iOS) I mentioned above. With that app, it's as easy as "see thing, open app, type, submit." You can configure it to use templates, send to specific folders, or even append to existing notes, which saves time/friction when organizing later. There's been a couple times where I wasn't sure if something was worth saving and ended up just thinking "Eh, it takes two seconds, why not?", saving it, and immediately moving on to something else. It genuinely is a nerdy little spark of joy every time I find something I want to keep and just make a couple taps to capture it lol. There's also an official browser extension that does the same thing but for web pages.
Genuinely curious because it might help me too - What would something like this look like? All I can think of would be search + tags + backlinks + inline links + maybe hierarchical folders. From a bird's-eye view it sounds like you're looking for a solution to a problem that people have been trying to solve for hundreds of years haha. But I could be misunderstanding you.
I can talk a bit more about how I organize my vault (mostly tags, I have zero nested folders and only like six folders total), if that would be helpful. If not, that's cool too. Just want to help you find something that works for you!
This comment (together with the topic about tags on tildes) resurfaced a major hope I've always had with all attempts of PKM (or whatever we call them this year):
I sense there is a way to do tag-clouds with refinements that would allow me to actually be able to keep adding information/knowledge without the burden of remembering where it is being the limit.
I think the reason why OP doesn’t like Obsidian is that Obsidian is more of a notes engine than a fully featured notes app. All the features OP wants is available in Obsidian, but it requires a lot of setup to download the right plugins and write some custom JavaScript to implement more niche features.
I had an Obsidian dashboard setup for one of my previous jobs where I was able to have separate files containing unordered tasks for a variety of categories. I had a main dashboard view that would populate tasks from the raw task category files into a Todo List, in progress list, and completed this week list. Tasks that were completed more than a week ago could be viewed in an archive board so I could keep records of what I had done.
It took me about a week to set this up in a pre-AI world and with no JavaScript experience. It could probably be done more quickly now if you vibe coded the custom portions or were familiar with JavaScript.
It seems like you have more expectations than a typical personal management system can provide- have you tried project management tools aimed at business? Personally I was big fan of Asana back in the day, Monday is another player in that space though I didn't care for it as much. Only others I have experience with are Jira and azure DevOps, both of which work fine but are software dev focused so probably not a good fit for you.
I'm not sure how locked down those apps are but they are business facing which tend to take IP pretty seriously so may be adequate for you.
I personally get away with just a combination of Trello for larger projects, Notion for all the misc and small stuff, and my phone calendar for reminders.
I use them at work. It really is a catch 22 where the more complicated it is to use, the more likely it will do every thing I need; but then it's more complicated and time consuming to set up! I do think I am going to give some of these tools, like Notion, another try.
This may be tangential, but despite really liking the concept of PKM software, I have never been able to get one to work for me.
It may have to do with how my ADD brain works, but configuring the software eventually turns into a task in it of itself, I use it inconsistently, and it turns into a convoluted disorganized mess.
The one thing that's sort of worked for me is a leather bound notebook that I write simplified, bullet journal style notes into.
When I've tried combating this and forcing myself to use a PKM app, I start by keeping the rules about it very strict and limited: this is the one place I will keep information I need to remember.
Then the edge cases pop up: I can't install this software on my work computer. Ok. Well I'll just use the PKM for personal notes. On the work computer I'll use onenote. Sure.
But then what about my calendar? Okay. Well appointments will obviously go in my calendar. And I have a separate calendar for work, so work stuff will stay in my work calendar and personal stuff will stay in my personal calendar, work notes stay in my work onenote, personal notes stay in my PKM.
We're up to four places now. Okay, not TOO bad still.
What about to do lists though? I search for a plugin that manages to do lists well, and after researching, I find a lot of people that say to do lists really don't belong in a PKM. They're for knowledge, not tasks. Okay, well let me spin up to do lists (two of them, obviously).
Alright, six places now. But what if I don't have my phone on me? What if I'm in a meeting and want to pay attention to what the person is saying and don't want to appear rude by typing on my phone?
Well, scraps of paper then. I'll get around to putting those notes in my PKM/Calendar/Todo list x2 eventually. ...sure.
But I also have my email. And how do I know which emails are important enough to need to be referenced later, and which ones can just sit in my inbox? I can't, so that's two email accounts I have information in.
What about information that needs to be shared though? The PKMs I've used don't have easy ways to collaborate, and besides, I'm not about to make my fiance sign up for another random account so that we can plan our vacation together, so I'll just spin up a Google keep for that.
Also, secure stuff like passwords, API keys, bank account numbers and such don't belong in a PKM, so I'll use my password managers (again, two different ones for work and personal) for that stuff.
Okay. All this stuff is set up. Now I need to find a receipt from 2 months ago I saved from a work trip. Is that in my personal PKM because it was a meal just for me? Is it in my work onenote because I was on a work trip? Is it in my OneDrive for work? Is it just a file on my phone, if so which phone? Did I just email it to myself? All of this assumes I use these tools perfectly and never have a moment of "eh I don't have time to log that right now", which happens all the time
Each tool exponentially increases the things I need to worry about, and at the end of the experiment, I always wish the PKM was a physical thing, because then I could put it in a giant pile and hit it with a flamethrower. I usually find that I would have been better off just trying to remember all the things in my head, since I'm not going to be able to find what I'm looking for without significant effort anyway.
These days I've just mostly given up, and write notes haphazardly in a daily log in a paper notebook. If I can't find that note later, oh well. Human memory was never supposed to be infallible anyway.
Thats not to knock people that use these tools, but I think most people who have had success with them either have a very different kind of personal/work life than me, have brains that work significantly different than mine, or both.
I totally get what you mean, this is kind of exactly what I was trying to say with my rambling list of tools and how I've used them. I was hoping someone would share a system that works for them!
This is not directly a reply to you OP, as you clearly have given this thought and know what you want. But I was reminded about a previous discussion on Tildes about this topic. I feel like it is relevant to include as I know there might be people reading this who feel like they need to get their things in order as well. But, using a PKM/Second brain to begin with and how to use it is actually really personal and not for everyone.
Thank you for sharing!
You say that, but from your entire post I feel like the transfer of things between two apps is your only actual complaint about the current system - wouldn't it be worth it to just use a plugin?
There are a few, but only 3-4 of them seem to be relevant to you - the biggest one syncs tasks between Todoist and Obsidian, the rest have some more specific usecases which may or may not fit you better. I don't think there are any privacy concerns as they're all open source and use the official Todoist API.
Also, just like @all_summer_beauty, I'm completely baffled by your description of Obsidian and not sure what you mean in many parts of your post.
There's a few reasons I don't like to use plugins but I thought they would be silly enough that it wasn't worth including in my post.
For one, if someone were to update their extension in a way that breaks Obsidian for me - especially without me knowing it - that would be a problem. Especially because it would no longer be on Obsidian to fix it. This might sound really dumb and paranoid but basically it's just not a risk I'm willing to take. While the chances of this happening are low it's definitely overall safer to not use community plugins
Another reason, I would have to vet those plugins myself, or trust someone in the community vetting them.
Again, this might all sound really silly and I get that. It's just kind of the decision I came to after reading a bit about it.
I tried to clear up some other stuff about how I use Obsidian in a response to that comment.
Just a quick list of plugins that allow me to make Obsidian do almost whatever I want:
I'm forgetting some, I'm sure. It does take time to set these up in the way that supports your process, but at least for me, I experienced a steep productivity hike and the time investment was definitely worth it.
That said, I'm using Obsidian on desktop only. No experience on mobile use or sync. I prefer doing different things on my phone vs. laptop and not putting my entire life on the phone. When I was still using Notion, I found that I didn't actually use it on my phone much, and when I did, it was cumbersome. And I had a lot less material on Notion too, due to privacy and security reasons.
This seems really specific. Have you tried Org-mode? I don't personally use emacs but this multiplicity (task management+event management) seems like something that would only be satisfied by very mature systems which have been actively developed over decades.
Personally, I use Google Calendar and Gmail snooze email for things I want to remember/schedule. But I also use systemd-timers, eg:
For note-taking I primarily use git, ie. https://github.com/chapmanjacobd/journal/
There isn't really anything specific in terms of programs. I do a couple things to manage and sort lists--but all the note-taking and searching is very lightweight: tee, ripgrep, fd, etc.
You can use Bases for this: https://help.obsidian.md/bases
Basically the Obsidian equivalent(ish) of Notion databases. A Base can contain notes from any search you can think of.
Like I have
/Watchlist/TV/and a TV base that lists all notes under that directory with specific propertiesAs for TODO-stuf, I tried using Obsidian for that as well as Notion, but in the end it doesn't work. My brain needs an application that'll go "ping" when I need to do something.
So Obsidian is for notes, Things3 is for TODO. There's no automatic syncing between the two.
Things3 does not work in the browser or on Windows. That was something I forgot to note, that I need compatibility across as many platforms as possible.
The main point still stands: Obsidian is really bad at task management unless you are REALLY good and rigorous at it. Basically it only works if you yourself proactively look for the task lists and check off the tasks.
I'm bad at it, so the #1 feature for any task management tool for me is the ability to ping my desktop and phone with a notification about shit I haven't done yet =)
Have you tried the database version of Logseq? It's not done yet, but already very powerful
I don't think I have. Loqseq does also lack tagging at the bullet level so I'm not sure if I'd be able to use it.
Tagging at bullet level is no problem. In Logseq they're called blocks, though. You can add all kinds of properties to any of them. Pages and blocks are treated equally as nodes in the new version. Tags are now more powerful and easier to use too