Danica Swanson pfp
Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
Back in February I wrote about my idea to publish more "unpolished thoughts." Published 7 new essays since then. All very polished. Still looking for a good low-friction way to publish casual snippets (too long for FC/too short for an essay). https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson/what-is-a-digital-incubation-space
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Andrew Zav pfp
Andrew Zav
@andrewzav.eth
I’ve only just stumbled across your writing and your Paragraph page and am catching up. Did you ever settle on a platform for your unpolished thoughts?
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Callum Wanderloots ✨ pfp
Callum Wanderloots ✨
@wanderloots.eth
Have you seen the digital garden obsidian video I made? I think it will solve your unpolished thoughts problem :) Prefer it over notion for interoperable md file creation and plugins
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Danica Swanson pfp
Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
I haven't seen it yet, Cal. I do love Obsidian, but every time I've tried to switch over in the past, I just haven't quite been able to get it to really stick for me in the day-to-day. Habits are hard to change after 13 years working primarily in Scrivener, and I'm dealing with a heavy cognitive load elsewhere too, so I've been dragging my feet. BUT... I think I may have finally reached a tipping point with the ongoing "technical debt" burden of using Scrivener and Notion for so many years. So it may soon be time to give Obsidian another try. I really don't like using Notion for the journal project; I settled for it mostly because I was already familiar with it and I wouldn't need to go through another learning curve to get up and running.
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Callum Wanderloots ✨ pfp
Callum Wanderloots ✨
@wanderloots.eth
Totally fair! My suggestion would be to start your obsidian vault with a specific purpose in mind (e.g., writing a daily journal, a place to take research notes, capture screenshots you want to go back to or articles you'd like to revisit) Once you have that single purpose like journalling, you'll start to see what works and what doesn't, you'll customize some templates (incredibly easy to do) and then the rest will start to feel much more organic. Honestly, compared to notion, Obsidian is far easier/cleaner imo. You can just start with the daily note plugin, which lets you press one button to make a note with your daily template. No need to add complexity until you're looking for it. here's the video btw: https://youtu.be/en56OKg5hyc?si=Stv-qYlxQfq53FDT I'm working on something that hopefully ties a lot of these concepts together :) should be ready in a week or two
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Danica Swanson pfp
Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
Makes sense. Here's more on why I've been resistant to move to Obsidian (despite the fact that I love it) and why switching costs feel so high for me. I imagine you've heard similar things from other would-be Obsidian users. - I'm really picky about the appearance of any UI I use for writing/reading. But customizing Obsidian to suit my tastes (fonts, colors, settings) feels like a job of its own, and even though it's fun to play around that way, it's a honeytrap. I don't have time to spend tweaking it. Easier to just stick with what's familiar. - The thought of “starting over” after 13 years with Scrivener + 6 years with Notion is overwhelming because I don't want to just leave behind the years of work and quote-collecting I've done in those apps. BUT: if I find a good way to export years of files from both Scrivener + Notion into Obsidian without screwing up the formatting in a way that would require fixing all the files manually, I'll be much more interested. Bookmarked your video for later!
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Callum Wanderloots ✨ pfp
Callum Wanderloots ✨
@wanderloots.eth
Yeah that’s fair, and you’re right, it is what I’ve heard from a lot of other would be obsidian users haha. Re: switching from notion, it’s a breeze for the writing. Can’t speak too much on data bases/dashboards, since I just built my main ones in obsidian. But I actually made a video about how to import your Notion notes to obsidian, and it worked surprisingly well. Kept all of the linking and everything. Re: scrivener, it would probably depend on what the export capabilities are? You might be able to just export to markdown and then obsidian would read it no problem. Re: UI, there’s a “minimalist theme” that you can turn on, and then it gives you really easy interface to change fonts, colours, etc. But at the end of the day, it’s all about what works for you. Could also import to obsidian to create a markdown backup of notes from other systems, and see how it goes How To Migrate To Obsidian: Importer Plugin 📝 Apple Notes, OneNote, Notion, & More! https://youtu.be/zgRKm9UO0P0
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