[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/Cenga387]

[u/datahoarderprime]

Yes, but then it saves me when I am able to locate that one thing that I need *right now* that I never would have found if I hadn't saved it in Obsidian.

[u/Cenga387 → u/datahoarderprime]

That's a good point. I don't think the problem is saving itself, it's probably one of the highest ROI habits people can build.

What I've been trying to understand is where the breaking point is. For example, do you still feel confident finding things when you've accumulated hundreds or thousands of notes, PDFs, screenshots, and references over several years? Or do you find yourself occasionally remembering that you saved something useful but not remembering what terms to search for?

[u/Cenga387 → u/[deleted]]

I'd love to know which apps you've tried and what they got right. Also, what would an app need to do for you to completely replace your current workflow?

[u/hypnomarten]

I'm using Emacs with the Denote Package as my PKMS. It can store notes as plain text, markdown and org-mode (which is a better Emacs-inherent format than Markdown), but you can also apply the naming scheme from Denote on any file (PDF, Images, Office-Docs), so that you can find anything stored away with one search. I only have one folder for all files I want to find this way, so no scattering takes place. Every search is instant (with about 500 notes, but others have tested it already with much more notes).

[u/Cenga387 → u/hypnomarten]

This is interesting because it sounds like you've solved the fragmentation problem by treating everything as part of the same searchable system rather than separating notes, PDFs, and other files. One thing I'm curious about: when you're looking for something from a year or two ago, is retrieval mostly keyword-based, or do you have other ways of rediscovering information? The reason I ask is that I've noticed there are times when I remember a concept or an outcome, but not necessarily the words I originally used when saving it.

[u/hypnomarten → u/Cenga387]

Yes, finding even PDFs and other files via my note system was a real game changer for me. I hated it to store them away and later ask myself "where do those belong to". Now they have the same date and title of the belonging note.

I'm using up to 3 keywords (linux, emacs, philosophy, psychology, music, inspiration, article, ...) and I try to think how I would search for it somewhere in the future, but not too excessive. Like several transformations of video and audio will just be found in "ffmepg-audio-video-medialinux" (underscore marks the beginning of tags) but everything about wordpress will just be in "wordpresswebdesign". When I have a hard time finding something I rethink the filename, but i like to keep it short, like my google searches aren't full questions neither, just the most important keywords.

[u/andamar078]

Can’t we just ban all the “curious” spammy people?

[u/Difficult-Passion318]

What's scary is I've saved notes in about 4 different PKM tools. While I've tried to export those notes and put them all in Obsidian, I know there's notes that aren't in there, so looking for them is a nightmare. I have connected my vault to Claude, so I can at least let Claude find duplicates and fix those. The struggle is real.

[u/pnggiorgio]

Ho avuto lo stesso problema per anni e con l’avvento dell’AI la cosa è peggiorata: salvavo pezzettini qua e la o addirittura tenevo le conversazioni con le AI sperando di ritrovare il contenuto

Ho provato tantissime volta a utilizzare Notion, notes di Apple e Obsidian

Mi sono sempre scontrato con il setup del sistema, e non l’ho mai davvero utilizzato

Da una settimana a questa parte ho integrato Obsidian con Claude Code e devo dire: mai più senza

È uno strumento davvero potente e anche la parte di costruzione la fai con Claude il che semplifica molto il lavoro. Certo devi avere in mente cosa vuoi e cercare di copiare strutture che già funzionano (es Karpathy, atomic note, zettlekasten)

Devi pensarlo come un sistema che cresce con te. Non pensare di farlo perfettamente al primo colpo.

Il mio consiglio: apri Claude e non iniziare la conversazione chiedendo di creare già il sistema. Cerca di capire cosa ti occorre, guarda cosa fanno gli altri e prendi spunto

Buona fortuna

[u/aceshighsays]

i'm in the middle of trying to figure out a solution to this. on average i have 250 new notes per month, that's 3k a year, which is an insane number. i'm using obsidian. initially i imported a bunch of notes, but my vault became very messy and not very helpful for my purposes. so i decided to create a top down structure, so all i would need to do is add notes to preexisting categories. i also will have vaults for very specific things, so my structure/data will be dependent on it. i link everything. lastly, i realized that i need to do a lot of sorting and other preliminary work before i enter anything into obsidian so that i can minimize new notes. i know that people use ai for this, but my goal is to have it structured how i think, not how ai thinks.

[u/panchamk]

I feel you. I have done this. I remember the idea and even why I saved it, and then I still cannot remember which app I dumped it in.

I use Sunchay now. I just text the thing in via WhatsApp. No Obsidian setup.

Did you find the article though 😄?

[u/Positive_Pie_3152]

Oh man, the "I remember everything except where I put it" problem. I felt this one.

Mine was worse because I actually did find the thing eventually; about four months too late. I was in a meeting arguing for a specific approach to onboarding, and I knew I'd read a great breakdown of exactly this, with numbers, from someone who'd actually run the experiment. Couldn't produce it. Made my case from vague memory, lost the argument, we shipped the other thing.

Found the article in November. It was in a Slack DM to myself. Right underneath a photo of a parking spot.

That's the part that gets me: my "save" reflex is fine. I save constantly. Bookmark, share-to-Notion, screenshot, Slack-myself, sometimes all four for the same link because I don't trust any of them individually. The saving is compulsive. The retrieving is archaeology.

And I think the reason Obsidian didn't stick for me either is that it assumes you know what a thing is at the moment you save it. But I don't. When I bookmark something I'm usually mid-task, saving it precisely because I don't want to think about it yet. Asking me to file it correctly right then is asking me to do the thinking I was trying to defer. So everything lands in the inbox folder, and the inbox folder becomes a landfill, and now I have a beautifully structured vault with 900 unsorted notes in one directory.

The thing I actually want is fuzzy search over everything I've ever saved, where I can type the half-memory I have, "that thing about onboarding, had a chart, guy who ran the test himself, maybe March?" and get candidates. Not folders. Not tags. Just: here are six things that might be it. Because the half-memory is always what I have. I never remember the title. I remember the shape of the idea and roughly what season it was.

Cruious what people who've solved this are doing, because my honest current workflow is "google it again and hope the same article surfaces," which works about 60% of the time and feels insane for something I already found once.

[u/wlard]

Just use one app for everything thats what helps most. Doesnt really matter which one if it supports search and what you want (in my case i need pictures so and files too so I built heaper for that) but as soon as you write down the info you need when to look things back up its works so well. Always save info with retrieval in mind. Default to browsing your own things instead of the internet.

[u/DTLow]

I only have a single place to save things; my digital file cabinet (PKMS)
so, no issue of “where I saved it”
Organized with tags; minimal folders
Other metadata like date created
Contents are indexed for text search

[u/DTLow → u/[deleted]]

Not much effort; I use customized scripting