After a few starts and stops over the past few months, I have come to the conclusion that Obsidian is the right tool for me. As noted on my Stuff page, I live on different platforms. Right now I am writing the bulk of this on the Obsidian app on an HP laptop running Linux Mint. I also use iOS on my iPhone so I need access to everything my notes app holds. Here is the kicker about Obsidian being my “notes app,” it ends up being so much more than that. So far I am only partially through the process, so this is just part one, but I am going to share my vision.
My Obsidian Use Cases
- Bookmarks manager: Right now I use Raindrop to handle my bookmarks and sync them across platforms. It only took me a few minutes to fully replace the functionality right in Obsidian. I will do a whole post on the Web Clipper, but I use the Web Clipper to automatically save a link which goes right into a folder called Bookmarks, and then I have a note that automatically prepopulates every bookmark in the Bookmarks folder into a list organized by tags which I set on the save.
- Read Later app: Since Pocket shut down in the last few years, I have been using Instapaper to save things I want to read later or read again. This is something else I can do right in Obsidian — it saves the entire article as a note, which makes the process of using things I want to share here easy!
- Goodreads Replacement: Until now I have used Goodreads to keep track of the books I have read and those I want to read. Again, with very little work I created a system that manages that. The best part is that Obsidian has a built-in feature called Bases that makes a visually appealing dashboard. Using that same Web Clipper, I set an automation that pulls the cover of the book from Goodreads, and you can see what is shared below. Each book turns into a note where I can take notes or pull quotes I want to save. For quotes I want to keep elsewhere, I made a separate Quotes dashboard.
Created a way to manage books I am reading, read, and want to read. Pulls the covers from goodreads to make the display look good.
— Darren Cohen (@darrencohen.me) July 17, 2026 at 6:42 AM
[image or embed]
- Similar to books, I am setting up a system for movies, TV, and music. I am going to work on this more in the coming days.
- Task Management: I love Apple Reminders and am going to keep that for many things, but with a Tasks plugin I can add to-dos to notes and then create a tasks dashboard for any tasks created within notes. So Reminders app for most time-based and location-based reminders, everything else right in Obsidian. This is a work in progress and I can decide to use this more or less.
- Notes: Duh, the easy part is replacing my current Notes app.
- Managing my blog: I am doing all my writing right in Obsidian. My blog runs on Hugo, which means everything is in markdown, and everything in Obsidian is based in markdown, so this has been a no-brainer. I have a system that goes from ideas to drafts, and then I just upload the markdown file via Git to my Hugo repository, and it’s live.
There is a lot more, and I will write more about it later, including the use of templates and the power that unleashes. My favorite feature is how easy it is to link to other notes or tags within other apps. Ultimately, I am comfortable putting all of this time into Obsidian because it’s just a front end that stores everything as text documents right on your hard drive. Nothing is locked into a system, and if Obsidian is gone tomorrow or if I get sick of it, moving somewhere else is trivial.
More soon…