How I set up Obsidian as a normal human

No complex folder systems. No plugin rabbit holes. Just notes.

I have just started on the Obsidian journey over the last month. I didn’t need to add another app to my life, especially another note-taking app. I honestly have enough. I have used Bear for a while, then ditched it. I have been using Apple Notes on and off for years and recently fallen in love with Notion. It runs half my life. But what I realised is it fails at the one thing I wanted: a note-taking app.

In the last three months I found myself gravitating back to Apple Notes, which I know many other people have too. It’s great. It’s simple, yet also profoundly complex if you know where to look. It’s also Apple, so it feels natural across all devices and syncs perfectly. It feels like home.

But it’s a little limited, especially if you like to use AI and store thousands of notes. I have thousands of notes spread across different locations and Apple Notes just doesn’t cut it for managing them.

So I looked for a new solution. Obsidian gets a lot of love, so I thought I’d give it a go.

I downloaded it on all my devices, started writing some notes, and it felt natural and comfortable. Then I started to nerd out. I added plugins I thought I needed but really didn’t. I’d been using Notion for over a year and thought I needed that same complexity in Obsidian. Turns out I don’t.

I deleted every plugin. Then went a step further and removed a bunch of core plugins I didn’t understand. I decided I could learn them later. Then I stopped trying to organise my notes. I’d just start writing and figure it out as I go.

So as an absolute beginner who started confidently and then realised my mistakes, here are some quick tips for getting started with Obsidian at a realistic level. Once you’ve mastered these, feel free to add complexity. But don’t add complexity until it makes sense.

These thoughts are from a normal human. Not someone who creates complexity for the sake of complexity with folders, bases, and tags enough to sink a ship.

Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash

Tip 1: don’t use any community plugins

In all honesty, there are some incredible plugins out there. They make Obsidian more powerful and easy to use. They’re fun and engaging. But that’s also their fault.

Core plugins are a lot less complex. You mostly just turn them on and they work. Community plugins need tweaking to function how you want them to, and if you’re not careful you’re tweaking more than you’re writing.

A notes app is for writing. If you’re busy making the app feel more “usable” rather than actually using it to write, something’s wrong.

I tried Tasks, and I want to use it, but not yet. I also want to use Navigation Notebook, but it’s too complex for where I am right now. I’m sticking to core plugins until I write more than I edit the app.

Tip 2: don’t organise folders

Start a vault and start writing notes. Don’t try to organise anything. Get used to writing, get used to markdown. A to-do list, a grocery list, random thoughts, a prompt you found online and liked.

Once you have over 50 notes, then maybe start a folder. Find a few notes that fit together and throw them in. Do the same with another folder. Then go back to writing before adding more folders.

Don’t create a folder until it has a purpose. If a group of notes makes sense together, that’s the moment.

For me, I have a couple of key folders. Everything else is a bit of a mess.

• A Bible folder for all notes I take on the Bible.
• A Church folder for notes I take from sermons on Sundays.
• An Articles folder for articles I’m writing.

Everything else just lives in the sidebar until I figure out where it belongs.

Tip 3: organise by tags

Folders are great, but often things belong in more than one folder. That’s where tags come in.

In Apple Notes I’ve drifted away from folders completely. I now only use tags. They’re the easiest way to find content, especially with smart folders grouped around specific tags.

Obsidian is even better with tags. You can layer them by adding a slash in the middle. I have an article tag that has drafts and published beneath it. When working on articles, I filter to drafts only. When something’s published, I change the tag. I never have to think about which folder something is in.

Tip 4: turn off graph view

This one is going to offend some of the Obsidian fan club. I’m fine with it.

Graph view is incredible, but it’s also a massive distraction. Constantly thinking about what your current note should link to stops you from actually focusing on the note.

My encouragement to a new user: don’t think about linking at all. Focus on writing first. Use folders or tags to sort things, and later you can think about linking. Honestly, I’d get AI to help with that process when the time comes.

Tip 5: turn off the ribbon

The ribbon usually has links to templates, graph view, daily notes, and a few other things. Great features once you understand and use them regularly. For a new user they’re just UI clutter.

In all honesty, I have most of these ribbon items off anyway. Bases, command palette, graph view, templates, and daily notes are all turned off in my setup, so there’s no point having the ribbon visible. I’d encourage the same for anyone testing Obsidian for the first time.

Tip 6: let AI help you organise later

The beautiful thing about Obsidian is the simplicity of the files that live locally on your computer. They’re just there, and can be edited, reshuffled, and reorganised without even opening the app.

This is where AI can play a seriously helpful role. If you’re a Claude user, you can create a project in Cowork to manage your notes. Give it a markdown file as instructions so it understands how you think, and whenever you need to reshuffle things just ask it to. The same works with Codex.

I’ve used Claude to help organise tags, properties, and dates across my notes. It can do batch admin work quickly.

For example: you might have tasks littered throughout your vault. With one prompt you could ask Claude to move those into a Tasks folder, and it’ll do it in seconds. Once you’re done, get it to move completed notes to an archive. No manual moving, no missing notes.

Recently I imported years of journal entries from Day One. I downloaded a JSON file and gave it to Claude, asked it to folder the notes by year and add a property with the created date. Done in minutes.

I wouldn’t recommend importing notes from other apps just yet. Do that once you understand Obsidian more. What I want to show is how effective AI can be when it comes to organising notes.

I hope I’ve inspired a few new Obsidian users today. A lot of people are curious about this app but worried about the learning curve. I totally get that. But the curve is much smaller than Notion if you’re willing to hold off on plugins. My encouragement to everyone, even those who think they already understand the app: try using only core plugins for a while. Get the best out of them before you dive into community plugins. They’re powerful, but they’ll quickly pull you away from the whole point. Note taking.