Anita Lewis

Experiment with Simplicity for Friction

Published on: by Anita

3 min read

This article by Ellane prompted me to look at what friction I would experience if I tried to use my Obsidian notes outside of the Obsidian program. The steps for the experiment listed in the article are the following:
1. Cut your systems down to their simplest level
2. Notice the friction that results
3. Adapt as needed
4. See what emerges

Here is what I experienced.

Searching

Searching the files by filename or contents is easily done with Searchmonkey. In fact, I often use it to search files in the Obsidian vault, because it gives me better output than the Obsidian search. In Obsidian it is easier to open the file and read or edit.

Markdown

Writing markdown outside Obsidian is not a problem. I often use ReText to make small edits or to quickly save a note rather than going into Obsidian to do it. I’ll save it on my Desktop while I use the information and then later move it to the Obsidian vault if I want to keep it.

Auto-save

Obsidian saves the file as I write or edit. Other programs require saving, but usually will remind me if I haven’t saved. I like the automatic saving, but there is not a lot of friction involved in saving a file manually - Ctrl S usually does it.

Viewing

Looking at the files in ReText is good enough. I can switch between the markdown to Preview. In Obsidian I can edit while seeing the file in Preview which is easier. Thinking about the ease of Obsidian’s preview, I looked around for other options. I found two very nice ones: Ghostwriter and Remarkable. Seeing how little distraction there is when writing in Remarkable, I realized how much distraction I have in Obsidian. It’s nice when I want these many things handy, but not when I’m needing to focus.

I also found glow, a very nice CLI viewer that will open my editor with a keystroke. This is especially useful when I am working outside the Desktop environment. I’ll mention more on this later.

Convert to HTML

Doing this exercise using ReText reminded me of the need I sometimes have to convert markdown to HTML. When I use Obsidian to do that I get a lot of additional style instead of strictly the necessary HTML that I need. I found that I could view the HTML in ReText and copy it using “Edit/View HTML code” from the menu.

A big plus in Obsidian is its linking capability. There is a rule that links shall not be broken, so if the name or location of a file is changed, all links in the Vault that refer to that file are also changed. Working outside of Obsidian I would need to do a content search for the links to the file and change them manually when I changed a filename or location. That is a big point of friction.

Sense of security

Overall I feel comfortable that I can still use the data stored in the Obsidian vault if I no longer have Obsidian available. In addition, the friction points that I encountered informed me of potential problems with linking and also led to a program that will likely be better for writing without distraction while retaining the advantage of seeing a preview of the output.

Surprising idea

All the above is about working on a Desktop with color, images, a mouse, etc. But something came to my mind that I’m getting a real kick out of and the enjoyment gets me to use it–the black and white screen with the word “login” on it. It’s an old friend.

This post is about using a CLI environment for less distraction while writing. The experiment resulting in some friction when working on Obsidian files outside of the Obsidian program brought the thought of this to mind. It seems that the difficulty of going outside the limits of a single program can indeed release useful ideas. You may want to read Ellane’s article and try her suggestion. Maybe you’ll come up with some crazy ideas, too!