Practically Paperless With Obsidian, Episode 24: Use Case: How I Capture Field Notes in Obsidian – Jamie Todd Rubin

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I have been a dedicated user of Field Notes brand notebooks since 2015. Since then, I have rarely been without a Field Notes notebook in my back pocket. These Field Notes notebooks represent my short-term memory. They contain fleeting notes, lists, ideas, names of people.

Handwritten notes are a form of short-term memory


My process for capturing my notes in Obsidian is straight-forward. At the end of each day, I open my Daily Notes file for the day and do the following: Flip through notes in my Field Notes notebook looking for anything worth saving. Transfer those items worth saving into my daily notes. Elaborate on these as necessary. Most of what I jot in these notebooks stays in the notebooks. The most common things to go into Obsidian are: blog post ideas notes jotted about things I read or listed to notes from experiences, like tours, museum visits, etc1.


  1. A notebook gets me off screens, for at least some of the day I try to avoid screens for everything. When I walk in the morning and have an idea for a post, or want to jot a note on the book I am listening to, I don’t want to look at a screen. My notebook provides a convenient way to capture fleeting thoughts without depending on my phone. Find time away from screens

It is difficult to search the notebooks this way. I once spent quite a bit of time searching for a beer brand in my notebooks. But that’s why I lean toward keeping notes in Obsidian that I think will be useful in the future. Notebooks are not easily searchable