People who do lots of work and ship lots of projects tend to have a certain level of mess in their workshops. Creation is repeated cycles of trial, play, reflection and tidying.
For anyone thinking about trying out Obsidian, here are some problems I have solved with it:
- Remembering where I met someone, what we talked about and then connecting up with them at a later date. My ability to remember names is easily 10x because of obsidian.
- Seeing who in my family's birthday is coming up soon and their address so I can send them a card.
- Graphing how far I've run for each day/week and any quick training notes.
- Showing me friend's restaurant suggestions on a map when I've got a free evening and I want to try something new.
And all of this stored locally and synced onto many devices.
If you're curious I highly recommend starting simple. Don't worry about plugins, just write a quick daily note every day about the information that is important to you. When you feel like you're outgrowing that, adopt a structure that fits you and solves your problems.
The problem is there's "mess" and then there's mess, and it's nontrivial to distinguish the two.
Ultimately, it comes down to: can you find something you're looking for? For most people, this will require some amount of organization as they will not be able to remember the location of every individual thing, but what this organization looks like may seem inscrutable to someone else.
I have stub notes for people I've met, and link to them in the journal section of my daily note when I've met them; I can then check the backlinks on that person's note when I want to check where I've seen them before.
Not the OP, but I've got a "Names to remember" evergreen note in my Reference folder. Within it, I have a few headings (e.g. neighbours, or locations), and a bullet point for each person, with context that will trigger the memory. That might sound like there's a lot of structure, but it's really the act of writing it down in the first place that helps me remember.
I use Obsidian for the same purpose as the sister comment. I have a long old note where I add the name and a minor info for new acquaintances. Mine is charavterised by the environment of acquaintance, i.e Work/Town/Rave/Hobby/Online. Rarely need to refer back once ive written down.
I make a new card in a folder called People whenever I meet someone. Then I add information like email address, phone number, connections to other people when relevant.
I find engaging like this helps my memory already on its own, but if I'm ever really stuck with a name I just take a quick look at my phone. The person is usually linked to the event where I first met them or similar.
I use the Tracker plugin [1] to make charts of things like running distances etc.
For maps, I have a folder called Places and each markdown file in there is a place. I add latitude and longitude to the frontmatter and then display them on a map.
if you mean "graphs" as in "plots", you can just use matplotlib with some Markdown parser. the Templates plugin (built-in) helps maintaining cohesive structure that helps both parsing and human comprehension.
for maps, there is an Obsidian Maps plugin. recent addition, built-in as well. I personally don't use it much, but I know the kind of person who would be very happy about it!
and then there is an up-and-coming Obsidian CLI, which is in paid beta. the license is cheap, around $25 for forever access to current and future betas, but it's optional.
For anyone thinking about trying out Obsidian, here are some problems I have solved with it:
- Remembering where I met someone, what we talked about and then connecting up with them at a later date. My ability to remember names is easily 10x because of obsidian.
- Seeing who in my family's birthday is coming up soon and their address so I can send them a card.
- Graphing how far I've run for each day/week and any quick training notes.
- Showing me friend's restaurant suggestions on a map when I've got a free evening and I want to try something new.
And all of this stored locally and synced onto many devices.
If you're curious I highly recommend starting simple. Don't worry about plugins, just write a quick daily note every day about the information that is important to you. When you feel like you're outgrowing that, adopt a structure that fits you and solves your problems.