Practically Paperless with Obsidian, Episode 0: Series Overview

A few weeks ago, I announced a new series, “Practically Paperless,” in which I was going to take lessons from my original Going Paperless series and apply them to a more practical approach for a partially paperless lifestyle, using Obsidian instead of Evernote. To read about my rationale for doing this, see my original post.

Administrivia

The first official episode of this new series will appear tomorrow, but I wanted to have an introductory post to take care of addressing some basic administrivia related to the series. Thus, Episode 0. So, here are some items that you can consider an overview for the new series.

• One of the big lessons I took from my going paperless experiment with Evernote was that I still enjoy using paper for some things. The reason is call this new series “practically paperless” is to emphasize that I am looking to go paperless where it is most practical; I’m no longer convinced that a completely paperless lifestyle is either possible or practical for me. I’m looking for what is practical.
• Each episode will attempt to focus on one specific thing. I don’t want to confuse things by addressing multiple topics in a single episode. This will be useful down the road when folks want to refer back to a specific topic.
• I have outlined the first 20 episodes in the series. For these first 20 episodes, the order matters. Each episodes sets a foundation for the next episode. By the end of the first 20 episodes, I should be in a place where I am using Obsidian as a replacement for Evernote and able to do all of the basics that I was able to do when I used Evernote.
• All episodes (including this one) will be categorized under “practically-paperless”. You can also find a index page to the series on the Blog Series menu at the top of the page. Select “Blog Series” and then click “Practically Paperless.”

Here is an overview of the first 20 episodes:

General theme	Episodes
Establishing a baseline in Obsidian	1-3
Getting notes into Obsidian	4-5
Ensuring notes are easily searchable	6-11
Getting from Evernote to Obsidian	12-14
Finding notes	15-17
Curating notes	18-20

Schedule for the series

Originally, I thought I’d have a new post every other week, but I’ve changed my mind about that, and for at least the first 2 episodes, the series will appear weekly as follows:

• A new episode will appear each Tuesday morning at 8 am Eastern Time beginning Tuesday, October 5, 2021.
• Currently no episode will appear on Tuesday, January 4, 2022, as I wanted to give myself a little bit of a break around the holidays.
• That means there should be a new episode each week beginning tomorrow and continuing through February 22, 2022 (skipping January 4).

Beginning on March 1, 2022, I’ll begin to move into more specific topics of how I am doing things with my paperless notes in Obsidian. These will depend the foundation established by the first 20 episodes, but should no longer depend on one another.

I’ll continue the series for as long as I have ideas to write about, and wind it down once I think I’ve covered enough. At this point, I think I have at least of year’s worth of posts, but we’ll see how things go.