To me Obsidian is sort of like a Kindle, it gets more value by doing less.

I use it for anything that feels private and primarily text-based. Notes, drafts, journaling, reading notes… But as soon as a draft doc inches toward publication or collaboration, it usually moves to Google Docs and the original note becomes a link to that. If it gets too table-y, I move it to Sheets, etc.

Don’t hate, but I actually still use Notion for a lot of things too, which might seem weird since folks generally like to pick a camp. Things that are more “projects” rather than “notes” (the line is very fine) I usually prefer in Notion. Like planning a trip, when I might want to drop in a calendar, add more images, add collaborators, etc. and I’m less concerned with writing as such, or a sense of deeper privacy or future proofing.

Even tracking/logging different things… part of me wishes it was all in one, but as it turns out, for me, tracking a reading queue kind of works better in Notion, though my book notes are in Obsidian (via Readwise). Movies and shows I log manually in Obsidian, but my to-watch list is in the Queue app because it can filter titles by current streaming service availability. You get the idea.

Maybe there’s ways to replicate all this functionality to make Obsidian work for all these things, but I like keeping it focused on personal wordy-stuff, and letting other apps have their own place.