Bullet Journal and Task Management in Obsidian (part 4) - Collections

This is the last part of how I use Obsidian as a bullet journal and task manager. 

To download the vault and read from part 1, click here.

Collections

Grocery List

This is still work in progress. The database of my online grocer takes forever to fetch my saved lists, and searching through thousands of products would take me hours as their search is messed up too. So I save the links of my favorite products in the Kanban cards to save time. 

Along with the "to buy", "ordered" (ordered but not yet received as sometimes they call at the last minute for items they don't have) and "stocked", I also have categories lists (protein, dairy, fruits and vegetables etc) and "archive/rare" for items we don't buy or need often (like a USB-C cable or an epilator).

Goals

I keep this page simple but it gets long with subtasks and notes, which is fine for me. If the goal is too big, it has a wikilink to its own note. Adding a date to it shows up in the daily log. What I love is the Tasks Progress Bar plugin. Along with the progress bar next to a heading or a parent task, I also see the number of completed / uncompleted tasks. It's like a small game and dopamine boost for me.

 

Book Reading Tracker

If I need to take notes when I'm reading a book, I create a wikilink in the card, open it and start writing. The book notes are moved to the "book notes" folder in Collections (note: I've setup the vault to automatically update any wikilinks when notes are moved or renamed).

I add a Start date to the book I'm currently reading, so it automatically shows in my daily log. That makes it even easier to open the book's page and take a note.

Achievements

This is probably my simplest and newest note. I wasn't logging my achievements before and that was a mistake, as it could have helped me push through during tough times. I have a lot of self-doubt and low self-esteem, so this is a good way for me to gain some confidence.

Essay Planning template

This is Penn Foster's structure of essays (for high school). I may have to revise this template in university. I have a link at the top with the guidelines, some details to be filled in, and some wikilinks to non-existent notes as different parts of the essay. Clicking on one of them will create the note in Inbox. 

Once I'm done, I gather them all for the final draft in Google Docs (it has awesome spell and grammar checker and it's the easiest platform for sharing / collaborating). 

I then clean house (move / archive to the Studies folder and respective subject subfolder, or delete a few months later if no longer needed).

Insights

My "knowledge base" is probably a lot different than what you normally see. Instead of saving hundreds and thousands of articles, books, videos, quotes with things I "might need someday", I instead write down, in my own words, what I've learned that has ALREADY HELPED ME or that I'm going to apply RIGHT NOW. 

I also write down experiences (some of them you can't even find online but are more valuable than any info I've ran across on the net) that were solutions to my problems. As you can see above, I try to keep things short and to the point for a regimen that keeps me healthy and cured, after battling a huge list of chronic diseases (most of them hereditary and according to doctors "incurable"), chronic debilitating pain that kept me bedridden, depression, anxiety, and ADHD for over 20 years.

The short bullet points of personal experiences and knowledge that already has been, is currently being or will be applied (not eventually, not some day, but right now, today, or this week, and update the file as I check the results in a month or a year) saves me a LOT of time (and digital real estate). 

Therefore, I only need a handful of "insights" files and a short list of bullet points. Those include for my daughter's autism, parenting insights (probably gonna turn it into a full guide for my husband in case something happens to me, or for the kids when they give me grandkids lol), education insights (how to learn), productivity insights (mostly for work related stuff, not studies), and "money" (currently, I only have how I'm saving money in that one, I would make a horrible businesswoman, but I'm an awesome frugal wife).

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