I have a bit of a problem - I really love the idea of setting off tasks to do later by linking to a note that doesn’t exist.
Why is this a problem, one might ask. Isn’t that one of the core features behind note-taking in obsidian? I would agree, and I have come to love it, but I have found some problems that have leaded me to indeed just:
Why “todo” Notes NEED to Exist
I want to keep the philosophy behind uncreated notes, but there is one fundamental problem: they are impossible to track.
Yes, you can use dataview to list all uncreated notes, but this strips all the context away that you might find yourself needing. Namely, the subject/genre of the note, but also where it belongs. If I dont create it at the moment of thought, then there is a nonzero chance that even when it is finished, it will never find its way into the folder I had planned, remaining in my zettelkasten collection. Same goes for using tags - I need some context when picking up notes so that I dont have to search for what I was thinking when I came up with that idea.
This also integrates nicely with my already in place “todo” tag system. If I immediately create a note and tag it with my todo system, then I can search later for all todos under “Math” or “Computer Science” for example, depending on the mood.
This also gives me the opportunity to populate the task with some gibberish fleeting thoughts so that I can recover the goal easier.
And, for a little extra bonus, it makes the graph view look cooler 😎