Productivity

The Powerful Combo of Obsidian and Noteplan 3

I rediscovered the power of synchronizing my NotePlan notes with Obsidian.

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The powerful combo of two productivity apps, Obsidian and NotePlan 3.
The powerful combo of two productivity apps. Image by the Author.

In a recent article, I focused on creating a template in NotePlan 3 to log my garden crops.

As it was very useful to group all information related to each plant in my garden and keep up with the various related tasks, I realized that I missed a global view of my garden crops.

I gathered a lot of useful data on an individual note but realized it did not help organize my garden, per se.

Sometimes, I’d like a quick view of what I’ve accumulated. Or, I’d like to see which vegetable I’ll be able to harvest in April 2023, for instance.

Unfortunately, no plugin is available yet in Noteplan 3 to answer these requests. Even if, lately, the addition of a simple table was finally integrated into the app. However, the “Dataview” plugin of Obsidian enables such requests.

I rediscovered the powerful combination of Obsidian and Noteplan 3.

The first step consisted in synchronizing my notes between the two apps.

A helpful tutorial is available here. Briefly, it is a matter of converting my Noteplan 3 notes in markdown (.md) and telling Obsidian to open them as a Vault.

  • Go to “Noteplan” in the top bar menu of your app.
  • Click on “Settings”
  • Click on the “File” tab.
Default Note File Extension Setting in NotePlan 3. Image by the Author.
Default Note File Extension Setting in NotePlan 3. Image by the Author.

In my opinion, this is super cool that Obsidian can open the same files as Noteplan 3. I can make changes in one app, and the change is directly reflected in the other.

Once this step was completed, I needed to ensure that my markdown notes were compatible, especially the frontmatter and the date format.

  • Frontmatter or YAML is a language used in the headers of the note. It is used in both apps, but Obsidian has more flexibility. It contains all the variables the “dataview” plugin will use to…

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Julien Dimastromatteo, PhD

Doctor in Science | Entrepreneur | Writer | Interested in every little thing that makes life healthier.