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💡 The Big Idea: Where Obsidian Shines (and Where it Struggles) as of April 2025

A few weeks ago, I read Jason Snell's Apple Report card for 2024. It's a post he does every year where he collects feedback from others in the Apple space and includes comments and average scores for areas such as the Mac, the iPhone, Services, etc. In addition to the collective scores and occasional comments, many contributors share their full comments and scores on their own platforms after the report card comes out.

Which got me thinking... it'd be cool to do something similar for Obsidian. Unfortunately, it was a little late to start collecting responses from others in the Obsidian and PKM communities, but I thought it'd be fun to just share my thoughts on the state of Obsidian in 2025.

Full disclosure: I actually ended up with almost 4,000 words for this one! That's way too long for a newsletter (😉), so I'm just going to share a brief summary here. If you want to read the whole thing, check it out on the website here.

• Desktop: A - The desktop version of Obsidian is like Mary Poppins - practically perfect in every way.
• Mobile: C+ - Impressive what the team has been able to do, but no quick capture is a problem.
• Core Plugins: A- - Lots of options are good, but wish some of these would be rethought and updated.
• Community Plugins: A- - Community plugins are great, but I wish the tone toward developers was a little friendlier.
• Themes & Customizations: B - Tweaks frequently break with updates, but the vanilla app has gotten really good.
• Canvas: C+ - Canvas is great, but there's a lot of low-hanging fruit that would make it even better.
• Sync: B+ - Selective Sync, E2E encryption, and version history make Obsidian Sync the best way to sync your vault.
• Publish: B - Not the best way to publish to the web for most people, but certainly one of the easiest.
• Automation: B-- Not much built-in, but plain text opens up options. Third-party apps & plugins help fill the void.
• Merch: D+ - Let me buy an Obsidian Hoodie for crying out loud! 😂

The full post has a lot more detail and a ton of links if you're interested.

I'd also love to know your thoughts on this newsletter format! This is a little different than normal, so I'm curious which you prefer:

1. A detailed PKM-themed essay delivered via the newsletter
2. A summary of a longer post with a link to the web

If you have a literal minute to share your thoughts, please hit reply and let me know!

😎 Something Cool: PomoBar Plugin

One of the productivity tactics I still use to this day when I find myself procrastinating on a task is to set a Pomodoro timer. It gets its unusual name from the Pomodoro Technique, which was invented by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. It's very simple: just set a 25-minute timer when you find yourself procrastinating on something, work until the end of the session, and then take a 5-minute break. Many people use those tomato-shaped kitchen timers (pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato), but there have been lots of productivity-focused adaptations since (one of my personal favorites is the Time Timer).

One of the reasons the Pomodoro Technique works so well is that it eliminates the friction of getting started by giving you an out in 25 minutes. Now you don't need a separate app or physical device for this, but I do find it helpful to have a visual indication of how much time is left. So the PomoBar plugin is perfect for me, because it adds a visual timer to the Obsidian status bar that is easily seen while I'm writing.

I don't think I'll use this all the time, but since I'm writing in Obsidian frequently, I can definitely see this being useful.

📚 Book Notes: Keep Going by Austin Kleon

Speaking of procrastination, Keep Going by Austin Kleon is a great book if you could use a little help staying focused and creative when life gets a little crazy. This book has 10 short chapters that speak directly to potential causes of procrastination, and Austin shares specific tactics you can use to help overcome it. It’s kind of like a creative pep talk for when you feel stuck or burned out.

If you want to download my mind map book notes for Keep Going by Austin Kleon, click here.

— Mike