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Taming My ADHD with Obsidian and PowerShell

··7 mins
PowerShell PKM
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This is a modified version of a post I wrote at work last year. I recently mentioned to someone that you can run PowerShell from Obsidian, and I realized this might be helpful to share publicly.

If you’re new to Obsidian, it can be feel very overwhelming. There are dials and knobs for everything. Start slow and only add things when you need them. Realize it’s an iterative process. This can help calm the fears of never hitting perfection. Keep what works, ditch what doesn’t.

Ship and Iterate
Warning! A lot of this was stuff I’ve picked up from folks in the community. I never kept track for attribution so it’s safe to assume it was written by someone smarter than me. If you know, please let me know!

ADHD and Obsidian #

As a neurodivergent person (or as the kids now say “spicy brain”) I am always on the look out for ways I can improve my process. Identifying my weaknesses has helped me focus on specific areas for improvement. I’ll briefly go over the problems I was having, and what aspects helped (so you can steal what is helpful for you).

Object Permanence #

I definitely deal with object permanence issues (aka “out of sight out of mind”) which means that I need to keep things in front of me. To do that, I leverage a daily note that shows me: weekly goals, daily schedule, incomplete note/posts/etc., and unfinished tasks. I also have a log section for me to keep track of stuff I’m working on.

Task Initiation #

When I’m given a giant task, it can feel daunting to know where to start. By using the periodic note system, I’m able to start at a very high level and then break things down into smaller bits. Breaking tasks into smaller parts makes it easier to get started.

Forgetfulness #

I can often remember the general idea of something but not the details. So I may not recall the name “Lamport Clock”, but I do recall that it’s related to Distributed Systems. By creating “Atomic” notes and tagging related things it allows me to be able to walk the node of related notes because I know they’re likely linking to each other.

My Folder Structure #

I think this is the thing most folks get hung up on. Folders help with organization, but linking is what makes Obsidian powerful. I started with only the first 3 and then added more as I saw the need.

  • 0000 Atomics: “Evergreen” notes that should be about one thing. I’m pretty loose with this and I’m ok with that.
  • 1000 Daily Notes: All my daily, weekly, and monthly notes live here.
  • 2000 Status Reports: All my status reports live here. The file names conflicted with Daily Notes so it got its own folder.
  • 3000 Meeting Notes: A folder for all my meeting notes.
  • 4000 Posts: WP posts.
  • 5000 People: Notes about people.
  • Files: All embedded files (e.g., images and PDFs)
  • Templates: All the templates and scripts.

I’ve found that less folders is better and even the above can feel like a lot. Use what feels right, and toss what doesn’t!

My Templates #

All of these notes use the Templater plugin. It’s the one plugin I explain is a must with Obsidian.

Periodic Notes #

I borrowed this idea mostly from Nicole van der Hoven (aka NVDH) (see her video How to set goals in Obsidian // Templates, Periodic Notes). The idea is that I have yearly goals, but unless that’s broken down I’m not likely to take much action (see task initiation). The daily note template is complex enough to deserve its own section.

I create a yearly note with all my goals. I put together a rough outline for the year which helps me fill out my monthly notes. The monthly template shows the yearly goals by embedding them at the top. This helps with keeping monthly goals aligned to yearly ones. The weekly note embeds the monthly goals, and finally the daily note shows the weekly goals. The idea here is that each step down toward a daily view becomes more specific.

The Obsidian Periodic Notes plugin makes this really easy and is on my short list of recommended plugins.

Daily Note #

The “Daily Note” template is at the core of this. This does most of the leg work of figuring out days and creating relevant links. The Daily Note template uses the Dataview plugin as well as the Tasks plugin to gather data across my notes.

Since my schedule differs on Wednesdays and Fridays, I use a simple switch (in the ‘DailyFolderSwitch’ template) to load the correct template. Each schedule template then runs a different PowerShell command to get my schedule (see the PowerShell script below).

This setup is definitely more complicated than it should be. When I eventually redo this, I’ll probably try to move the logic into one place. I will probably just drop the folder switch and just figure out the schedule in a single PowerShell command.

Meeting Note #

This note uses the pwsh script mentioned below to look up details about the meeting (if the title started with id_). If it doesn’t have that prefix, it creates a simple note where I would add who attended and my own rough notes. Because this is usually created from the link on my daily note, I have a clear link between the two.

Post #

Very basic 5 W’s template (Who, What, Why, When, Where). The special bit was having the metadata “status” of in-progress. This means that if I didn’t finish it, it would show up in my daily note query. Once I posted it, I would add the link to the URL metadata and change the status to posted.

Status Report #

This is a template that I haven’t been using much lately, but I probably should be. The goal of this was to create this every Friday. It has a dataview query that would find all the items I marked with Did::. So in my daily note I could add a line that said: Did::Shutdown SCCM. That would help me remember all the things I did so I could add them to a weekly status report. I’m also a sucker for a writing prompt which can help me make sure I’m shaping my communications appropriately.

Using PowerShell #

As a PowerShell enthusiast, I wanted to write some scripts and easily add the results to my notes. See above to read how I used them to pull in data.

While the script is helpful to call PowerShell, the real magic is in the PowerShell commands.

  • Get-MeetingSummary would query the graph for my meetings.
  • Get-ObsidianSchedule takes the data from Get-MeetingSummary and turns it into the appropriate markdown output. The command also creates a link to the video call and a link to create a meeting note note.
  • Get-MeetingInfo let’s you pass the meeting title to it and get info about the meeting such as whether it’s a series and who is attending. This is used in the meeting note template.

Keep what works, ditch what doesn’t #

I’ve said this a few times, and I really mean it. What makes Obsidian such a powerful tool is how we can each make it our own. Some people want longer notes and others want shorter ones. If you explore the Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) space you’ll see that everyone has their own take. At the end of the day the value should be for you. You won’t get a promotion because you took 10x more notes that someone else. But if you can navigate your notes in a more efficient manner and track what matters to you, you’ll set yourself up for success.

I hope that you found something useful in this note. If you have suggestions or want to share your take, please let me know in the comments! I’m always interested in new approaches!

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