One important element of my Timeline System is what I call the Containers of Information, which can be created using any grouping feature, even tags. However, I typically opt for folders, such as in the case of Obsidian and Supernote, or Notebooks, when utilizing the system on Evernote.

One of the Containers is the Timeline, which may initially appear to be an archive, but in reality it is a dynamic part of the system that also serves as a temporary storage space.

The others, known as Action Containers, are where I keep notes about activities in progress. When an activity is completed, the note is moved to the Timeline. But since information kept there, may need to be accessed or used again in the future, it has to be easy to find.

Since there is a book explaining the system coming soon, I am not going into further details about it in this post. I just wanted to give you a brief overview of how I use the Containers to convey a sense of doing or being done. My goal today is to tell you what the videos “Preparing Obsidian to Set Up My Timeline System” are about.

Preparing Obsidian for the Timeline System

When I start using a new device or app, I often don’t spend much time organizing things. My main focus is to learn how the information I’m saving there can benefit from some of the features I’m still figuring out how to use.

However, one thing I usually do is set up Containers, as they provide a dedicated space to intuitively save all the notes and files related to a specific ongoing topic. And that’s what I did when I started using Obsidian.

When the moment came to implement my Timeline System, I had to first figure out a categorization scheme that would allow me to find all information moved to the Timeline Container. I’m not 100% there yet, but it’s already good enough, and I started moving several notes, as shown in yesterday’s video. In other words, I’m currently tidying up the mess I left behind.

As I said in the video, I am now focusing on the Trips folder. But before I talk about that, here’s how I first organized my trips on Obsidian.

As you can see, I created a hierarchy of folders, which, by the way, is something I really don’t like. But it’s quick, and it gets the job done.

My goal now is to dismantle all that by moving PDFs and other files to the Files folder, explained in the first video of this series. Regarding the Itinerary note, which contains all the trip information and links to the files, it will be moved to the Timeline.

However, the first step is to date everything, including YYYY-MM-DD in each note’s title. I also explained the reason for this in that first video:

  • 2024–09–19 Paris Itinerary
  • 2024–09–19 Flight OPO-PAR-OPO

The Itinerary note also has the word “Itinerary” in the “type” property, and all the tags and geolocation coordinates to make it appear in the Map View plugin. By the way, I’m very excited about how cool that map will be when all of my relevant memories become a dot there.

With all that done, I can start removing all files from the Trips folder, leaving only my next trips there. In other words, it will be converted into an Action Container. Meaning that whatever is inside is in progress. The final touch was to create the search below and save it as a bookmark to easily filter all my old Itinerary notes.

[type:Itinerary]

To learn how to create a search like the one above and to better visualize all the explanations in this article, please watch the video below.

Before I go, there’s actually one more thing. Remember my Photos folder? I came up with the idea of using it to save some precious photos from each trip and drag them to the correct position in the Itinerary note. And the same works for blog posts. I’m also dragging the ones I wrote while on a trip, creating this captivating snapshot of the entire journey.

And it doesn’t stop there. Anything in the Timeline related to the trip is also being added to the Itinerary notes, creating a mini journal inside a larger journal: the Timeline. I’m so overjoyed with it that I’ll definitely produce a video to show you how it works and how to build something like this.