I've bounced off Obsidian twice. Not because it's bad. It’s genuinely one of the most powerful note-taking apps available, but it feels like being handed the keys to a spaceship when you just need to drive to the grocery store. The interface is blank, the plugin library has hundreds of options, and the freedom everyone raves about? It can be scary and paralyzing.

Obsidian's biggest problem is how intimidating it is to figure out where to start. Here’s a stripped-down approach to actually getting started — focusing on three core actions that matter in your first week: writing notes, linking ideas, and finding things later.

The blank canvas problem

Freedom feels like friction

When you first open Obsidian, you're greeted with an empty vault and a sidebar full of cryptic icons. There's no tutorial, no suggested workflow, no "here's how most people use this" guide. Just you, a markdown file, and the weight of infinite possibility.

This is intentional design. Obsidian is built to be a blank slate so you can shape it however you want. But for someone coming from Notion, Evernote, or even Apple Notes, it's disorienting. Those apps tell you what to do. They have templates, databases, and pre-built structures. Obsidian assumes you already know what you want to build, which is a massive assumption for someone who just downloaded it.

I spent my first attempt trying to replicate the elaborate systems I saw on Reddit and YouTube. I installed a dozen plugins before writing a single note. I created folder structures for projects I didn't have yet. I set up daily notes, weekly reviews, and a complex tagging system — all before I understood why any of it mattered. Within two days, I abandoned the whole thing because it felt like more work than my actual work.

Plugin paralysis is real

Too many options, too early

Obsidian's plugin library is incredible. There are over 2,500 community plugins that can transform the app into a task manager, journaling system, research database, or writing studio. But when you're new, this isn't a feature. It's a problem.

The first thing most beginner guides tell you to do is install plugins. Dataview for queries. Templater for automation. Calendar for daily notes. Kanban for tasks. Excalidraw for drawings. Before you know it, you're managing a plugin ecosystem instead of taking notes. Each plugin adds new commands, new syntax, and new ways to break your setup if something conflicts.

Here's what I wish someone had told me: you don't need plugins yet. Core Obsidian — the version that ships without any add-ons—is already powerful enough for 90% of what beginners actually need. You can write notes. You can link them with double brackets. You can search with Cmd/Ctrl + O. That's it. That's the foundation.

I restarted with zero plugins and forced myself to use just the core app for two weeks. No Dataview queries, no fancy templates, no custom CSS. Just writing and linking. Once I understood how that worked, adding plugins became a deliberate choice rather than a desperate attempt to feel productive.

The terminology gap

Vaults, backlinks, and graph view

Obsidian has its own vocabulary, and if you don't speak it, you'll feel lost. Let's break down the terms that confused me most:

• Vault sounds fancy, but it's just a folder on your computer. That's it. When you "create a vault," you're telling Obsidian which folder to treat as your note collection. You can have multiple vaults for different areas of your life, but starting with one is fine.
• Backlinks are just reverse connections. If Note A links to Note B, then Note B's backlink panel shows that Note A mentioned it. This is useful later, but it's not something you need to understand on day one.
• Graph view is the flashy visualization everyone shows off—a network of connected notes that looks like a brain map. It's cool, but it's not useful until you have dozens of interlinked notes. Looking at your graph view on day three, when you have seven notes, is like checking your retirement account at age 22. Technically informative, practically useless.

The problem is that Obsidian assumes you want to engage with all these features immediately. The graph view icon is right there in the sidebar. The backlinks panel is open by default. The settings menu has 30+ sections. For a new user, this creates the false impression that you need to understand everything before you can start.

You don't. You need to understand one thing: write a note, link to another note when relevant. Everything else is optional.

What actually works in week one

Three actions, not thirty features

After two failed starts, I finally figured out what works: ignore 90% of Obsidian's features and focus on three core actions.

• Action 1: Write a note about something you're working on right now. Not a note about your entire life philosophy. Not a master index. Just one thing. A project, a book you're reading, a problem you're solving. Give it a simple title and write a few sentences. That's your first note.
• Action 2: When you write your second note, link to the first note if they're related. Use double brackets: [[Note Title]]. Don't overthink it. If you're writing about a related concept, link them. That's how the system starts to work — connections between ideas, not elaborate folder hierarchies.
• Action 3: Use Cmd/Ctrl+O to search for notes. Forget folders. Forget tags. When you need to find something, press Cmd + O (Mac) or Ctrl + O (Windows), type a few letters, and jump to the note. This is faster and more flexible than any folder system you could build.

That's it. Those three actions — write, link, search — are the foundation of everything Obsidian does well. Once you've been doing this for a week or two, then you can explore plugins, templates, and advanced workflows. But not before.

Why starting simple changes everything

Build the system around what you actually do

The revelation for me was realizing that Obsidian doesn't need a perfect system on day one. It needs usage. The more you use it for real work—capturing meeting notes, tracking project ideas, writing drafts — the more you'll naturally discover what you need next and uncover your own tricks.

Maybe after two weeks, you realize you keep writing the same kind of note, and you'd benefit from a template. Cool, now Templates (a core plugin) makes sense. Or maybe you notice you're writing a lot of daily reflections, and you want them organized by date. Now Daily Notes clicks. Or maybe you're managing tasks across multiple projects, and you install the Tasks plugin because you've identified a real need.

This is the opposite of how most people approach Obsidian. They start with the system — the perfect folder structure, the ideal plugin stack, the advanced workflows — and then try to force their work into it. But Obsidian works best when you build the system around your work, not before it.

Starting simple isn't settling. It's giving yourself room to discover what you actually need instead of drowning in what you might need someday.

The onboarding Obsidian deserves

Obsidian is powerful because it's flexible

But that flexibility is wasted if people never get past the setup phase. The app would benefit from a proper first-run experience — something like "Welcome to Obsidian. Let's create your first three notes together" — with a built-in tutorial vault that demonstrates core concepts without overwhelming new users.

Until that happens, the best advice I can give is this: resist the urge to build the perfect system. Write one note. Link it to another. Search for it later. Do that for a week. Obsidian will start to make sense not because you read the documentation, but because you used it for something real. That's when the app stops feeling like a spaceship and starts feeling like the tool everyone says it is.