Obsidian-based Project Management System

After years of iteration, I’ve arrived on an Obsidian-based project management system that I enjoy using, with no asterisks necessary.

Overview

Capabilities

Project management
- With tasks & project notes
- Housing resources used by projects
- Housing templates
Getting Things Done
- Projects list
- Next Actions list - automatically derived from in-progress tasks in projects
- Housing & facilitating my weekly review

Features

Almost zero overhead - I don’t spend time managing things for the sake of the system, it works with how I manage things naturally
Templates & resources - don’t repeat yourself
Reusable modules - don’t repeat yourself
Weekly notes - Daily notes go by too quickly, weekly notes work better for my brain
Folder-based project lifecycle management - Projects are active, backlog, or maybe depending on which folder they’re in

Vault Structure

Those familiar with Tiago Forte’s PARA method will recognize the basic structure.

📁 Projects - for active projects
- 📁 Backlog - for things I know I want to do, but am not actively working
  - 📁 Maybe - for things I might want to do
📁 Areas - for notes about the high-level areas of my life (e.g. health, home, family, etc)
📁 Resources
- 📁 Assets - where images & non-markdown files go
- 📁 Templates - for projects, resources, weekly notes
- 📁 Inventory - for housing notes about things I own (warranties, etc)
- 📁 Drawings - for housing Excalidraw drawings (and the svg exports)
- 📁 Modules - for reused modules across my notes (task queries, bases, etc)
📁 Archives - don’t delete things, but also don’t let clutter build up in the main folders
- 📁 Archived Projects
- 📁 Archived Resources
- 📁 Archived Areas - e.g. “school”
📁 Periods
- 📁 Weeks - for my weekly note
- 📁 Years - for annual reviews & goals
📄 Home - a Markdown file, not a folder, the only markdown file in the top-level of the vault

Plug-ins

This is why I like the system the most - it’s not using a ton of stitched-together plugins. In particular, I avoid the Dataview & Templater plugins, which are both incredibly powerful and awesome, but not necessary for how I do things.

Core
- Tasks - I only use tasks to gain access to the task query functionality
- Auto-properties - for promoting in-progress tasks to a next property automatically
Optional
- QuickAdd - more easily creating project/resource/weekly notes, in the right folder, with the right template
- Excalidraw - drawings are good, I set this up in a specific way (more below)
- Calendar - the calendar sidebar is an easy way to jump to a given weekly note
Optional - purely aesthetic
- Linter - I like having some consistent formatting applied to notes & this manages the created and modified properties
- Iconize - adding little icons to notes, similar-ish to Notion
- Style Settings - I’ve dabbled with CSS snippets before, but this is easier

Key Notes

Example

Home

# [🗓️ Daily Note Link](obsidian://daily)
 
![[Tasks Not in Projects]]
 
### Active Projects
![[Active Projects.base]]
 
### Backlog
 
![[Backlog.base]]

Tasks Not in Projects

NOTE: to make this render properly I had to take out a backtick. The “tasks” query embed requires triple backticks in reality.

``tasks
not done
(due on or before next week) OR ((path does not include Projects) AND (status.type is IN_PROGRESS))
``

Active Projects.base

filters:
  or:
    - file.folder == "Projects"
    - deadline <= today() + "1 week"
views:
  - type: list
    name: Active Project List
    groupBy:
      property: deadline
      direction: ASC
    order:
      - file.name
      - next
    indentProperties: true
  - type: table
    name: Table
    groupBy:
      property: deadline
      direction: ASC
    order:
      - file.name
      - next
    sort:
      - property: file.mtime
        direction: DESC
    columnSize:
      file.name: 332
      file.mtime: 205

Backlog.base

filters:
  and:
    - file.folder.contains("Projects")
formulas:
  Untitled: ""
views:
  - type: table
    name: Backlog
    filters:
      and:
        - file.folder != "Projects"
    groupBy:
      property: file.folder
      direction: ASC
    order:
      - file.name
      - next
    sort:
      - property: file.mtime
        direction: DESC
    columnSize:
      file.name: 332
      file.mtime: 100

newProject (template)

---
created:
modified:
areas:
resources:
image: ""
todos: 0
deadline:
next: ""
---
<span style="font-size: 1.15em; color:orange; padding:0px; margin:0px;">Scope</span>
-
 
> [!check] Open Tasks
> 
>
> ```tasks
> path includes {{query.file.path}}
> not done
> hide backlink
> ```
 
---

Misc Tips

In lieu of writing a full-blown “how to…”, which maybe I’ll do someday, here are a smattering of tips that made it work well.

Auto-properties

Key: “next”
Rule: Pull all lines starting with ”- [/]”
Key: “image”
Rule: Pull first line starting with “![[”
Key: “todos”
Rule: Count all lines starting with ”- [ ]“

Daily Notes

Set the “Daily Notes” plugin option date format to YYYY-[W]WW - this makes it function as weekly notes
The obsidian URLs for daily notes still work, they now just point to your weekly note

Excalidraw

If you, like me, are really particular about using only durable file formats, you can configure Excalidraw to auto-generate and embed SVGs (or PNGs) in your notes.
For more, see: https://gillespedia.com/Excalidraw+in+Obsidian

Task Management

Use Obsidian-native in-line tasks (i.e. just a regular checkbox)
Mark your next tasks as “in-work” by changing - [ ] into - [/]. This is what makes the auto-property (and thus: bases) work nicely
This is easier if you change the options in the Tasks plugin to change the task statuses such that tapping an empty checkbox first moves it to “in progress” before moving to “complete”

The Column

Aaron Gillespie

Explorer