"Obsidian" app for tracking honing sessions

[rhgg2]

Hi all,

I just started using this:

Obsidian - Sharpen your thinking

Obsidian is the private and flexible note‑taking app that adapts to the way you think.

obsidian.md

on my Mac to track my honing sessions. It's free for personal use. It is an app which creates text files (technically "markdown" files), but with a nice WYSIWYG preview so you can have images, headings etc that look nice, and you can also create hyperlinks between the text files, basically a little personal wiki.

So I have created three folders, for Razors, Stones and Nagura. Each razor, stone or nagura gets its own file with a number which I can write on the stone. I import the seller's photos and descriptions, any photos of my own, and make any general notes I would like to make. I then have a file called "Honing notes" which is a kind of diary with dated entries describing each honing session. Each entry links to the razor, stones and nagura which were used, and describes what technique I tried and what the shave was like.

The feature that makes this interesting is "backlinks". You can open up a file and it shows you every place which has a link to that file. So if I open up the file for a given razor, I see a history of all the times I honed it and how. If I open up the file for a nagura, I can see all the base stones I tried it out on. If I open up the file for a stone, I can see all the ways I tried honing with it. You can customize it to look how you like but to give you some idea mine looks like this:

I think it's pretty elegant and easy to use, and because it's not a spreadsheet or a database and you can look at nice pictures it doesn't feel like work.

 

[captaincaed]

I use Obsidian professionally and really like it. Your linking concept for stone and razor combos is clever. I approve.

The dataview plugin is a great way to view your notes organized in different ways but admittedly has a high barrier to entry. It treats your vault like a database so you can query notes across many axes flexibly.

 

[JPO]

Hi all,

I just started using this:

Obsidian - Sharpen your thinking

Obsidian is the private and flexible note‑taking app that adapts to the way you think.

obsidian.md

on my Mac to track my honing sessions. It's free for personal use. It is an app which creates text files (technically "markdown" files), but with a nice WYSIWYG preview so you can have images, headings etc that look nice, and you can also create hyperlinks between the text files, basically a little personal wiki.

So I have created three folders, for Razors, Stones and Nagura. Each razor, stone or nagura gets its own file with a number which I can write on the stone. I import the seller's photos and descriptions, any photos of my own, and make any general notes I would like to make. I then have a file called "Honing notes" which is a kind of diary with dated entries describing each honing session. Each entry links to the razor, stones and nagura which were used, and describes what technique I tried and what the shave was like.

The feature that makes this interesting is "backlinks". You can open up a file and it shows you every place which has a link to that file. So if I open up the file for a given razor, I see a history of all the times I honed it and how. If I open up the file for a nagura, I can see all the base stones I tried it out on. If I open up the file for a stone, I can see all the ways I tried honing with it. You can customize it to look how you like but to give you some idea mine looks like this:

View attachment 1755660

I think it's pretty elegant and easy to use, and because it's not a spreadsheet or a database and you can look at nice pictures it doesn't feel like work.

Nice.
It's time to get organised
I have no clue how I honed some of my razors that have not been used for a while.

 

[ZeelandsRoem]

I have no clue how I honed some of my razors that have not been used for a while

That's not bad. I don't remember how I honed the razors last week, let alone the ones before that. There is only one exception, and that's a razor I know for sure I honed 5 years ago. Even now I remember the progression, the stones I used, pressure, how I lapped the stones and roughly how much time I spent for the whole process.

 

[JPO]

That's not bad. I don't remember how I honed the razors last week, let alone the ones before that. There is only one exception, and that's a razor I know for sure I honed 5 years ago. Even now I remember the progression, the stones I used, pressure, how I lapped the stones and roughly how much time I spent for the whole process.

That is how it starts you know. You can remember what you did 20 years ago, but you forget what you had for breakfast. LOL.

 

[Gamma]

I use a marble notebook.