📝 How I Use the Forever ✱ Notes System in Obsidian

A number of months ago, someone I follow on Mastodon posted about using the Forever ✱ Notes system in Apple Notes. At the time, I had been trying to find an easily accessible (and scalable) way to organize my pile of notes. Naturally, I had to see what this system was all about.

I had just moved my notes from Obsidian back to Apple Notes because I had purchased a new iPhone. Why did I make that move? No big reason, but luckily, it worked out since as soon as I saw the Forever ✱ Notes system, I knew I wanted to give it a try.

And give it a try I did. It took a while to get everything set up and get the notes linked correctly, but once I did, I loved it. It's such an easy system to navigate and grow.

Fast forward to February of this year when I purchased a Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold. In doing so, I knew I'd have to move my notes back to Obsidian, as it's nearly impossible to access Apple Notes in a useful (read: not irritating) way on an Android device. And so I used the importer plug-in available in Obsidian to move all of my notes from Apple Notes.

After doing some organizing in Obsidian, I realized that I missed the simplicity and easy navigation of Forever ✱ Notes on my iPhone. I re-read the documentation for the system and then it hit me.

Why not set this system up in Obsidian? And so, here's my attempt at explaining how I did this.

Obsidian Plugins I Use

I try to keep my core and community plugins list to a minimum for this, but your mileage may vary of course. Core plugins aren't overly important for this system, but I've listed them here anyway.

Core Plugins:

• Backlinks
• Command palette
• Daily notes
• File recovery
• Page preview
• Sync

Community Plugins:

• Auto Note Mover: I use this to maintain organization, especially around my daily notes and week notes blog posts. With a few simple rules based on tags, these notes automatically move to corresponding folders I have set up.
• Editing Toolbar: This plugin isn't crucial to the system, but it does offer a simple way to add bold, italics, etc to your notes. I happen to like it, but you may not, and it's not necessary for the Forever ✱ Notes system.
• Folder Index: Obsidian doesn't allow native linking to folders. That's where this plugin comes in handy. It creates an index file in each of my folders, and I can then link to that file. On these index files, I create a table of contents that displays what's in each folder and then add links to those files, if I need them.
• Homepage: This allows me to set the ✱ HOME page from the system as my homepage. Whenever I open Obsidian, it opens to that page, which is a hub to everything in my system.
• Iconize: This is another plugin that isn't necessary for the Forever ✱ Notes system. I use it to give each of my main folders and icon. I just like having that extra touch, I guess.
• Longform: Not necessary for the system. I use this to write and organize the longer, multi-chapter works that I write (no else, etc.).
• Templater: This is not absolutely necessary for the system, but it's definitely nice to have if your vault contains a number of templates. I have a folder of templates for certain things, and this plugin allows me to insert a template with two clicks.

The ✱ HOME Note

Since the ✱ HOME note is central to the Forever ✱ Notes system, I have Obsidian set to open this file automatically with the Homepage plugin. I also have the file pinned.

My ✱ HOME file looks like this:

Now, I'm one of those annoying people that needs to be organized. The result of this is that everything under the AREAS section is actually a folder that lives in my Obsidian sidebar. These are my Hubs (which are what they're called in the Forever ✱ Notes system).

My Obsidian sidebar, complete with these Hubs (folders) looks like this:

My ✱ HOME file contains a section called CURRENTS, which is a list of notes that I'm currently working on. This section is NOT part of the Forever ✱ Notes system, but is something I've added for myself. As usual, YMMV.

The Calendar/Journal

My calendar is set up a bit differently than what the Forever ✱ Notes system dictates. I don't use the Q1 through Q4 notes to keep track of quarterly goals, etc. It looks like this:

I do have each month as a separate note, and those notes house my Daily Notes. Those are written via the Daily Notes plugin, then linked to on each monthly page, as seen below:

I have a specific template that I use for Daily Notes. I also have the plugin set up to open the day's note when I open Obsidian so I don't forget to complete it. My template is pretty simple and looks like this:

Navigating the Notes

I use the navigation that the Forever ✱ Notes system dictates. I keep all of my notes connected by linking to the ✱ HOME note, the corresponding AREA folder, the subfolder (if applicable), and then use a Back • Next navigation to move between notes that are alike (such as my Week Notes for my blog).

The navigation looks like this:

And there you have it. A quick walk-through of how I use the Forever ✱ Notes system in Obsidian. Its a little different, but it feels much more powerful this way. With a few tweaks, it's been working really well for me.