The Executive’s Networked Thought: Using Obsidian as a Note-Taking Tool

I. The Executive Context Gap

In most organizations, data lives in silos. In most note-taking apps, thoughts live in isolated documents, in isolated folders. This makes finding quick actionable items and decisions more difficult than it should.

Shifting from a traditional document processor like Word — or even a note-taking tool like OneNote — to a system where formatting is secondary is a huge transition. It is moving from the appearance of the information to the information itself. You no longer archive documents, but you start working with information and crossing it among multiple contexts.

The rationale behind your decisions becomes clearer over time.

II. The Multi-Dimensional System: Folders, Tags, and Links

The debate in productivity circles often pits Folders against Links, but for an executive, this is a false choice. We need a multidimensional map, not a single lens.

• Folders provide the Physical Architecture: they answer the question, “Where does this document live?” (e.g., Board Meetings 2024).
• Tags define the Functional State: they tell you, “What is the status of this right now?” (e.g., #ActionRequired or #Urgent).
• Links represent the Intellectual Context: they answer, “How does this relate to everything else?” (e.g., linking a Regulatory Shift to a Product Roadmap).

Ignoring one of these is like trying to run a company with an org chart but no communication channels. By using all three, we create a system that is both structured enough to be reliable and fluid enough to surface unexpected insights.

Folders serve as the primary context for information, signaling where a thought originated or where it is most frequently utilized. Folders create broad buckets (e.g., Projects, Archive, Daily Notes), that represent the “Home” for the file, signaling where a thought originated. This is a first level of grouping your notes.

Tags represent the status of a note, the status of an idea. It is their functional state. Some examples: #Strategy, #Priority-High, #Waiting-On-Feedback. As an executive, tags are important because they allow us to instantly filter across all projects for anything marked #Urgent, surfacing relevant information and possible action items. Tags are the second level for grouping your notes.

My preferred feature, though, is using Links. Links are the intellectual connection between notes. When using [[Internal Links]] we create our networked thought. For example: a link between a Person - John Doe note and a Project - Q3 Expansion note. When accessing either notes, we can see all the outgoing, and all the incoming connections to that particular note. And here it is the huge difference: we start seeing dependencies, connections among things that might not be so obvious. And we can take that into account when planning actions.

Making it simple:

III. Why Obsidian?

As mentioned before, Obsidian works differently from traditional tools such as Outlook and Word, and even OneNote. With Obsidian your notes, your information, can exist in multiple places at once. With the way I propose Connecting information and notes, this is where links come in. You’ll see other similar implementations using tags, it is up to you to choose one model. The thing is: don’t replicate folders with tags, avoid nested tags, try to use all the features Obsidian provides. Check some Vault folder tags and links metaphors for more and simpler analogies. It is important that you understand the differences so that you can use them better.

The other difference is that your strategy is not “in the cloud”; it is locally available. You can, for sure, have copies in the cloud for syncing between devices or for backup purposes (yes, you can use the very same cloud already approved by your IT staff). You’re also free from proprietary formats: your notes are plain text, with special markup (Markdown, actually), to format your notes. These two features together make your notes private and technology-agnostic. You can open your notes in Obsidian, vscode, Notepad, in any text editor. And you’ll have access to their contents. With other tools that support Markdown, you’ll even have similar features and benefits of that standard.

One thing that might help people that have a more visual approach to information is the Graph View, such as the one in the top right corner of that linked page (I have many notes and, with that, I don’t use the graph view that much; this is why it is disabled in my website, but I’ve enabled it on this page as well). The Graph View can be used in two modes: global view and local view. When used in the global mode, you can see clusters from your whole notes' repository (your Vault, in Obsidian language) and identify where you are dedicating more of your attention-span (is it the correct place?). While using the local graph, you can see the direct connections using the current note as the central node; this allows you to identify immediate relationships and possible dependencies from your notes.

You can also see that via links and backlinks, but sometimes the Graph View help.

IV. Strategic Use Cases for Leadership

As with every paradigm shift, you should start slow. But not too slow. Pick a few use cases and test how you adapt to this change.

A good starting point is 1-on-1 meetings. These bring a lot of information and opportunities for new notes, while at the same time, touching less critical data. You can create a new note for each of your direct reports, and start writing notes, actions, etc. You can check some ideas on what you can link on your first notes. Remember that you don’t need to create links on both notes — source and destination — to see their relationship, you can make it in a single direction and Obsidian will take care of the reverse connection (known as backlink) for you.

You can also start testing your tags and search. You can use tags as outlined above (II. The Multi-Dimensional System Folders, Tags, and Links) or create your own meaning for them. Remember that tags groups things, so by clicking a tag, you’ll automatically see all notes that have it as part of the search results. This is a good strategy to find #urgent issues. An important thing: you can have tags visible in your text or in your note’s metadata, but tags always apply to the whole note and not a specific part of it.

As time evolves, you can add and start with more complex approaches. This will bring you even more benefits with time (try The Executive Pulse series, it will make a difference on how you manage excessive amounts of information).

V. Conclusion: Building a Knowledge Asset

Once you have a good quantity of notes, implement the Current Events strategy using The Executive Pulse approach. You’ll start making better decisions, especially those that require better and more complex contexts.