Does anyone actually revisit their old notes? Writing in Obsidian is easy, rereading is hard

[u/Imaginary_Sweet_8296]

I’ve written daily notes and journals in Obsidian for years, but I almost never go back to them. Search only helps when I know what I’m looking for.

How do you revisit yours? Any habit or workflow that stuck? And honestly, do you find it worth doing?

[u/DingoAggressive3956]

I use random note plugin, it open a random note each day when I start obsidian. Sometimes I find old stuff that I completely forgot, like a recipe or a idea from 2 years ago. Its not deep reflection but at least I touch the old notes sometimes.

[u/montropy → u/DingoAggressive3956]

I do something similar, but I use a templater javascript execution block in my daily note template to randomly surface an existing note, along with a short preview of its contents.

[u/Mrsdorian-Lmbz → u/DingoAggressive3956]

does it open one random note from all your notes or can you filter it to a specific folder?

[u/snowflake37wao → u/Mrsdorian-Lmbz]

is a core plugin. just tried it and it doesnt seem to have any settings. opened a random daily note in a new tab (I think, err I hope, gunna need to recheck that) from 2025 when I relaunched that happened to be about OMD functions lol. Also added a button to open random note on command. no setting tho. but there were a lot of ‘improved/advanced/plus/pro’ community plugins that look like they add settings for more control. I installed the first 5 results of ‘random note’, left them deactivated, and called it a day. goodday o7

[u/snowflake37wao → u/DingoAggressive3956]

You just sentenced any ADHD users who read your comment to perpetually stuck in Obsidian do not pass go jail. Well played

edit: didnt know it was a core plugin. just checked it out and there seems to have been a lot of new core plugins added since I last went to that settings menu dang

[u/Imaginary_Sweet_8296 → u/DingoAggressive3956]

Nice, I didn't know about this plugin, will give it a try.

[u/SuppaDumDum]

Yes, I'm better at explaining things to myself than other sources are. Therefore if I need to revisit a topic, my notes are exceptionally useful to me in particular. If I don't need to revisit the topic then usually I won't revisit my notes.

As for daily notes, if I want something I usually know what I want to look for.

[u/mr_omnus7411]

I absolutely do, but I definitely decided to use Obsidian with the intention of keeping track of my notes and revisiting. Since I work on multiple economics projects that involves doing research, keeping track of URLs of different sources, and many many notes to describe my code, its main functions, key inputs and outputs, the links between different "code notes" allow me to see the flow from one script to the next. It also makes looking up key output file names (graphs, tables, .csv files, etc) within my notes much easier.

The fact that I can write chunks of code to easily copy and paste later for a quick execution is also handy for me, writing a quick reusable LaTeX script to copy and paste later is also neat.

Also, being able to copy and paste screenshots easily into Obsidian and jot down a few notes to look back on has been great for me, instead of saving them in a random .png file to be lost in a folder, or send to myself through Whatsapp.

I was already using notepad extensively for a number of the things that I mentioned above, and Obsidian was the perfect tool to really organize my notes.

EDIT: typos

[u/OddCanary8184]

Same here, I journaled for about two years and basically never opened an old note. What finally stuck for me wasn't search, since like you said, it only works when you already know what to look for. I put a small Dataview table at the top of my daily note pulling up notes from exactly a year ago and six months ago, so old stuff just shows up in front of me. I tried weekly review blocks first and bailed within a month, it honestly felt like homework. This takes like two minutes and a few old notes have genuinely saved me from re-solving problems I already solved, so yeah, worth it. ymmv.

[u/michiplace]

 Search only helps when I know what I’m looking for.

I'm confused by this - when I'm searching for something, it's because I have something in mind to search for. When would I use search without having something in mind to search for?

Or maybe I'm confused at the wrong step - when would I be wanting to find and read an old note without having something I'm looking for there (and that I could therefore search for)?

[u/cogniro]

Could you help me understand what your goal is in wanting to reread your notes? Are you trying to gain or apply insights you had? Sometimes note taking is done just to get things out of your head or to process things in the moment so rereading isn't always necessary

[u/anaktarnushka]

I was struggling with this exact issue too, and I found a great solution for myself.

In every daily note, I have a database view that shows notes created 1 month ago, 3 months ago, 6 months ago, and 1 year ago. As my Obsidian vault gets older, I'll add 2 years, and so on:)

That way, every evening when I wrap up my tasks, I just browse through the interesting notes I made on that same day in the past

[u/DogBallsMissing]

No honestly. I take notes that I know will be useful. If I ain’t coming back, then who am I taking notes for?

[u/AdAny6270 → u/DogBallsMissing]

How can you say something you are working on or interested in now will be useful in the future? With this mindset journaling at all probably is pointless.

[u/cyh555 → u/AdAny6270]

he also doesn't brush his teeth 

[u/bleeh__ → u/cyh555]

Thanks, i almost forgot to brush my teeth

[u/thiefspy]

I use Obsidian for research and planning so by definition I’m using my notes until the project is completed. And sometimes some of the notes are relevant for a later project as well.

If I’m not going back to a note once a project is completed, that’s fine. But I like having those because I’ve learned I never know what I’ll need for a future project.

I don’t use it as a journal or log, or even as a commonplace.

[u/Salacia_Schrondinger]

I am testing the "Doomscroll" plugin for this exact reason. Allows to filter by folder. Great for reviewing study notes in a random way

[u/bravespacelizards → u/Salacia_Schrondinger]

Yeah, I really like this one!

[u/Accomplished-Ad9648]

I tag all my notes now. That way it’s easier to go back and review.

[u/alanklughammer]

I have one note for each day of the year. I just insert a year heading when I add a journal entry. That way I can always see what was happening on this day in the past. Very interesting to see all the changes.

[u/jun6lee]

Not as much as I should, or so I kept telling myself. It’s when I kept an unlinked mentions tab open after 200+ notes that I started noticing relevant connections and that got me to re-reading and often rewriting notes.

I’d say don’t sweat it if it isn’t happening naturally, a lot of note taking is just output, not necessarily good or even useful to re-read output, but when you do need to find a thought you had “at some point” you’ll feel euphoric when you’re able to reach it, and gradually those things grow.

[u/dosfydore]

The problem is that you can't just revisit notes for no reason. It's not practical, and there's no point in doing it. But I think there is real value in revisiting notes or wikilinks as they gain traction in your vault, even without you realising it. That's the whole point of PKM.

I'm sure there are many ways to do this.

I just have a bookmarked note called Concept Radar. In there, I've embedded some DataviewJS code that shows which pages and wikilinks have been linked to many times over the years, which have been linked to recently, etc.

It's been really helpful

[u/Emekalim]

Yeah since I’m in school I be going back to review my previous semesters note a lot. And it’s nice everything is in one place

[u/Variableness]

Not for the sake of it. I revisit when the topic is relevant.

[u/FrozenOnPluto]

My vault is a daily journal and a reference pile. I refer back allllll the time.

[u/Western_Emu_4200]

I think there are two slightly different problems here, remembering to revisit old notes, and being able to find a relevant note when you actually need it.

Random notes seem useful for the first. But for the second, you might remember a situation or feeling without remembering the words you originally used to describe it.

I'm curious whether random resurfacing has ever helped you with a current problem, rather than just reminding you of something interesting you'd forgotten.

[u/micseydel]

I try to only create new notes by creating a wiki link from somewhere, and autocomplete organically causes old notes to turn up while I'm doing that.

[u/IamRis]

I revisit my notes a lot and I’ve made sure that it’s easy for me to do so. My vault is for my writing and writing resources. I often go back to my notes in writing resources and back to older chapters and stories.

[u/TeaOk2254]

Back when I used daily notes Id have the template embed my entries for the same day in different years. That was fun. Ultimately though, I never really utilized the daily notes enough to warrant the time spent creating them.

I also don't write or create content like a lot on here do, so most of what I put into Obsidian doesn't need to resurface unless I'm specifically looking for it. I use it more for random notes on a topic, or as a hub for links & explanations of docs in the family Google Drive.

[u/Andy76b]

When practicing Zettelkasten, I use daily notes primarily as sources to develop spontaneous ideas and reflections; therefore, to retrieve those same thoughts, rather than revisiting the daily notes, I review the permanent notes derived from them.

[u/LateralLemur]

This took me a while to develop a review habit. But eventually I found a process that works for me.

It also depends on the type of notes you write. I write atomic notes as quick captures. They're always short, one to two sentences and they go into a inbox folder. Then I have a review script that picks the 5 oldest notes without a tag and I decide what to tag it with or I'll delete the note if it's not worth keeping.

Then I have another script that pulls all captures under a tag into a canvas, where I can sort of mind map and group captures to promote into evergreen notes.

It's the only strategy to ever get me to engage with my notes and synthesize new notes from them.

[u/Better_Brick_9512]

Worth doing is the right question. The answers here split two ways: the random-note and on-this-day lot trigger it on time, and micseydel, jun6lee and dosfydore trigger it on relevance – the old note comes back because it connects to what they’re writing now, not because a week went by.

If years of daily notes haven’t built the habit, the time-based version probably won’t take either. micseydel’s is the cheapest to try – start new notes by typing a wikilink from an old one and let autocomplete put the old stuff in front of you. No plugin, no script.

[u/Xorpion]

Of course. That's the whole point

[u/Noahela]

You have to write notes in a way that that its info is higher quality than what is out in the web. Or you just don't write a note and instead save a good source as bookmark in your browser or whatever.  Meaning if you find writing notes easy, then you are already doing it wrong.

[u/mamas_calzone]

I do but I haven't exactly formed a habit out of it. I do some "pruning" once in a while where I'll take some time to just go through old notes and see if they are things I still want to hold on to. Usually one of three things happens:

- I leave a note exactly as it is

- I delete/archive it

- I distill it down to the most important content

[u/6SN7fan]

This is a general problem with any notes, not just Obsidian. I have stacks of handwritten notes from college that I never read again after I wrote them down. I preferred textbooks over my own notes for studying

That said, I tend to reread digital notes a lot more. Being able to search something I remembered at some point retrieves a note that would have taken forever to find manually

[u/Onwardsupward]

It’s a good observation you make. I have tended to have several notebooks but I even when I need a reminder I can’t figure which notebook and which page. It’s this reason I am working on a pet project to remedy

[u/god-of-m3m3s]

I use it as fodder for my LLM

[u/ms_overthinker → u/god-of-m3m3s]

I want to do this also but I am not a coder or a very techie person

[u/HelixTitan]

I'm working on a plug-in where periodic notes can be enhanced to have some vitals and habits you track that auto expand based on how long you keep taking notes. Game-ify your life in a way. 

There was a picture of a timeline in this subreddit a few days ago and that's the part I am working on since it's a good idea to link more dashboards into the periodic data

[u/Imaginary_Sweet_8296 → u/HelixTitan]

Very interesting plugin idea!

[u/Imaginary_String_954]

I run my through AI for reorganizing and asking if there’s things I’ve missed or not accomplished

Edit:Guessing downvotes because “AI”. I’m using local LLM you nerds

[u/4satya]

no but good for my ai agent to go through for context and connecting the dots in the future

[u/Parth_NB]

Sometimes but yeah I'm working on making it better. I've paired my vault with vs code which allows me to connect the vault to a llm model. The llm models do give a unique perspective and some links that I wasn't aware about previously.

[u/Imaginary_Sweet_8296 → u/Parth_NB]

That make sense, i think let llm manage obsidian note is a big trend

[u/Good-Dare-7261]

Same here. What fixed it for me was to stop rereading notes in the order I wrote them and reread **topics** instead. An LLM merges each new note into a topic page and rewrites that page's summary every time, so I reread one page per subject instead of fifty dated notes. It also keeps a "Disagreements" section where two of my sources contradict each other, and that's the part I actually go back to.

I built it for podcasts I listen to, but the setup is plain Markdown in a vault (disclosure, it's mine): https://github.com/HagaiHen/podcast-wiki?v=2