An alternative tool for building an extended mind system.
When I started documenting my extended mind system, I intended to create parallel implementations in both Notion and Obsidian – two excellent tools with dedicated and enthusiastic communities.That said, this was my second serious attempt at building it in Obsidian. The first was back in 2021, when I discovered both tools around the same time. In both cases, I ultimately chose to focus on Notion.The capability is there. Obsidian can do what this system requires. But I kept hitting friction points. Recreating the structure required a steeper learning curve and more configuration than I expected. Every hour spent on the Obsidian implementation was an hour I wasn’t spending documenting what I already had in place. Two core things I teach are to use your time well and to prioritize – and learning a tool I have no plans to use extensively, while doubling my documentation burden, was not the best use of mine.So I made the call to de-scope the project and focus solely on the tool I know best: Notion.That said, I would be remiss not to bring up that Obsidian is an excellent option that may be better suited to some. Most of what is in these docs is conceptually applicable – the collections, the organizational logic, the thinking behind what to capture, why and how – all of it translates. But if you choose Obsidian, the implementation is on you. I have full confidence that if you are drawn to the tool, you are the type of person who can figure it out.Side note: Once these docs are fully complete, I may hand them off to an AI agent – along with my exported Notion example files – and let it take a crack at building out a parallel Obsidian implementation, complete with docs, templates, and a sample space. More efficient than doing it manually, and an interesting experiment in what’s now possible.
Obsidian is a free local-first, Markdown-based note-taking tool. Your notes live on your device as plain text files (not on a company’s servers) giving you full ownership and future-proof access to your data, with no vendor lock-in and excellent offline performance. You can open your notes in any text editor, forever, regardless of what happens to Obsidian as a company. That philosophy – file over app – is one I genuinely admire and try to honor in my own way by regularly exporting my Notion data to Markdown files and storing copies locally on my Mac.Read the Obsidian Manifesto.Obsidian attracts a certain type of person – technically comfortable, opinionated about their tools, and someone who enjoys the tinkering as much as the outcome. Think of it as the Linux and VIM of the note-taking world. If you want full control, prefer plain files, have use of a CLI, and are willing to invest time getting your setup exactly right – it will reward that investment.Obsidian is also the better choice if privacy is a top priority. If you are working with sensitive information, confidential research, or intellectual property you are not comfortable storing on cloud servers, then opt for the tool that offers local-first storage.Overall, the team is sharp, the product keeps improving, and the CEO, Steph Ango, is someone worth following. His thinking on file ownership, longevity, and the relationship between tools and knowledge is genuinely worth your attention regardless of which option you go with.
As a general rule, I do not recommend splitting your knowledge management system across multiple tools. That works against a core purpose of consolidating information into a single system. But, of course, there are exceptions.
Andrej Karpathy (a highly respected figure in AI) published a pattern in April 2026 called the LLM Wiki. The idea: rather than having an AI search raw documents every time you ask a question, you use the AI to incrementally build and maintain a persistent, interlinked wiki – integrating new sources, updating cross-references, flagging contradictions, and compounding knowledge over time. His specific implementation pairs Obsidian with Claude Code. The concept went viral immediately and sparked a wave of implementations.If you are doing deep, focused research – a thesis, an extended investigation, a substantial project – a dedicated Obsidian vault maintained by an AI agent could be a compelling complement to your primary system.Siloing extensive research from your personal knowledge base helps prevent AI context from becoming overloaded, which can degrade or skew responses plus increase token usage.Read the gist.Read the original post.I also recommend reading all the quote tweets and comments around the OG post.
If you want a recommendation and you trust me: use Notion.But if you prefer privacy, local files, or want to do your own research – check out Obsidian. As always, the best system is the one you will actually use and that gets you the results you need.Last update: 2026.04.17
