My Obsidian Vault Made 21 Permanent Notes in 3.5 Years, So I Redesigned It

Description and use

The author redesigned the Obsidian workflow by lowering the quality bar, having the author write claims, and using AI for verification, aiming to increase the production of verified permanent notes.

Problem

Permanent Notes were not growing; Obsidian functioned as a diary with almost no personal insights.

Outcome

The redesigned workflow introduces a clear process for creating, verifying, and publishing permanent notes, aiming to increase note production and ensure personal insights are captured and verified.

Workflow

• 1. Add "Today's one" section to Daily Note listing pending reviews, drafts, and candidates.
• 2. If pending review, read note’s Verification section, fix body, mark counterarguments as reflected or not.
• 3. If no pending review, pick a candidate and create a new note from Permanent Note template.
• 4. In template, answer three questions: why I think so, personal experience, and scope limits.
• 5. Run batch verification command: claude -p "/zettelkasten verify --all" --allowedTools "Read,Glob,Grep,Edit,Write,WebSearch,WebFetch" to update Verification sections.
• 6. Use single inbox and minimal directories; manage stages via status property and Dataview.
• 7. Test end‑to‑end flow, schedule verification runs, and aim for 8 verified notes in 4 weeks.

Evidence

Permanent Notes just weren't growing. At all. It was a disaster. Obsidian had been reduced to a plain old diary.

Source

I lowered the bar to "correct as of the verification date, and revisable later," and set six criteria: ...

Source

For verification, I run the following command in the vault folder. It inspects all drafts at once and writes the results into each note's "Verification" section.

Source