Why I Switched from Notion to Obsidian for My Second Brain

For the longest time, Notion was my digital sanctuary. It was my planner, my project manager, my journal, and the home for every fleeting idea. I was a true believer in the \'all-in-one\' workspace. But over the last year, a subtle friction began to build. It wasn\'t one big failure, but a series of small annoyances that made me question if the tool I loved was still serving me. This isn\'t a post about why Notion is bad; it\'s the story of my personal evolution in digital thinking and why I ultimately moved my \'second brain\' to Obsidian.

The all-in-one dream of notion

I dove into Notion headfirst because of its incredible flexibility. The power of its databases felt limitless. I built complex dashboards to track my goals, content calendars for my work, and reading lists complete with progress bars. It was visually satisfying and, initially, incredibly productive. The ability to embed, relate, and view data in different formats like calendars, boards, and galleries was, I thought, the peak of personal knowledge management. Everything was in one place, accessible from anywhere. What more could I ask for?

Where the cracks started to show

The first crack was speed. As my workspace grew with thousands of notes and database entries, the app became sluggish. Waiting a few seconds for a page to load might seem trivial, but that small delay was enough to break my train of thought. It was friction. Then, I started feeling a nagging anxiety about my data being locked in a proprietary, cloud-only system. What if the company changed its pricing? What if the service went down? My entire brain was on their servers, and I had no real control over it.

Honestly, the biggest issue was a creative one. I found I was spending more time managing the structure of my Notion workspace—perfecting the database properties, tweaking the layout—than I was actually thinking and creating. The system was so structured that it discouraged the messy, non-linear connections where real insights happen.

Discovering the obsidian philosophy

My \'aha\' moment came when I stumbled upon the core ideas behind Obsidian: local-first and networked thought. The idea that all my notes would be simple, plain text markdown files sitting in a folder on my own computer was a revelation. This meant they were fast, secure, private, and future-proof. I would own my data, forever.

But the real game-changer was the graph view—a visual representation of how all my notes were linked. It wasn\'t a list or a table; it was a web of ideas. This mirrored how my own mind works, connecting disparate concepts to form new ones. It was a tool designed not just for storing information, but for creating knowledge.

The transition: what it really felt like

I won\'t pretend the switch was a one-click process. It was a deliberate migration. I exported my notes from Notion and spent time cleaning them up. The initial Obsidian interface felt bare-bones compared to Notion\'s polished UI. But then I discovered the community plugins. With a few additions, I could build a system that was perfectly tailored to my brain. I added a Kanban board, a calendar, and other features I missed, but this time, I was in complete control.

My workflow now is about flow, not management

Today, my workflow is fundamentally different. I open Obsidian and just start writing in my daily note. I link ideas freely using simple [[brackets]]. I\'m no longer concerned with which database a note belongs to. The system encourages me to make connections, and over time, I see patterns emerge in the graph that I never would have noticed in a structured table. I still use other tools for collaborative, structured projects, but for my personal knowledge and creative work, Obsidian is my thinking sanctuary.

Should you make the switch?

My journey was about seeking less friction and more ownership. If you\'re a writer, researcher, student, or anyone who values the process of thinking and wants a private, long-term system, I\'d urge you to explore Obsidian. If you work heavily in a team, need powerful shared databases, and prefer an all-in-one solution that works out of the box, Notion is still a phenomenal choice. The best tool is the one that gets out of your way and lets you do your best work. For me, that tool is now Obsidian.