Back to Obsidian Tasks 2026

After using TickTick to manage all my tasks and keeping my daily notes in emacs for over a year now, I’ve moved back to using Obsidian again. More specifically, I’m using Obsidian with the Obsidian Tasks plugin.

History

Before digging into the switch, let’s back up a bit first. I loved my tailored Obsidian setup. Why did I stop using it?

I think the main reason was that I burned out on Obsidian after using it for everything, both at work and home. On top of that, either one or both of my vaults started to get quite laggy, especially when loading all the tasks I had accumulated over time. Every second I had to wait stung a bit more.

Next, I loved living in emacs (and still do), and wanted to get back to using it more. Switching back for my notes was a solid plan to do just that. So I did. I merged my vault into org files, and tried to use org-mode for tasks again, as I did years ago.

Unsatisfied

As amazing as org-mode is, it doesn’t match well with how I prefer to organize now. Org-mode really benefits from having one (or just a few) files that contain tasks. However, my system has adapted over the years to storing tasks within the hundreds of files contained in my notes vault. I also didn’t enjoy having each task as a ‘header’ item in notes, as org requires. I was still using TickTick for family tasks, and the org-mode friction slowly pushed me back to using TickTick for my personal tasks as well. Without task management, org files became more of a hindrance than an asset, and I quickly found myself still writing my notes in emacs, but as markdown files instead.

I still wasn’t content. I worked to pare down the complexity of my task system, merging the many TickTick lists into fewer, clearly separated ones. I also started dabbling with organizing tasks by tags instead of using the actual built-in scheduling dates, just to try something new 🤷.

That was all working fine. But I still felt I was in a state of transition between systems, and unsatisfied.

Rethinking my needs

I started to strip my system down to the roots, so I could build back up from scratch. What did I actually care about? What did I actually need? How did people organize their tasks before computers, the internet, and smartphones (remember, this is all very new in the grand scheme of everything)? The answer: Simple lists.

With that answered, I asked what prevented me from getting along with a simple list? In short: Sync. And by ‘sync’, I actually mean two issues that share the same word:

Syncing ‘My stuff’ across devices to make it easier for me as I go about my day.

• This isn’t required (I can always work from an index card and then transfer/update with the master list at night), but is usually something I eventually go back to. I prefer to work and plan out everything from my computer, but do better if I can make quick notes or follow my plan on my phone throughout the day.

Syncing shared tasks with my wife.

• This is what has always moved me to collaborative systems like TickTick, Todoist, or Apple Reminders, over my preferred systems like emacs org-mode, or Obsidian Tasks.

Realization

The real limiting factor was that second item: shared tasks. However, as I looked back over the last few months at our family TickTick setup, I had an insight… for the most part I am the one using all the shared stuff. My wife, while trying to build a better system for her tasks, is not as religious about it as I am. Additionally, while she may occasionally add something to the general family list, all of the fancy recurring weekly/monthly/seasonal house tasks are managed by me. Even if it’s a task that she always does, I use the list to keep things on track (“Hey, you cut [son]'s hair already this month, right? Check”). In truth… it doesn’t actually matter if each task is in TickTick. The system is not a shared family system. It exists for Me, in order to indirectly aid my family. I maintain it, and through open and frequent communication, serve as a proxy to it for the rest of the family.

In short: for 99% of our tasks (right now), I don’t actually need a fully multi-user shared system.

Huh. Go figure.

The Trigger

That realization got me excited. I started wondering how I could simplify my tasks into a notes-based system. “Maybe even a simple, single list. I could keep TickTick running to serve as an inbox for truly shared family tasks, and then copy what is relevant for me to my list…”

During that brainstorming process, something interesting happened. I was scheduling and planning maintenance services for both family cars, and was trying to figure out when I last had my car’s oil changed. After struggling to get the answer, I realized I should be better about recording these small maintenance tasks in a note for each car.

So, I went to create a new note in emacs, and then thought “actually, I’m sure I have an old note for the car from when I used Obsidian for my vault. Why don’t I look at porting that from the archive instead of starting from scratch”. Sure enough, I did. I opened it in a buffer, and there it was. Like an archeologist uncovering knowledge forgotten long ago, a note from a better system sat in my buffer.

It was a small markdown note. Nothing fancy. But it contained a few details about my car, and then under a ‘Tasks’ heading: the Obsidian Tasks, in plain text, of when I had scheduled various services. It even had a few tasks of when I went and got gas, since that was a ‘task’ I had previously tracked.

One major concern I had while using Obsidian Tasks previously was that everything depended on the plugin to work. Yet, here I was in emacs, looking at a simple markdown file, with a few checkboxes, emoji symbols, and dates. Sure, the dynamic dashboards I wrote in each of the daily notes were useless, but the self-contained task data in each note was there and functional.

I immediately opened my notes in Obsidian and started playing.

Current Setup

Several weeks later, I’m using Obsidian Tasks as my task manager, and Obsidian for my notes again. However, I have it set up so that for the most part, I can still work on notes in emacs if I want. For example, I modified my templates and have elisp functions so I can actually use Obsidian or emacs to generate my periodic notes.

I am also using Obsidian Sync. This helps me work with my vault across computers, and on my phone. Obsidian is my task manager again, after all. I’ve dabbled with some self-hosted syncing… but it just has more file conflicts (and thus headaches) than Obsidian Sync, which remains solid.

Lastly, I’m taking a different approach for file organization this time. Instead of embedding task views in each daily note, I just worry about the data in notes, and have specific ‘Dashboard’ files that manage all the views. It keeps the views separate from the data and should allow my vault to remain nice and portable over time. The dashboards are made using Obsidian Tasks blocks, as well as Data View ones.

Vault Export Local Website

Oh, one more thing! The other weekend, I ‘vibe-coded’ (mixed feelings about it 😒) some scripting to work with the digital garden plugin. This lets me mark notes to ‘publish’, export them (Obsidian Task views and all) to static web files, and then push those files to a caddy server running on my home server. This allows my wife and me to access (via Tailscale) various project and dashboard notes. I might be maintaining the system, but we can both view the important files now whenever we want.

Future Plans

That’s about it for now. I’ve used this setup for several weeks and it’s been solid. I wish my self-hosted sync setup had fewer conflicts for when I toggle off my internet to focus on working, but that’s something I can keep chipping away at. Next, I have a project planned so that my wife and I can both dump tasks into a queuing system that I can then pull from. I haven’t started it yet (been busy with other projects), but I don’t think it will be too hard once I start (famous last words).

Anyway, so far I’ve loved using this system again. It really does click the best with how my brain works.