Writing Using Canvas and Kanban in Obsidian

Obsidian now contains a set of tools that are quite similar — at least in part — to what Scrintal or Scrivener offers to researchers and writers.

I’ve written in the past about using the Kanban plug-in in Obsidian as a support for writing: see Card-Based Writing in Obsidian Using Kanban. I described the use of the Kanban as a means to aggregate materials for my Work Futures newsletter:

When I find something to add to the newsletter, I often want to add commentary, so I might export the original material to a new note, which a/ leaves behind a link from the daily note to the new text, and b/ then I make comments. Then I return to the kanban workboard, and transclude the new file into a kanban card. For long texts I would select the initial paragraph in a transclusion like ![[Sull and Sull - Great Resignation#^15f708]]].

I can use the drag and drop features of the Kanban plugin to reorder cards in a list or move from one list to another, for example.

A kanban workboard can be manipulated and viewed as either a kanban workboard or as a general markdown file, so I can also edit the markdown file. I can always click through to the source texts if I need to correct an error or follow a link.

I’ve added some other mechanics to my process, and I am now also ending up in an Obsidian canvas to work on the final story I’m writing.

For each story — in this case, a piece for the Sunsama newsletter titled Getting Tasks Finished — I start early in the process with a tiered Kanban: most of the Kanban cards are material I am considering for the piece, along with a child Kanban with a checklist for the project:

Getting Tasks Finished Kanban

Note that the checklist at the top is a child Kanban, transcluded into the parent Getting Tasks Finished Kanban. Even transcluded, the tasks in the checklist can be checked off to…