Nadsat
Three everyday situations where the Timeline System in Obsidian can help you
What I love about the Timeline System is how simple it is to change the status of an activity by simply moving a note from one place to another.
A friend recently came up with a challenge. He told me he would like to know how I would use the Timeline System to organize and keep track of two everyday situations.
Bring it on, I said.
The first one was about a concert. He would like to know what I would do with the PDF tickets, that were incompatible with his phone wallet. Since this is still in progress, it should be in the Action Container.
I’m pretty sure there are other approaches, but this is how I would do it. In fact, I’ve done it before a few times, and it worked pretty well. I think of events like this as trip activities, even though it is happening in the city where I live. So, the Action Container would have a format similar to the one below.
Where the folder ‘2025–04–25 Porto’ is the fake trip storing the concert tickets.
The other situation was an Amazon QR code he needed to show when returning a product. Since this one has no specific date, I’d simply keep it loose inside the Action Containers folder. Without a specific subfolder, it will be easier to find, and it will be an inconvenience working as a natural reminder every time I go to Obsidian to check my activities inside my Action Containers.
It’s a scenario very similar to what I’m currently doing (see video below) with the #Nadsat Glossary that I have to keep around to be able to read A Clockwork Orange.
What I love about the Timeline System is that all the above situations are notes that will eventually be moved to the Timeline container (folder). This will remove them from the list of activities in progress and, at the same time, keep them naturally organized in a place that I can go to retrieve information.
A Clockwork Orange
I see A Clockwork Orange as part of a group where I also put Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, 1984, and others that depict this dystopian future that, for some reason, attracts me.
Even though I’m sure it would not be a good experience at all, for some unknown reason, part of me has a secret desire to experience this alternative reality in person. It’s not just the dystopian future that attracts me. I also love the future from the perspective of the 60s.
Back to the A Clockwork Orange book, if you need a tip to use the Nadsat Glossary, I suggest watching this video to learn how I set it up in Obsidian.