How I Use Tags in Obsidian // EP 7 Mastering Obsidian

Tags in Obsidian are a filtering system that groups notes into shared themes—whether those themes represent status (inbox, ongoing, finished) or note types (evergreen, quotes, literature, philosophy). The key distinction is that linking two notes creates a direct relationship, while sharing a tag creates an indirect connection: the notes are “in the same category,” not necessarily connected to each other one-to-one. Tags aren’t mandatory, and they’re most useful when a vault grows large enough that searching by file name or browsing folders becomes inefficient.

Sergio’s main argument for tags is practical: they act as a lightweight “pre-map” layer before committing to a full Obsidian map of content (his “mocks,” referenced from earlier episodes). When he started exploring more fields, he created a mock for each new area of interest. After months, two problems emerged: the number of mocks became unmanageable, and some interests faded temporarily—leaving behind cluttering mocks for topics he wasn’t actively studying. Tags solved the middle ground. Instead of upgrading everything into a mock immediately, he tags notes so they can be grouped and filtered under a category until he’s ready to build out the full structure.

To implement this, he enables the Tag Pane in Obsidian settings (Core Plugins → Tag Pane → On). He then uses tags like “photography” to populate the tag pane, and relies on nested tags to keep things tidy. His preferred pattern is a nested tag under a “pre-mock” parent, such as “#premock/photography.” This keeps many “not-yet-mapped” interests organized in a collapsible tag hierarchy, and it also makes graph filtering straightforward: turning on tag filtering and searching for “premock” surfaces all notes tagged under those pre-mock categories.

A second use case focuses on search speed using “double tags.” When notes carry two tags—one for a broad container (like “#premock/photography”) and another for a content type (like “#evergreen”)—Obsidian search can retrieve the intersection. For example, searching for “#premock photography” plus “#evergreen” quickly finds evergreen notes within the photography pre-mock, even when the vault contains hundreds of notes. The same logic works in the graph view by filtering for notes that have both tags.

This approach depends on consistent tagging. Sergio notes that his workflow makes that easier because new notes start from templates that prompt the right tags, reducing manual overhead. He also warns against the “organizational trap” of turning tags into a folder replacement—especially since nested tags can make that temptation stronger. The goal is not to recreate folder hierarchies with tags, but to use tags as flexible categories that support searching and gradual structure-building as interests evolve.