How To Use Obsidian: Project Management (NEW & IMPROVED!)

A new Obsidian community plugin called “Projects” can turn the notes app into a lightweight production pipeline for podcasts and other client-driven work—complete with board views, calendar views, and embedded assets—so episodes (or deals) move through stages without losing track of dates, guests, and deliverables.

Setup starts in a dedicated Obsidian vault using the community plugins browser. After installing and enabling “Projects” (noted as updated 2 days before recording, version 1.7.3), the workflow is built around creating a project folder and then defining structured “fields” (properties) that represent the data needed for each item in the pipeline. For a podcast, the creator builds a “plus one Creator podcast” project, pointing it at a folder inside the vault and choosing where new notes should be stored. The key move is adding guest-specific properties: guest name, recording date, publish date, and a stage field that drives the pipeline status.

Once the stage field exists, the plugin’s views become useful. A board view is configured to group items by the stage property, letting each guest card be dragged through steps like “invited,” “editing,” “uploaded,” and “final checks,” eventually reaching “live.” The transcript highlights a practical gotcha: if a property doesn’t have a note entry yet, it can disappear from the UI. The workaround is to create the note first (or ensure the property has an initial value) before relying on it in views.

Calendar views then add time-based visibility. A “recording calendar” view is created by selecting the recording date property as the date driver, making it easy to see which interviews fall on which days. A separate “publication calendar” view uses the publish date property so the schedule for going live can be reviewed month-by-month. The creator emphasizes that splitting calendars by stage reduces confusion—especially when multiple episodes are in different phases at once.

To make the pipeline actionable, additional properties can track production details. The example adds a “thumbnail designed” checkbox and an embedded attachment field so the thumbnail file can be stored and previewed without hunting through separate folders. The overall approach favors properties with sensible defaults so new items don’t break views or reset unexpectedly.

The same structure scales beyond podcasts. A second project for “client work” is created with a stage-based board that functions like a CRM: stages such as “prospecting,” “scheduled for a call,” “first meeting complete,” and “proposal presented” help manage creative or consulting deliverables in one place. Switching between projects is handled through the plugin’s project selector, which can default to a chosen project on startup.

After walking through the full setup, the transcript frames the payoff as long-term stability: once the properties and views are dialed in, the system can run with minimal ongoing maintenance. The creator plans to use it to manage podcast guest scheduling and production, and also to track “random ideas” for future stories and lessons.