Ne perdez plus la moindre idée - avec Obsidian et le plugin checklist

Obsidian users who jot down “ideas” in daily notes often lose them later because those ideas are scattered across many tasks and projects. A practical fix is to tag each idea as a task line and then use the Checklist plugin to automatically aggregate those tagged lines into a live, right-sidebar list—so nothing disappears in the depths of the workspace.

The workflow starts with a simple problem: when writing in Obsidian’s daily notes (and sometimes project notes), new thoughts arrive when there’s no time to act immediately. The goal is to capture them reliably and retrieve them later. The transcript’s example shows how the author turns an idea into a task by writing a task line with a label and adding tags such as “idea” and more specific tags like “video idea” or “writing idea.” The key is consistency: the same tags are used across notes so later searches can pull the right items.

At first, the author tries to solve retrieval using Obsidian’s built-in query/search syntax. By crafting a query that selects unfinished tasks with tags like “idea” while excluding “video idea,” it’s possible to produce filtered lists (e.g., only writing ideas). This approach works, but it requires careful query syntax and can become cumbersome to maintain—especially when the author wants multiple categories (ideas, video ideas, writing ideas) and wants the results to update smoothly as notes change.

Next comes DataView, a popular Obsidian plugin used to generate lists and tables from metadata. DataView can filter tasks by folder and completion status, but it searches at the note (file) level rather than at the line/block level. That limitation creates a mismatch: once a note contains a matching tag anywhere, DataView may return all tasks from that note, not only the specific tagged lines. Attempts to refine results by excluding tags like “ID” fail because tags such as “video ID” inherently include the “ID” marker, causing over-filtering.

The Checklist plugin is presented as the dedicated solution for this exact “line-level task aggregation” need. After installation and activation, Checklist settings let the user define which tag identifies relevant checklist lines (the author uses an “ID” tag concept) and restrict the scan to a specific folder (e.g., a tutorials directory). The plugin then renders a persistent checklist in the right sidebar with options like grouping (by tag or page), compact/comfortable layout, sorting, and refresh behavior. Clicking an item jumps directly to the underlying task line; marking tasks complete removes them from the “to do” view depending on configuration.

The author’s bottom line: while queries can work, Checklist reduces the maintenance burden and avoids DataView’s file-level search problem. The recommended practice is to capture every on-the-fly task/idea as a tagged task line in daily or project notes, then rely on Checklist to surface the right subset instantly—whether that’s video ideas, writing ideas, or broader “things to do.”