Using Obsidian to Manage Essay Writing - With Henrik Karlsson

Henrik Karlsson’s approach to essay writing with Obsidian rests on a blunt priority: tools matter, but output comes from doing the work under real constraints. He argues that it’s easy to overestimate software’s role—especially when the writing process is driven by personality, time pressure, and shifting goals rather than a fixed workflow. Instead of building a perfectly engineered note system, he uses Obsidian as a flexible workspace that can be reshaped as his thinking changes.

Karlsson describes starting with clean, top-down organization, then gradually abandoning it as his process matured. What replaced it is an “organic” layout: new notes become new entry points, links grow where they’re needed, and the overall structure evolves continuously. He tries to spend minimal time on formatting or system maintenance because that time has an opportunity cost; the point is to create “just enough structure” to reliably resurface ideas later. Under urgency, his system becomes even less formal—more chaotic, more adaptive—because the tool has to bend to the demands of the moment.

His Obsidian setup is intentionally pragmatic. He maintains an essay page as a kind of homepage and keeps around 70 essay topics or ideas as “rooms” that other notes connect to. When an idea stops holding attention, it gets deleted, leaving behind “orphans” that no longer fit the active network. Rather than relying on dense, carefully designed linking rules, he leans on search—sometimes using keywords directly—because that’s faster than maintaining elaborate queries or rigid structures. He also notes that he has templates and experience from earlier note-taking systems, including Zettelkasten-style thinking, but he refuses to treat any template as sacred.

A key theme is context of use. Karlsson suggests that note-taking systems can’t be designed well in the abstract; they must be built around a real problem and a serious writing context. When pressure increases—more writing, tighter deadlines—the “force field” of urgency reshapes the system into something less rigorous and more rainforest-like: less top-down, more emergent. In that sense, the system isn’t the goal; it’s a byproduct of the writing problem, the pace, and the need to keep moving.

The practical takeaway is less about adopting a specific Obsidian workflow and more about resisting over-engineering. With a flexible tool like Obsidian, Karlsson treats structure as adjustable scaffolding: tweak it when needs change, use search when it’s efficient, and prioritize writing itself over perfect organization. The result is a system that may look messy compared with textbook methods, but stays aligned with the actual work of producing essays.