Why I'm Not Setting Objectives in Obsidian in 2024

TL;DR

OKR-style objectives with explicit success/failure metrics can push people toward short-term productivity at the expense of health.

Briefing Cornell Notes

Briefing

After a year of intense travel, publishing, and content creation, Nicole van der Hoeven says the OKR-style goal system she used in Obsidian backfired—fueling short-term productivity and contributing to burnout. In 2024, she’s abandoning objectives and key results for her personal life and replacing them with a single “yearly theme” meant to keep her anchored to what she actually values: remembering who she is, what she wants to do, which people energize her, and whether activities support or erode that core.

Her pivot is rooted in a detailed account of 2023. She released an Obsidian beginner course (“Obsidian For Everyone”), spoke at nine events across three continents, and spent 122 days traveling through 11 countries and 23 cities. She also published 124 videos across multiple channels in three languages, and publicly announced plans to write an Obsidian book—before burnout hit. Even her downtime became obsessive: she played 105 tabletop role-playing game sessions using 12 different systems. Against that backdrop, she links her burnout to the structure of her goal-setting approach. Highly specific objectives with clear measures of success and failure pushed her to optimize for immediate output rather than physical and mental health.

That’s why she’s switching from OKRs to a “Year of Remembering,” inspired by a Cortex podcast conversation with CGP Grey and Myke Hurley. The yearly theme concept treats the year as a single direction, with the meaning of the theme emerging over time rather than being fully defined upfront. For her, “remembering” is both practical and emotional: it’s about returning to her core self without constantly negotiating for more or less, and making decisions based on whether they encourage that remembrance.

In Obsidian, she keeps her existing periodic notes workflow intact but changes the daily layer. She creates a new note titled “Year of Remembering” and places it in a Reviews folder without filling it in immediately. Then she edits the daily template: instead of a “daily review” section, she adds a “Reflection” section that prompts brief journaling about what she remembered that day—or what she cut out because it didn’t align with remembering who she is and what she wants. Each daily note links back to the theme, so backlinks become a year-end record of her reflections. She also toggles “Backlink in document” in Obsidian settings so the theme note shows linked days directly, reducing clutter.

She draws a boundary between work and everything else. Her day job still requires quarterly company objectives, so she’ll use the yearly theme to guide those OKRs. Outside work, she wants less measurement and more alignment. Productivity still matters—she’ll keep making things—but she argues she doesn’t need goals to create; she needs a compass to stay herself. For viewers who want the full OKR-based periodic review system, she points to last year’s setup, and offers Patreon vault access for those who want the macros and workflow copied.

Cornell Notes

Nicole van der Hoeven says her OKR-based goal system in Obsidian contributed to burnout by encouraging short-term productivity over health. For 2024, she replaces objectives and key results with a single yearly theme—“Year of Remembering”—meant to guide decisions without forcing a rigid definition of success. In Obsidian, she creates a “Year of Remembering” note and links it from a new “Reflection” section in her daily notes. Each day’s reflection becomes visible through Obsidian backlinks, giving her a built-in year-end list of what she remembered and what she cut out. She keeps quarterly objectives at work, but uses the yearly theme as the north star for everything outside work.

Why did OKRs and clearly measured success/failure become a problem for her?

She describes 2023 as a high-output year—traveling 122 days across 11 countries and 23 cities, publishing 124 videos in three languages, and launching an Obsidian beginner course—followed by burnout. Even leisure turned obsessive, with 105 tabletop role-playing sessions across 12 systems. In her view, the structure of lofty objectives with explicit measures pushed her to prioritize immediate productivity, crowding out physical and mental health.

What replaces OKRs for her personal life in 2024, and what does it mean?

She abandons OKRs for her life outside work and adopts a yearly theme. Her theme for 2024 is “remembering”: remembering who she is, what she actually wants to do, which people she wants to spend time with, and what gives her energy. The theme also functions as a decision filter—she’ll be “relentless and unapologetic” about choosing activities based on whether they detract from or encourage that remembrance.

How does she implement the yearly theme in Obsidian day-to-day?

She creates a new note called “Year of Remembering” and moves it into a Reviews folder, leaving it mostly blank at first. Then she edits her daily template: instead of a “daily review” section, she adds a “Reflection” section that prompts brief journaling about what she remembered that day or what she cut out to stay aligned. The daily note links to the “Year of Remembering” note so each day becomes traceable.

How does Obsidian help her review the theme over time?

She relies on backlinks. By linking each daily reflection to the “Year of Remembering” note, she can later open that theme note and see every instance where it was linked—effectively a list of all days she reflected on the theme. She also toggles “Backlink in document” in Obsidian settings so the backlinks appear directly in the document view, reducing the need to use an extra pane.

Does she eliminate objectives entirely?

No. She keeps quarterly objectives at her day job because the company requires them. However, she plans to use the yearly theme as guidance for those OKRs. For everything outside work, she wants the theme to act as the north star rather than a measurement-driven system.

Review Questions

What specific mechanism in her OKR approach does she connect to burnout (and what behavior did it encourage)?
How does her Obsidian setup turn daily reflections into an end-of-year record without predefining the theme’s meaning?
Where does she still use OKRs, and how does the yearly theme change how those OKRs are guided?

Key Points

1
OKR-style objectives with explicit success/failure metrics can push people toward short-term productivity at the expense of health.
2
A yearly theme can replace rigid goal-setting by providing one directional compass while the meaning unfolds over time.
3
In Obsidian, linking a daily “Reflection” section to a single theme note turns journaling into an automatically collected year-end dataset via backlinks.
4
Toggling “Backlink in document” helps keep the theme note clean while still showing all linked days.
5
The “Year of Remembering” theme is used as a decision filter: choose activities that support remembering who she is and what energizes her.
6
Work and personal life may require different systems: quarterly objectives remain at work, while the theme guides everything outside work.

Highlights

Her 2023 workload—122 travel days, 124 videos, and a book announcement—ended in burnout, which she traces partly to OKRs encouraging short-term output over health.

The “Year of Remembering” approach treats the theme as a direction, not a fully defined plan, and lets its meaning emerge through daily reflection.

A simple Obsidian change—swapping “daily review” for “Reflection” and linking to one theme note—creates a year-long backlink trail of alignment checks.

She keeps company-required quarterly objectives at work but uses the yearly theme to guide them, separating measurement from personal decision-making.

Topics

Mentioned

Nicole van der Hoeven
CGP Grey
Myke Hurley
OKRs