Should I use one Obsidian vault or several?

One vault makes it easier to link ideas across topics, which is why many long-term users keep one. Split only when you have a real reason, such as confidential work material, a vault large enough to slow the app, or devices that should not hold everything.

What are atomic notes in Obsidian?

Atomic notes hold one idea, fact or reference each, so they can be linked and reused in many places. In Obsidian each note is a file, so atomic notes mean more, smaller files. Most people do well with one idea per note rather than splitting as finely as possible.

What is a good quick capture app to use with Obsidian?

Mike Schmitz uses Drafts, Funnel and Whisper Memos, all on Apple devices, then moves the best items into Obsidian later. The principle matters more than the app: capture somewhere fast, review later, and keep only a small share.

All video notes

Video notes · Notes and PKM

10 Essential PKM Lessons from Using Obsidian Every Day for 5+ Years

Video by Mike Schmitz on YouTube · 24 min · uploaded September 2025

Notes and analysis by BrainTube, written from the video. Not affiliated with Mike Schmitz. Watch on YouTube

In short

Mike Schmitz shares ten lessons from five years of daily Obsidian use, and the best of them are about restraint: start with one workflow, capture elsewhere, keep only about 10% of what you capture, and always make something from your notes. Most of the advice holds up. The "keep what resonates" filter and the one-vault rule are personal preferences presented as rules, and they deserve more caveats than the video gives them.

The argument

Schmitz argues that most frustration with Obsidian comes from asking it to do too much, too early, with too much input. His fix is a sequence of limits. Build one workflow before anything else. Keep everything in a single vault so unrelated domains can connect. Break notes into small atomic pieces so they link well. Capture in a separate fast tool and promote only the best items. Filter by what resonates with your values rather than what might matter someday. Use each device for what it is good at. Then close the loop by producing something, because a notes system with input and no output only adds to the feeling of overwhelm.

Key ideas, with timestamps

0:58
One workflow first
He uninstalled Obsidian twice before it stuck. What made it stick was one concrete project: a cross-reference library linking his sermon sketch notes to the Bible verses they mention. He presents a single useful workflow as the way past the blank, overwhelming start.
2:11
Do not split your vault
His vault mixes tens of thousands of verse notes with notes from books he reads for the Bookworm podcast. He credits cross-domain overlap, productivity books meeting a Bible college class he taught on personal management, with some of his best insights. He allows a split only when vault size slows the app.
4:23
Atomic notes, by necessity
Coming from Roam, he wanted to link to bullets rather than files. Obsidian did not support that well, so a friend scripted the public-domain King James Bible into one note per verse. He mentions the Strange New Worlds plugin as a later partial answer, and notes that plain markdown files mean his notes survive if Obsidian disappears.
6:41
Capture somewhere else
He captures in Drafts, Funnel or Whisper Memos on the Apple Watch, then moves items into Obsidian later. He estimates only about 10% of what he captures makes it into the vault. The delay between capture and curation is the point: it shows which ideas were actually good.
8:53
Keep what resonates
He criticises GTD for blurring importance and urgency, and swaps asking whether something is important for asking whether something fits his vision and values. His violin background frames it as resonance. He ties this to his own PKM Stack framework.
10:35
Device modes
About 95% of his Obsidian work happens on a MacBook Pro. On the iPhone he mostly journals at the end of the day, so the mobile setup syncs less of the vault and skips most plugins. A smaller phone setup is faster and keeps him away from feeds.
12:45
Do not make it do everything
He describes a common arc: too complicated, then mastered, then overloaded with plugin workflows until it is too complicated again. He does run his tasks in Obsidian, with a dashboard and paper time blocking, and says that system would be wrong for anyone who needs location reminders.
20:36
Keep creating
His final lesson is that PKM needs output. He frames notes as mental Lego bricks, says the usual problem is a lack of action rather than a lack of knowledge, and suggests even a private opinion note counts as output.

What it gets right

The 10% filter. Capturing in a fast inbox and promoting only a small share is the most practical advice here. Most people do the reverse: they save everything into the main system and then feel buried. A rough target like one in ten gives you permission to throw things away, and the time gap between capture and review is what makes judgment possible.

Start from a workflow. The verse cross-reference library is specific and unusual, which is exactly why it worked. Picking one job you already do, such as meeting notes for one project or reading notes for one book, beats installing a template.

Output closes the loop. His closing point matches a well-known failure in PKM: collecting feels like progress. Writing a short opinion note on a topic is a low bar that still forces synthesis, and it works whether or not anything gets published.

Plain files. His aside that Obsidian sits on a folder of markdown is accurate and is the strongest reason to pick it. Your notes stay readable by other editors, scripts and AI tools.

Where it is weaker

One vault is a preference, not a rule. Cross-domain links helped him, but he works alone on personal and creative material. Client work, employer data or anything under a confidentiality agreement often needs separate storage, and syncing one giant vault to every device has its own risk. A fair version: keep one vault for your own thinking, and separate anything you are not allowed to mix.

The resonance filter can become an echo chamber. Filtering by what fits your existing values is good for focus, but it also filters out the evidence that would change your mind. A useful addition is to keep a small space for things that contradict you.

Atomic notes are a spectrum. His one-note-per-verse vault is an extreme case driven by a link limitation. For most people, a note per idea or per source is enough. Splitting too finely creates hundreds of tiny files that need maintenance.

The middle tips are general life advice. The lessons on curating sources (with Jim Rohn's three questions) and on accepting a messy vault are sound but not specific to Obsidian. The video also never mentions AI search or MCP, which is notable for a September 2025 upload, when many Obsidian users were starting to point AI assistants at their vaults.

How this applies to memory across AI tools

His capture-then-curate model maps well onto AI tools. A low-friction inbox catches everything, and a curated store holds what you would want an assistant to draw on. The difference is that an AI can now search the inbox side too, so the 10% rule becomes about what you trust, not only what you can find.

Videos, podcasts and articles are where his filter is hardest to apply, because you cannot skim them quickly. BrainTube handles that part: it saves YouTube videos with their transcripts, articles, PDFs and podcasts into one compiled knowledge base, exposed as an MCP server so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients can search it. Your Obsidian vault can stay the curated layer for your own thinking.

For how the two sides fit, see how it compares with Obsidian and remembering what you watch and read.

Who should watch it

Watch it if you have started and abandoned Obsidian, or if your vault has become a plugin project instead of a thinking tool. The most useful parts are 0:58 to 2:11 (one workflow), 6:41 to 8:53 (separate capture and the 10% filter) and 12:45 to 15:32 (stop making it do everything). The section from 15:32 to 20:36 on information diet and messy systems is general advice you can skip if you have heard it before. Experienced users with a working system will find little new, and anyone looking for AI or automation workflows should look elsewhere.

Frequently asked

Should I use one Obsidian vault or several?: One vault makes it easier to link ideas across topics, which is why many long-term users keep one. Split only when you have a real reason, such as confidential work material, a vault large enough to slow the app, or devices that should not hold everything.
What are atomic notes in Obsidian?: Atomic notes hold one idea, fact or reference each, so they can be linked and reused in many places. In Obsidian each note is a file, so atomic notes mean more, smaller files. Most people do well with one idea per note rather than splitting as finely as possible.
What is a good quick capture app to use with Obsidian?: Mike Schmitz uses Drafts, Funnel and Whisper Memos, all on Apple devices, then moves the best items into Obsidian later. The principle matters more than the app: capture somewhere fast, review later, and keep only a small share.

Keep videos like this one searchable

BrainTube saves YouTube videos with their transcripts into one compiled knowledge base that Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients can search.

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10 Essential PKM Lessons from Using Obsidian Every Day for 5+ Years

In short

The argument

Key ideas, with timestamps

One workflow first

Do not split your vault

Atomic notes, by necessity

Capture somewhere else

Keep what resonates

Device modes

Do not make it do everything

Keep creating