You’ve probably heard the advice. “Just start writing—figure out the system later.”
After years of Obsidian chaos and second-brain hype, this has become the popular antidote to perfectionism. It sounds liberating. For some people, it’s exactly right. But for many of us? It backfires.
Now, the advice exists for a reason.
Some people do waste months building the perfect vault, installing plugins, researching workflows—and never writing a word. I know. I’ve been there. Years inventing my own system in Evernote, building my second brain in Notion, downloading every template I came across.
To me, “just start” is medicine. But here’s what nobody mentions: the opposite extreme is just as unproductive.
Picking up a guitar and noodling randomly doesn’t make you a musician. I once taught myself to play a melody, slapping my fingers on the neck like I was shredding some hardcore solo, only to learn later that I just needed a bar chord.
In the same way, just start writing can be the long way around.
Imagine this: you start writing without a system.
Notes pile up. Files scatter across folders (or no folders). Six months later, you can’t find anything. Worse—your notes aren’t helping you publish. You’re not building. You’re just… “writing”.
You think you’re NOT using a system. But this IS the system you chose.
A system designed by no one.
And when it doesn’t work? You abandon the approach. Try another app. Repeat. The problem isn’t that you need a perfect system. The problem is you need a system—one proven by someone who actually used notes to write.
The answer isn’t to architect your own custom workflow from scratch.
Be honest: look at your desktop. Most of us aren’t natural system designers. The answer is apprenticeship. Mimic a master. Stand on the shoulders of someone who’s already solved this.
For me, that’s Niklas Luhmann’s Zettelkasten.
A method built by a writer who produced 55+ books using index cards. Not a collector’s system. A writer’s system. You don’t have to copy it perfectly. But first, you need a foundation—how ideas are collected, transformed, and published—before you can improvise.
Yes, your notes will still be messy.
You’ll still figure things out as you go. But you’ll be informed. And that makes all the difference.
So which camp are you in?
If you’re curious about how Luhmann’s system can be adapted into Obsidian, let me know!