Why I keep my notes in Markdown and Obsidian

I like being able to open a note and read it right away. With Markdown, I can see where a section starts, what belongs in a list, and where a link goes, even in a plain text editor. A line starting with ## is a heading. That little bit of structure is enough for most of what I write down. If you’re curious about the syntax, CommonMark has a short tutorial you can open in your browser. CommonMark’s Markdown tutorial

Obsidian gives me a comfortable way to browse and link those notes while keeping them as regular files on my computer. If I want to find a phrase across a folder, I can use whichever search tool I have handy. I can also decide which folders to sync and which notes to share. That matters when a folder holds both public writing and things I’d rather keep to myself. How Obsidian stores notes

That simple format also helps when I share notes with an AI assistant. When a tool reads the files directly, Markdown often takes fewer tokens than the same text wrapped in HTML. That can save money when I’m paying by the token and leave more space for another relevant note. I usually care more about picking the right few notes than about how many I can fit.

I still care about layout when I’m publishing a page or putting together slides. I like being able to start with a note I can read, edit, and reuse, then decide how it should look when someone else sees it.