Obsidian people: did the plugin rabbit hole ever end, or did you quit and go back to a folder of text files? System / Workflow

The plain folder is a real answer and not a defeat. My notes are markdown files in a synced folder, opened with whatever editor is nearest, searched with the operating system. That does 90% of what a note app does with zero configuration surface to get lost in. What you give up is backlinks and a graph view, and I have never once needed a graph view for anything.

Came out the other side. What it looked like: I deleted every plugin, used it for three months as a text editor with backlinks and nothing else, then re-added exactly four when I hit a problem I could name in a sentence. Nineteen plugins at three weeks means you have installed solutions to problems you have not had yet. The tool is fine. The failure mode is that it rewards fiddling, and fiddling feels exactly like work.

Mild disagreement with the purists: sync is the thing worth paying for and it's precisely what the plain-folder route makes you solve yourself. First-party sync at a few dollars a month with real conflict handling, versus fighting a general file syncer over conflicted copies on mobile — I have done both for years and I would rather pay.

Set yourself a rule: you may install a plugin only after writing the note that made you want it. Sounds childish, worked immediately. My plugin count has been flat for a year and my note count hasn't.

The thing that finally got me writing notes was lowering the standard. Ugly note, no tags, no template, just the thing I learned today in whatever words I had. Templates are where my notes went to die for about eight months.

Three weeks is nothing. Check back at month six. Most people either settle or leave, and both are perfectly good outcomes.