Things: cross-link to Obsidian and back

Wherever possible I like to link apps to each other. My to-dos for my personal and work life are in Things. And my Small Business System JDex notes are in Obsidian. I help myself out by connecting the apps together.

I'll just show you how to do this here, but both apps use what's called a URI scheme if you want to explore the concepts further.1

From Things to Obsidian

  1. Get the URL of the Obsidian note you want to link to by right-clicking it and selecting Copy Obsidian URL.

    If you're linking from a category-level project, link to the AC.00 note. In this case I'm linking from SBS.31 so I'll get the link to note 31.00 List of all marketing, PR, & communications.

  2. In the notes of your Things project, add a Markdown link.

    Things 'supports' Markdown here but doesn't do much with it. You can just paste the link and it'll be clickable. But I like to indicate to myself where I'm going to be taken, so I do the full Markdown syntax by adding [JDex](link://).2

    Screenshot of a Things project showing this Markdown link.
    Figure 22.00.111A. Things' Markdown links aren't amazing.

From Obsidian to Things

  1. Get the URI of the Things project you want to link to by right-clicking it, selecting Share…, and clicking Copy Link.

  2. In your Obsidian note, add a Markdown link 'above the line'.

    I'll talk about this more in a dedicated post, but I prefer to keep metadata above a horizontal line, and then actual notes below the line. This link counts as metadata.

    As each of the JDex notes already contains a link to 'Open in the Small Business System', add your link to 'Open in Things' directly below.

    Screenshot of an Obsidian note showing this Markdown link.
    Figure 22.00.0111B. Obsidian's Markdown links look nicer.

Footnotes

  1. While technically different, most people use URI/URL interchangeably. ↩

  2. Let me know if you need more on Markdown links. ↩