My Premium Obsidian Templates Series - Daily Note: The Perfect Solution for Busy Professionals

This article will be the first in a series where I lay out all the work I did to create my Obsidian note-taking madness method. All future Obsidian template articles in this series will be reserved for premium members.

Feb 23, 2023

At the end of 2022, I decided to stick with Obsidian as my main note-taking app. I tried using Craft.doc for a while. I was enjoying Craft.

Then my company decided to restrict third-party access to our Gmail and Google Calendar. My company's new policy made Craft's meeting note built-in feature useless. I found myself turning to Obsidian to try to hack away around these blockers.

Doing so required a lot of initial heavy lifting to get Obsidian closer to what I thought I would need. Some of the things I did might be overboard, while other things I have done were essential to keep me happy and productive.

I hoped to lay the blueprints for what I needed while knowing I would need to tinker and improve as I went forward. Not being a person with a dev background, I did my best to learn and copy what others were doing.

NOTE: This article will be the first in a series where I lay out all the work I did to create my Obsidian note-taking madness method.All future Obsidian template articles in this series will be reserved for premium members. In1 addition, I am providing everyone a copy of my daily note plain text file template.

Obsidian Basics & Plugins

Before going forward, I assume you are already aware of the basics of Obsidian. If not, here are a few articles to help get you started:

Here are some helpful Obsidian starter blog posts from others in the Obsidian community:

In addition, I'm also assuming you are aware of the Dataview plugin and how it handles metadata. If not, here are a few places to help get you started:

I use Periodic Notes instead of the Obsidian default daily note plugin for my daily notes. Periodic notes are more valuable because they allow one to create a digital version of the Bullet Journal note-taking. It also borrows some of the logic of the Zettelkasten knowledge management system.

Templater Plugin

Obsidian comes with a default template plugin. Though this is great for making basic templates, I prefer the options available via the third-party Templater Plugin for my use case.

Daily Note

Taking daily notes is a simple yet effective habit that can help individuals stay organized, reflect on their day, and remember important details. Whether personal or professional, having a daily log of events, thoughts, and ideas can provide many benefits.

My daily note starts with metadata that captures the creation and modification dates. The meta "daily" is also created automatically, along with a "daily" alias. I am still looking for a use for this alias, but I wanted to figure out ways to future-proof my daily notes in case I need it.

Metadata in Daily Note Template versus an actual Daily Note

I use a formula I found which creates a title associated with the date in the following format: YYYY-MM-DD.

I have a couple of other formulas that create note links to the previous day's not and the following days (the next day is less valuable when there is no next day yet). However, if I am in the middle of researching, it might come in handy.

I follow up with a formula that links to yesterday's, tomorrow's, and my weekly note.

# <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>’s Note
# <%tp.file.title%>
[[<% tp.date.yesterday("YYYY-MM-DD") %>|↶ Previous Day]] | [[<% tp.date.tomorrow("YYYY-MM-DD") %>|Following Day ↷]]
<< [[<% moment(tp.file.title,'YYYY-MM-DD').add(-1,'days').format("YYYY-MM-DD") %>]] |  [[{{date:gggg-[W]ww}}]]
 | [[<% moment(tp.file.title,'YYYY-MM-DD').add(1,'days').format("YYYY-MM-DD") %>]] >>

Goals & Priorities

I primarily prefer Apple Reminders for task management. I tested using Todoist, which offers many more integration options thanks to its API. However, Reminders are still my preferred method.

Tracking tasks always end up cluttering up my notes. Instead, I track daily to-dos—things I need to get done that day and check off.

I use a plugin that helps me roll over any to-do item I didn't get done the previous day. Honestly, this is task management, but I still prefer this simplification in my daily note and Obsidian over the complex repeating notes I might create in Apple Reminders.

> [!DANGER] Today's Focus
## Goals & Priorities
- [ ] 


## Meetings & Events
>[!WARNING] Meeting Notes
- [ ] 


## Review
-

Meetings & Events

I like having any meeting notes I have linked to my daily note. Right now, I still need to figure out a way to do this in a way I like automatically.

My ability to grab notes from my work calendar is challenging. My work uses Google Calendar and has gone to lengths to lock down access out of security concerns. How I create meeting notes could be more precise right now. I'll focus on that in another blog. In that post, some kind person will be able to point out anything I've missed and help me improve it.

Daily Journal Log

I still prefer doing an entire journal entry every day. I have read about journal logging, borrowed from Bullet Journaling.

I have this section here when I need to capture short notes of things that happened that day. However, I fully admit I last used this section in 2023. I may be.

Energies

As I perused other people's Obsidian templates, I saw an interesting one. At the same time, I don't use it. The idea behind it is use rate different "energies" and then capture those in a table using Dataview.

Then you can review how you are doing or feeling based on your personal and arbitrary ratings. I have yet to use this, and I might never use this tool. I might remove this section altogether.

I then concluded my daily note with two Dataview tables:

Created Today

## Created Today
```dataview
TABLE dateformat(file.mtime, "dd.MM.yyyy - HH:mm") AS "Last modified" FROM -"Templates" and "" 
SORT file.mtime DESC LIMIT 10

Modified Today

## Modified Today
```dataview
TABLE file.mtime as "Modified" WHERE file.mday = this.file.day 
SORT file.mtime DESC

Both are self-explanatory, and I don't believe any further explanation,

You can make taking daily notes a valuable part of your routine. It's a simple habit that can significantly impact your ability to remember, reflect, and stay organized. Writing things down can help you better retain the information, and having a record of your thoughts and experiences can help track your progress and reflect on your adventures. So, take daily notes today and see its positive impact on your life.

So, that's it. What do you think? What can I improve? Any ideas on what I'm doing well?

Download the Template

If you would like to download a copy of my daily note, you can do so here:

TEMPLATE: My Premium Obsidian Daily Note Template

Note: This is reserved for paying members.

Jordan Robison

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