Lou Plummer

I love a good shared Obsidian Daily Note post. My own daily note is an amalgamation of elements I’ve gleaned from other people. I’ve discovered some useful plugins as a result. The data I capture is valuable to me. The way I capture it is automated to an extent and easier to enter as a result of what I’ve learned. I’m going to offer the same to you, in hope that you’ll find something useful. I use the community plugin, Periodic Notes and not the Daily Note core plugin.

The first thing I do on my computer in the morning is start my daily note. I record the beginning of the day data using the tools that follow.

Properties

--- 
title: Daily Note Template 
url: 
tags: 
  - dailynotes 
  - journaling 
creation date: <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
modification date: <% tp.file.last_modified_date("YYYY-MM-DD") %> 
Author: amerpie 
status: 
wake time:
---

My properties (YAML frontmatter) use Templater snippets for the creation date and modification date. Templater is one of the most useful plugins in the Obsidian universe and has plenty of other uses. The status: property is one I use to delineate whether the day is a work day, at home day or a travel day. The wake time property is where I record what time I get up each morning. You could enter anything you want to track in properties, such as your weight or the distance of your morning run/walk. You can use the Dataview community plugin to quantify that information later.

My H1 Heading

I use another Templater snippet for the H! heading. Instead of rendering the date as YYYY-MM-DD, it displays the format as Friday, March 29th 2024, giving me a little more information when I refer back to it later.

 <% tp.date.now("dddd, MMMM Do YYYY", 0, tp.file.title, "YYYY-MM-DD") %>

The Quick Add Button

The next element on my Daily Note uses the Buttons community plugin to access the actions I have set up via Quick Add.. Not only do these actions let me make entries under the appropriate heading on my daily note, they also serve as shortcuts to other notes I create frequently, namely my people notes, meeting notes and page formats I use for specific types of blog posts. Mike Schmitz does a great tutorial on setting this up over at The Sweet Setup.

Button Syntax

Button 
name Add entry 
type command 
action QuickAdd: Run QuickAdd 
color default 

Quick Add Entries

The Task of the Day

I prefer to use the dedicated task manager Things 3 to manage my tasks. I do however list my primary task of the day at the top of my daily note. This is the one thing I want to get done that day if everything else falls by the wayside. I create this task using a hotkey to run an iOS shortcut crafted with Carlo Zottman’s excellent Actions for Obsidian. . This requires me to create a placeholder in my template styled like this.

%%new-tasks-here%%

Morning Weather

Once again, I use Actions for Obsidian and an iOS shortcut to add the morning weather to my daily note. I use a button added to the ribbon bar via the Commander community plugin to launch this shortcut. I use this placeholder:

**Morning Weather** - %%Weather%%

Appointments

I add the appointments from my default calendar with this shortcut. The placeholder is formatted like this:

## 📅Appointments

%%Appointments%% <br>

Daily Quote and Previous/Next Days Entries

Templater has syntax to add a daily quote to your notes and I use it with joy. I live quotes and collect them in my my vault. In fact, I have a Github repository where you can download over 500 notes of markdown formatted quotes divided by the author/speaker.

Syntax

<%tp.web.daily_quote()%>  
Previous day: [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').subtract(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Yesterday]]  
Next day: [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').add(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Tomorrow]] 

Result

Headers for Running Entries

My notes main body consists of three main sections. I use headers for these and the headers serve as placeholders for the quick add button I mentioned above. I add to the note throughout the day and add finishing touches at night as part of my end of the day routine.

Notes Created Today and Notes Modified Today

I have two Dataview queries in my Daily Note template. I have them formatted as callouts so that I can fold them up when I don’t need to see the information and therefore don’t have to do a lot of scrolling around.

The first callout shows me the notes created on the same date the daily note was created.

  [!abstract]Today's New Notes
  ```dataview
  LIST WHERE creation-date = this.creation-date
  ```

The second callout shows me the notes modified on the date the daily note was created.

  [!abstract]Today's Modified Notes
  ```dataview
  LIST WHERE modification-date = this.modification-date
  ```

They appear like this in the note.

Final Touches

As I mentioned, I use Things 3 for task management. There’s a plugin for Things 3 which appends a log to your note when you complete tasks, Things 3 Logbook. This is a useful record of different tasks I accomplish each day. I also use the Things 3 Today community plugin to display my day’s tasks in the sidebar while I make entries in my daily note.

Logbook

Today View for Things 3

The Template

---
title: Daily Note Template
url: 
tags:
  - dailynotes
  - journaling
creation date: <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
modification date: <% tp.file.last_modified_date("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
Author: Lou Plummer
status: 
wake time:
---

# <% tp.date.now("dddd, MMMM Do YYYY", 0, tp.file.title, "YYYY-MM-DD") %>

```button
name Add entry
type command
action QuickAdd: Run QuickAdd
color default


%%new-tasks-here%%  

**Morning Weather** - %%Weather%%

 📅Appointments

%%Appointments%%

<%tp.web.daily_quote()%>  
Previous day: [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').subtract(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Yesterday]]  
Next day: [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').add(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Tomorrow]]

📚Learnings

✏️Journal Entries

 👍Gratitude

> [!abstract]- Today's New Notes
> ```dataview
> LIST WHERE creation-date = this.creation-date
> ```

> [!abstract]- Today's Modified Notes
> ```dataview
> LIST WHERE modification-date = this.modification-date
> ```