This is the second version of the daily notes template. Previously, I created a Journal edition of daily notes that allows you to plan your day, reflect and track your habits.
This is another edition that will primarily focus on task management. It shows how you can use your daily notes for task management.
Here are the plugins we need to create a task edition of daily notes.
- Daily Note: Creates daily notes
- Calendar: Makes it easier to visualize and navigate between daily notes
- Templater: Automate the daily note
- Tasks: Create, query, and manage tasks
- Dataview: Track habits
- Obsidian Memo: Quick capture tasks
Let’s create the template.
Configuring Templater Plugin
Create a template file called ‘daily note’ in your vault under a folder named Templates.
Now install the templater plugin from the plugin library and add the template folder location. Also, enable the ‘Trigger templater on new file creation’.
Configuring Daily Notes Plugin
First, create a folder where you want all of your daily notes to be saved. Then, configure the daily notes plugin.
Add the date format as:
YYYY/MMMM/YYYY-MM-DDThis will group your daily notes into year and month folders.
Set the new file location as well as the template file location. Also, enable the option to open the daily note on startup.
Configuring Dataview Plugin
We’ll be using Dataview to track habits from daily notes. The process is exactly the same as that we created in the Journal edition
Once you have installed Dataview plugin, enable the following options:
Configuring Memo Plugin
We’ll be using the Memo plugin to quickly capture tasks in our daily notes. For that create a heading in your daily notes template called ## New Tasks.
In the plugins option, add the heading syntax in Insert after the heading section.
What this will do is, whenever you add new task entries using memo plugin from the sidebar, they will be added under the heading New Tasks.
Install Calendar & Tasks Plugin
The next two plugins we need are Calendar by Liam Cian and Tasks.
That’s all. We’re done with the first part of creating a task edition of the daily note.
Let’s create the template now.
Creating Daily Note Template
Adding a YAML front matter
Let’s start by adding YAML frontmatter.
---
tag: dailies
---
Add Today’s date as title
We’ll use the templater plugin in order to automate these tasks. The date function will automatically add the title to our daily note. As we have enabled the option, “Trigger templater on new file creation”, templater function will be executed every time a new file is created.
Add the following templater function.
## <% moment(tp.file.title, "YYYY-MM-DD").format("dddd Do MMMM YYYY") %>Link To Other Daily Notes
This function creates a link to your yesterday’s note and tomorrow’s note.
<< [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').subtract(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Yesterday]] | [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').add(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Tomorrow]] >>Task Queries
We use obsidian tasks for managing our tasks inside obsidian. You can visit the documentation if you want more details on the plugin and the different features it offers.
In this article, we will only talk about the queries that be useful in our daily notes vault.
Overdue Tasks:
This will search through your vault for those tasks whose due date is before today. All of the task queries will be written inside a callout for easy organization.
> [!warning]+ OverDue
> ```tasks
> not done
> sort by due date
> due before <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
> hide due date
> hide backlink
> limit 5
> ```The queries will be executed with the help of tasks and the templater plugin. The templater function will automatically add the due before today’s date when you create a new daily note.
Today’s Tasks
This will query tasks whose due date is today.
> [!todo]+ Today's Tasks
> ```tasks
> not done
> due <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
> sort by priority
> hide due date
> hide backlink
> limit 5
> ```Unscheduled Task
This will query tasks that have not been processed i.e. they don’t have an assigned due date.
- > [!Warning]+ Unscheduled Tasks
> ```tasks
> not done
> no due dateCompleted Tasks
This will query the tasks completed today. This can be used to see your wins and accomplishments for the day.
> [!success]+ Tasks Done Today
> ```tasks
> done <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
> hide due date
> hide backlinkHabit Tracking
We’ll use dataview in order to track our habits. For this, we use our habits as metadata. We can do that either in the YAML frontmatter or we can add inline metadata in our notes with ‘::’. Here’s a simple Habit tracker metadata.
> [!tip]+ Habit Tracker
> Sleep:: 0
> Reading:: 0
> Exercise:: 0
> Meditation:: 0
> Writing:: 0These metadata are all placed inside callouts.
In your daily notes, you can add habits of your choice and start tracking them. You can use numbers for tracking.
For example, how many minutes you read? or how many pages? How many minutes did you exercise? How many words did you write? What are your daily goals for these habits?
Based on your daily goals and your daily achievement, we’ll create a habit tracker.
We’ll create a new note called habit tracker and add the following dataview query:
```dataview
TABLE WITHOUT ID
file.link as Date,
choice(Sleep > 7, "🟩", "🟥") as 🛌,
choice(Exercise > 30, "🟩", "🟥") as 🏃,
choice(Reading > 30, "🟩", "🟥") as 📚,
choice(Meditation > 10, "🟩", "🟥") as 🧘,
choice(Writing > 750, "🟩", "🟥") as ✍️
FROM #dailies
WHERE file.day <= date(now) AND file.day >= date(now) - dur(7days)
SORT file.day ASC
```This will show your habits for the past 7 days. You can change that by adding different duration times in the query.
Here’s what’s happening in the data view query.
A dataview table is created from the notes with the #dailies note. Let’s take an example of Writing query.
Suppose your goal is to write 750 words every day. If your writing data in your daily note is less than 750, the dataview table will show as a red box(not done). If it’s higher than that, you completed your habit.
You can similarly add other habits as well as use different data for setting goals for these habits based on your personal preferences.
Here’s what the habit tracker looks like. No data is added currently. That’s why all habits have a red box.
Adding a Custom CSS
This is a CSS trick by TfThacker where he created a dashboard++ using custom CSS. We’ll slightly modify that in order to make customize our daily notes into multiple columns.
Copy the CSS code below and add it inside .obsidian>snippets and name it dashboard.
Set up the width based on your device’s display to make work properly.
.dashboard {
padding-left: 25px !important;
padding-right: 25px !important;
padding-top: 20px !important;
}
.dashboard .markdown-preview-section {
max-width: 100%;
}
/* Title at top of the document */
.dashboard .markdown-preview-section .title {
top: 60px;
position: absolute;
font-size: 26pt !important;
font-weight: bolder;
letter-spacing: 8px;
}
.dashboard h1 {
border-bottom-style: dotted !important;
border-width: 1px !important;
padding-bottom: 3px !important;
}
.dashboard div > ul {
list-style: none;
display: flex;
column-gap: 50px;
flex-flow: row wrap;
}
.dashboard div > ul > li {
width: 650px;
}Adding Tasks Made Easy
We created a heading in our daily note template called ## New Task at the beginning of this tutorial. Now we can use the memo plugin to quickly capture our tasks below that heading.
Review those tasks and add more info like the due date and priority at the end of the day.
Reflecting on your day is equally important. If you want to get inspiration, you can check out the Journal edition of the Daily Note.
You can create a blend of Task & Journal editions as well based on your preferences and needs.
Daily Notes Task Edition Vault
If you don’t want to do all the hassle yourself, I’ve created a vault for this edition which you get either from Gumroad or Buy Me a Coffee
