Here's an Obsidian Daily Note Template Built for Productivity

I recently took the time to build a better, more visually appealing Daily Note that takes advantage of a few community plugins to display the information I care about the most.

Over time I tend to make adjustments that suit my style, but will more often than not veer towards a simpler approach. Too often I'll find similar templates that add unnecessary functionality for what I believe to be the ethos of a Daily Note– as in, not a "be all, end all" note. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing either, it might work for you, but in my opinion it can get a bit in the way of being performative.

If you're just here for the template, you can download the .md file directly from here!

Let's briefly go over the individual sections. If there's any custom CSS used, I'll also add the corresponding code.

Daily Inbox

A space to dump quick todos or other reminders throughout the day. I usually stick to a task-based format for this section, as I can use it in conjunction with the Obsidian Tasks plugin. This is why in the screenshot above you'll see each line prepended with the #task tag. With Obsidian Tasks, this is what's called the Global Task Filter, and allows them to be queried using the plugin's built-in queries.

.HyperMD-list-line.HyperMD-list-line-1.HyperMD-task-line.cm-line[data-task="x"] {
    opacity: 50%;
  } 

Overdue

This section also takes advantage of Obsidian Tasks to query tasks that have a due date but have not been marked done, and uses the plugin's query syntax to do so. If you'd like to modify it, have a look at their documentation for a more granular breakdown of all of the different options. I personally enjoy keeping this empty, and depending on how deeply nested these tasks are within my Vault, the Daily Note serves to keep this information at the forefront.

```tasks
has due date
not done
group by due
hide edit button
hide due date
```

If you've never used Obsidian Tasks before, I have a small series dedicated to it which I would suggest reading for a quick overview:

• Obsidian Task Management: Inspo for Your Workflow
• Obsidian Task Management: Task Note Templates and Custom CSS
• Obsidian Task Management: Build and Style Your Queries

Sessions

If you use Obsidian for work or school, chances are you like to segment your notes based on meetings with co-workers you connected with or the classes that you took part in that day. I call these "Sessions".

Creating session notes that originate from your Daily Note allows you to stay organized since you can utilize Obsidian's Outgoing Links and Backlinks core plugins to hop back and forth between them and the Daily Note from which they originated from for additional context on what was accomplished that day.

You can extend this further by creating templates using Templater in order to structure these notes, but it's not strictly necessary when starting out.

Ephemeral Notes

This is a simple section where I add random, off-the-cuff thoughts throughout the day. This usually happens because I don't have a pre-existing note that covers the topic on hand, or I just need to get something down quickly for any number of reasons. It's separate from the inbox in that it's free-flowing and not necessarily task based.

If you're using Templater to automatically create your Daily Note template, this is where your cursor will place you upon creation. This is done using Templater's syntax:

<% tp.file.cursor(1) %>

You can position this line in any section of the note if you'd like to position your cursor in a different location.

Today's Notes

Using dataview, this section will pull in all of my notes modified in the last twelve hours. I exclude any Daily Notes from appearing to avoid repetitiveness. Keep in mind that since this is a dynamic query, there isn't any way to "save" or "embed" the results such that you can look back on individual days to see which notes were created and when.

Dataview is looking to be succeeded by Datacore, which is still a work in progress as of writing. With the launch of Datacore, there may (or may not) be a way of keeping the output of the query static to accomplish what we want, but that's still a ways a way. For now, having the dynamic query works great when working out of the Daily Note directly throughout a given day.

How do I use the Template?

1. Install and enable Obsidian Tasks. For this particular exercise, we won't have to adjust any of the default settings.
2. Install and enable Templater.
3. Create a new folder in the root of your Vault entitled Dailies, this is where all of your Daily Notes will be stored.
4. Create a new folder in the root of your Vault entitled Templates, this is where we'll store the Daily Note Template.md template you'll download from the store. Simply drag the .md file into this folder.
5. In the Templater settings, set the Template folder location to this new folder.
6. Continue to Folder Templates and set the Daily Note Template.md to be used for the Dailies folder. What this signals to Templater is that each time a new note is created in this folder, it will use the appropriate template.

Download the Template

You can download the .md template directly below. Note that without the necessary plugins installed functionality will be limited.

Download Daily Note Template (Version 1.1)