📆 Obsidian Daily Note Template Tour and Tutorial

[@jordyne8951]

Your videos and resources are super helpful! Thank you! Your content addresses real needs, and you make it easy to follow along, like having someone sitting right next to me telling me what to do next.

[@DannBerg]

I think this is my favorite comment I've gotten so far. :) thank you!

[@borrachomejor6767]

Dropping by again to say, great video. This was a big help to get things situated, your templates give a great starting point to continue building and tweaking to fit my needs. Thanks again for sharing!

[@DannBerg]

Appriciate the comment. Glad you found it helpful!

[@richardparker123]

Thank you! I was just wondering about this today. I look forward to setting this up. I agree that a video combined with the blog post is SUPER helpful. Thank you again :)

[@DannBerg]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to go back through some of my other Obsidian blog posts and make companion videos for them, too.

[@marydiaz16]

This was super helpful for a beginner to wrap my head around templates and plug ins etc. so many of these videos are over my head. Love my new daily note. Thank you so much!

[@mohamedassayed6898]

This what i call a real value video, very helpful, easy to follow along. I am glad that i found this channel now i have to check your other videos 😁 Thanks you!❤

[@DannBerg]

Thanks! Welcome to the channel. I’m glad you find it helpful. I’m having lots of fun with it.

[@sylviedc889]

I have just discovered this channel yesterday and I have used this daily note template immediately. Thanks a lot.

[@DannBerg]

Thanks! I’m glad you like it. Stick around, I’ve got more videos coming :)

[@seyli31]

Mee too ! This is the best simple and powerful obsidian tutorial. The systems are great !l’m using them from yesterday

[@DannBerg]

@@seyli31 glad you found useful!

[@DanielEriksson1972]

Thank you! This video motivated me to finally set up a proper daily note template, instead of just having a blank page. I like your presentation style, it is very approachable!

[@DannBerg]

Thanks! Your template can be as simple or complex as you want! Just think about some of the things you’ve already been writing every day, and apply some nice formatting

[@Alex-lq1uf]

This is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you for making this video, you've made it really easy to follow.

[@DannBerg]

Glad you found it! Thanks for the nice comment

[@Learning2fullest]

This was a great video. I'm not using this exact template, but this has given me quite a few ideas on how I should set up my daily notes. Thank you🙏.

[@DannBerg]

Happy to help! I'm glad you found some gems to pull out for your own use.

[@maumejean]

Great work Dann!, keep on going man, you will very succesful, you bring value. Don't give up.

[@DannBerg]

Thank you! Comments like this really encourage me to keep going.

[@idk_just_will]

Love to see some video content to pair with your written work! Personally I tweaked my daily note template from yours by adding two main things: 1) making the Daily Questions related to my Yearly Theme (look up Theme System by Cortext for more info), and adding a section for my Daily Standup with work! I work across a few teams, so having a full list of what I'm going to work on for the day makes my individual team check-ins easier.

[@DannBerg]

That's a great idea to tie the daily questions to your yearly theme. I was actually trying something new this year, where I scheduled emails to myself, arriving every Monday, with reminders and check-in regarding my yearly goals and progress. But maybe finding a way to fit some of that into the daily note here might be better. Still trying to figure out exactly how that part of the process works for me.

[@PartiallyHonestDude]

I really appreciate that you share all these great ideas you had, in a really easy way to digest, love your style and way of thinking. And yes, keep more content like this coming! On any productivity app you use, as simple as Gcalendar or more obsidian content aswell. Thank again Dann! you got one devote subscriber :)

[@DannBerg]

Great idea. I haven't uploaded a video in a while, but I'll have to start thinking about other productivity systems I want to share.

[@Redandwhitezebra]

Great template and great video, so clear on what to do!

[@DannBerg]

Thanks! I'm glad you were able to follow along so easily. That was my goal.

[@violet-turtle]

extremely helpful!

[@producersproducing]

Very cool and easy to setup - thank you and looking forward to seeing more!

[@DannBerg]

Thanks! Plan to keep them coming. Having fun sharing some of my systems.

[@drimplausible]

Very useful, thank you. Been using Obsidian for about a year and have struggled with some of the automation. This helps.

[@DannBerg]

Automation really levels Obsidian up. Glad to see you’ve found a way to up your automation game!

[@MSander]

TAKS BRO, you are nice man!

[@DannBerg]

You're welcome! I'm glad you found the video useful!

[@nexuslux]

Very helpful. I learned a lot!

[@behroozkarami9832]

Thanks a lot! It was super useful and to the point, thank you!

[@DannBerg]

You're welcome!

[@TDMx]

Hey Dann Just keep going ;) My self I'm as a knowledge worker Im a fan of Obsidian and your content now.. and your recents videos are pretty good and pretty useful... BIG UP to you and your channel ^^ Just a little suggestion : don't use a lot emoji's inside your filename in obsidian it can occurs many issues later on (own experience) the compatibility issue with some plugins or other tiers applications like Dropbox (not compliant with emoji's for example).

[@DannBerg]

Interesting. I haven’t run into any issues yet. How did they pop up for you?

[@shadowcat1017]

@@DannBerg I'm not the original commenter, but I get sync error messages from Dropbox when I have emojis in my file names. Neither Obsidian nor Windows has trouble with having emojis in file names, but the little Dropbox icon in my system tray gets a little red dot on it to indicate a sync issue. When I click on it to see what the sync issue is, it gives me a list of characters that can't be in the file name, like question marks, slashes, and some other stuff, and that includes emojis. If you're not using Dropbox to sync across devices, this probably isn't an issue, but it's a problem for me. Even if I weren't using Dropbox for sync, I'd probably avoid it anyway just for future-proofing to make sure it doesn't become a problem later. I'd hate to have hundreds or even thousands of files that I'd have to figure out a way to rename en masse or rename them one by one manually.

[@DannBerg]

@@shadowcat1017 Ohh, that makes a lot of sense. Good to know that Dropbox has issues with emojis. Seems strange that that's not something that Dropbox has fixed though, as I feel like emojis are only being used more, not less.

[@malescan]

I stopped putting emojis at the start of filenames because they mess up sorting in the file tree. I use the "Iconize" plug-in instead.

[@virx7944]

Enjoyed it ?! You might just changed my life for better.

[@DannBerg]

Heck yeah! I sure hope so :)

[@troyhyatt6923]

Awesome mate!

[@thomashu2003]

This is absolutely fabulous, I have a few questions: It seems that, this is more taking a note than planning a future, I would like to thinking about some task I am going to do in the future, for example, next Monday, I wan to mow my lawn, and when I open next Monday's daily note, I can see my task. any thought of it?

[@DannBerg]

In terms of how I personally do it, I’m using a physical journal (and digital calendar) for things like that. I’ve documented it on my blog, but haven’t made it into a video yet. It’s in the queue! dannb.org/blog/2020/daily-driver-task-management-system/

[@jessyvalentinee]

Very good video!

[@RameshBaburbabu]

Video summary [00:00:00] - [00:12:14]: This video provides a detailed tutorial on setting up a daily note template in Obsidian, a note-taking and productivity tool. The presenter shares their personal system, which includes sections for daily reflections, ephemeral notes, and productivity logs. The tutorial covers the creation of a new Obsidian vault, setting up the daily note template, and configuring necessary plugins like Templater and DataView. Highlights: + [00:00:00] **Introduction to Obsidian and Daily Notes** * Presenter shares their experience with Obsidian * Overview of different note systems used * Purpose of the video tutorial + [00:01:55] **Daily Note Template Overview** * Blank template shown on screen * Sections for reflection, ephemeral notes, and productivity logs * Explanation of tags and daily questions + [00:06:09] **Creating the Daily Note Template** * Steps to create a new note in Obsidian * Copying and pasting the template from a GitHub gist * Setting up the template with Templater code + [00:08:04] **Configuring Daily Note Settings** * Enabling core plugins in Obsidian * Organizing notes by year and month * Setting the daily note template location + [00:10:00] **Installing and Setting Up Plugins** * Installing Templater and DataView plugins * Configuring plugin options * Demonstrating the creation of a new daily note using the template

[@Gamaromaster]

good template like!

[@DannBerg]

Thank you!

[@ritchie1984]

Great Video Dan, It's definitely helped me begin creating a daily notes template. Could you share where you got your icons from that you use in template

[@DannBerg]

I believe all the icons are just emojis

[@user-barajoe]

Thank you for your video!I'm just a beginner in Obsidian.Your video truely helps a lot.And I want to ask about the "automatic jump to cursor" thing, I've turned on this function in Templater's settings, but it just doesn't work and it is showed in original code.

[@DannBerg]

Honestly, I found this to be inconsistent myself, so I took it out of my personal vault. I've left it inside the template in case people like it (assuming it works for them) but you're not alone in having issues with that feature specifically.

[@vgtgoat]

Dang, this is impressive]

[@DannBerg]

Thank you! Appriciate the kind words.

[@mariaferodigue]

I stumbled upon your video at the precise time I needed it! The idea of notes created and last touched today is wonderful. I like the way you have questions and a "freestyle" portion set up. Right now I'm looking into what I'll change these questions to (maybe I'll add a "Today I managed to" reflection near the end of the template), see how it works better for me, but I love the idea. I had to change the initial time code to because the original one wasn't getting the time correctly (possibly over timezones? dunno). Anyway, all this to say I'm very thankful and will be using this for the future!! Valeu and cheers from Brazil.

[@DannBerg]

I'm so glad this helped you! I think that's a great idea to change the prompt to "Today I managed to" if it's something you plan to fill out at the end of the day. My process is typically to create a new Daily Note at the beginning of the day, and then journal about yesterday, so that's why my questions are composed like that. That's a strange quirk with the date code, I'm glad you got it figured out.

[@jahmagic5389]

HI Dann! How to copy text or section automatically to the linked notes. I am new to Obsidian and I need contents/ block of text written in my daily notes to be copied automatically to the linked /referenced notes. Please guide me

[@olafcreed4726]

Great video but there is a big flaw. When you click Yesterday or Tomorrow and the note is not created then it will create a backlink from todays (the day you clicked it) currents date. So essentially if the pages are not already created when you click Yesterday or Tomorrow those pages links will not be working properly.

[@SuperMegaAap]

I'm experiencing the same problem, have you found any fix to this? It would also be nice when you click on tomorrow, to plan ahead, the template gets automatically applied.

[@Moki1930]

Your template don't work for me, when i trying to add, everything brokes, and shows wrong

[@douachealaeddine878]

Thank you for this simple and yet amazing template, it's just that in the graph view I get some dots with code lines that mess up the graph view. Is there a way to fix it ? thank you.

[@DannBerg]

Can you explain what you mean by "graph view"? I'm not exactly sure what you mean by getting dots and code lines

[@Silent1Majority]

@@DannBerg Thank you as well for the fantastic video and Blog post. I got the same error when Using the Graph View (Mind Map). Graph view is showing the daily note title as ### " > " ### After removing this part of my saved file from the GitHub repo (Graph view errored due to illegal characters in title) it now properly shows the title

[@user-sb1em1yy5b]

Thank you for sharing daily form I have question I have a error for template like " invalid reference date format, try specifying one with reference format" can you know how to fix it? anyway really thank you

[@DannBerg]

It sounds like there’s a problem with the Templater code, when it’s trying to get today’s date. I’ve found some good success with ChatGPT and the formatting of Templater code. Hope that helps

[@toteZitrone]

Great tutorial just as the others. (: I only wonder how you get along with the cdate data. When experimenting with setting everything up, sometimes copying/moving the vault and also syncing it to my android device, I noticed that the creation date obviously can get really messed up. E.g. my mobile vault is technically synced, but the files in fact all have the same inital creation date, when I first synced to that device and therefore get linked up to different daily notes than what was reality. Which makes sense, but is really annoying. Also after moving my vault on the desktop I now have some notes that have a creation date (due to copying) which is younger than the last modification date.... :D Not a big deal since I'm still building and experimenting, but in some years I definitly wouldn't want this to happen. So as far as I found out the only way to prevent is, semms to be to rely on one time generated date imprints like you do in the YAMAL. Nethertheless I see that you check for the cdate later in the document. So now I'm wondering, if I might have missed something which makes this stable, or if you just risk those (created this day) Lists getting messed up eventually .... I hope it's comprehensible what I mean :D Also what I wonder in all those templates: What do you do, if you want to create a retrospective journal entry. Since the timestamp from "date.now" then should give you the "wrong" (aka today', not yesterday's) date, right? Do you then edit that manually afterwards, or do you simply have to create the correspondngi note on that exact day? Thanks again for this awesome straight forward video and insights.

[@DannBerg]

What method do you use for sync? This might be a bug with your sync method that you either need to live with or find a new sync method. I use the paid official Obsidian Sync (recently dropped from $8/mo to $4mo) and I recommend it (especially as the app is totally free). However, there may be other free sync options that do better with these conflicts. I'm not as familiar with those, though

[@riggersD]

Hi Dann. Awesome Vid. But your yesterday/tomorrow code in the git repository is different from the one your used in the vid. The one on the website doesn't work properly.

[@riggersD]

It seems to be that the folder templater is not working. You don't need that on for your method?

[@riggersD]

Just to clarify my question: when you hit "tomorrow" should it be able to use the template when it creates the new note? Mine does not seem to work. Just the date fills on the new note

[@DannBerg]

There’s a discussion in the GitHub Gist troubleshooting this exact problem. There are some limitations, but check there for the latest info

[@riggersD]

@@DannBerg Ahhh. thanks Dann! I didn't see that.

[@Kambuiolujimi]

I am having a little trouble with the "- " line. Once I load the template, I am not getting a cursor placement, I am just getting the raw code in that spot. Do you have any ideas on what might be going on?

[@Kambuiolujimi]

I also meant to say thanks so much for this tutorial and your page in general. It's been great.

[@DannBerg]

That needs to be enabled in the Templater settings. I believe it’s a checkbox that needs to be toggled on

[@Kambuiolujimi]

@@DannBerg thank you!

[@cian9023]

Hey when I use your template my date created is always Saturday, March 20, 2021. How can I fix it so it creates it as today's date?. Thank you for your video

[@DannBerg]

If you're using `` then templater should expand that to today's date. Are you getting your template from here: gist.github.com/dannberg/48ea2ba3fc0abdf3f219c6ad8bc78eb6 If so, leave a few more details in a comment on that gist and i or someone else can help in more detail

[@cian9023]

@@DannBerg Hi I got the template from your github. I realised that the dates were inputted/read wrong as DD-MM-YY and not YY-MM-DD. I have changed it and its working now. Cheers for the quick response.

[@DannBerg]

@@cian9023 Great, glad you were able to figure it out

[@PauloJunior-sk9nx]

How do we trigger the prompt tp.file.cursor( ) below the productivity log which somehow became notes?

[@DannBerg]

There’s a setting in Templater settings that should enable that feature.

[@PauloJunior-sk9nx]

@@DannBerg Thank you

[@aelfward]

I hope someone can help me…I had a daily note template that showed the date prior and date after (tomorrow). If file didn’t exist it would create a new note under DailyNotes/Timestamps/year/month ex. DailyNotes/Timestamps/2024/April. I royally screwed my template up while semi asleep. Can anyone point to an example template that does something similar?

[@DannBerg]

Sorry for the delayed response. I try my best to stay out of my digital world on the weekends. Have you seen the discussion on the Githust Gist for my template? Some of the more recently comments discuss this specifically, and feature some solutions. Hopefully you can re-create what you previously had. gist.github.com/dannberg/48ea2ba3fc0abdf3f219c6ad8bc78eb6 Also, I'd recommend backing up your vault to Github. It's free, and includes version history so you can easily revert back to old versions of your vault dannb.org/blog/2024/obsidian-backup-github/

[@aelfward]

@@DannBerg I found your template and it was the original version I used and modified. The issue I have is that it will only work for the current day. If I create a note, via calendar plugin, the code does not use that date to calculate “Yesterday” and “Tomorrow”. I think I can make it go off file name (which is date created) Secondly, how can I get templates to but files in DailyNotes/year/ where year is the current year or any year via Calendar plugin?

[@DannBerg]

@@aelfward I haven't found any way to "pass through" information to a template. It would be great if you could click a date in the Calendar plugin, have that date "pass through" to the template, and then parse the template code using that date. But I couldn't figure out how to do that. In terms of moving files to a specific directory, this can be done by renaming the file and including the directory in the name. I do that in my Meeting Note template, it's the `` code gist.github.com/dannberg/9056b89437110e62766689772437fe46

[@artifica0]

Two :: will act as a link inexcalibrain

[@anascancerjourney9922]

Hey! Thank you for this tutorial. I have a few questions. 1. When I look at my graph view, I see several of these "". It looks really messy. What can I do about it? When I click on them, it opens a folder in "timestamps". 2. Can you say more about "+ Add Property? What can we do with that? 3. Under "Notes" I see some code: . Is that supposed to be visible in my new note? What purpose does it serve? I don't see code anywhere else in my new note. I don't think whatever it is supposed to do is working. 4. How can I switch out/add emoji's? Not as big a deal as the first two questions, but I would like to replace the thumbs down emoji with something a little more uplifted and encouraging. Thank you for this tutorial!

[@DannBerg]

Hello! Sorry it took me a little while to reply to this message. I'll do the best I can here in the comments. 1. The anything that starts with should only render like that in the template file. That's Templater Code, and it should render to actual dynamic data when you're USING that template to create a new file 2. Properties are just metadata that you can add to individual files. No need to worry about it if you don't have a specific metadata need 3. the tp.file.cursor() code tells Templater to put your cursor in that spot when it creates a new file using that template. In order for it to work, it needs to be enabled on the Templater plugin Settings page 4. To change the Emoji (or any other part of the template!) you can just edit the Template file. If you followed the tutorial, this will be the document with the word "template" in the file name. Any changes you make to that Template file will be used when using that template to create a new file. Hopefully you were able to follow all that. Happy building!