The daily note has become an essential element in any PKM app.
It is so because it can help you a lot.
Here, I share how I structure it to perform at my best every day.
I first met the daily note concept in September 2020 (not so long ago).
It was due to Roam.
Since then, I’ve been polishing it because it has become a single entry point for information to my PKM.
I use Obsidian as my central system.
In fact, I’ve recently left Notion as my Action System’s app because the “Obsidian tsunami” has passed over it.
After almost 30 years inside the productivity world, something like this never happened to me.
Anyway, you can apply these concepts in any other app.
Remember: workflows are what matter.
Projects to Focus On This Week
This is my daily note’s first section.
It shows me all the projects I should focus on this week.
It gives me a bird eye’s view before I plan my day.
This Week’s Tasks
This is the list of all the tasks I’ve previously planned during my weekly review.
I can see my planned tasks for each day of the week.
It allows me to make changes if necessary quickly.
Today’s Tasks
It’s exactly the same content as the previous section but filtered to today.
That gives me focus and shows me if I really can do all that stuff…
Time is what it is.
Tracking
Here, I track habits or elements I want to track daily.
Examples: hours of sleep, day_mark.
Every day, I give a mark (1 to 5) to it so that, during my reviews, I can see how I’m performing.
Today’s Planning
This section has 3 different sub-sections.
1. Routines
A list of my 3 daily routines: morning, afternoon, and end of the day.
Each routine is just a checklist of to-dos I have to do each day.
I love checklists! They give me sequentiality, avoiding multi-tasking.
2. Daily Journaling
Every day, I write down these 4 things:
- Gratitude. What I am grateful for.
- To improve. One thing I’d like to improve.
- Learned. One thing I learned today.
- Mood. How my mood is.
Essential info for my reviews…
3. Highlight of the Day
Every day, I define my highlight of the day.
It’s a task I have to do without any excuse.
It’s the one that makes me finish the day with pride, feeling I’ve moved forward towards any of my critical goals.
Today’s Goals
Every day, I define 2 or 3 things that I’ll feel satisfied with if they’re done.
Obviously, one of them will be “the highlight of the day”.
Today’s Tasks
Watching my today’s planned tasks, my meetings, and any other thing I know I have to do, I write them down and schedule them every day.
I’ve concluded writing them down, one by one, motivates me to succeed.
Journaling
This is an open space to write whatever comes to my mind: thoughts, Interstitial journaling, a feeling, a joke…
An open canvas to express myself without any limitation.
To-Do’s
Whenever I have something new to do, this is my entry point.
Although I can write any to-do at any point of my system (Obsidian, I love you!), I think it’s useful to have a dedicated section on my daily note.
Takeaways
- As you can see, a structured daily note becomes the core of your PKM while using it every day.
- I can’t tell you how I’ve improved my productivity based on it.
Give it a try! It’s worth it!
Photo by David Iskander on Unsplash.