Spyke
obsidianmd·ObsidianMDbyvurr

Keeping a diary / journaling in Obsidian

Anyone keep diaries in Obsidian? How do you format the filenames/directories and the notes themselves? My current formatting for the filenames is "/Daily Notes/DD-MMMM-YYYY". Don't have many plugins right now, but I'm open to suggestions. It's kind of frustrating that the notes in the diary are not ordered in a good way, but what can you do, it's not too much of an issue. I also tag all my notes. If anyone has any experiences with journaling in Obsidian then let me know what you've learned in that process.

A list of useful plugins would be much appreciated!

View original on lemmy.today
10
Comments9
vort3
lemmy.ml

Use ISO date format (YYYY-MM-DD) and they will be properly ordered.

12
SilentRampage34reply
lemmy.world

The trouble I've has is that if i want to go back a few weeks it can be a long list to hunt through. Setting up daily notes to be grouped by month into folders helped that, but I'm having trouble getting the breadcrumbs plugin to parse across folders correctly.

1
d00phy
lemmy.world

I set up forevernotes in Obsidian and configured the daily note format to open the day’s note in forevernotes folder. I don’t journal, but I now use it as a work diary.

3
creaturr
lemmy.ml

Hello, I hope it's not too late for me to give you any advice on this. I have my files named YYYY-MM-DD so I don't have to sort them manually at all (I still do for years but that's a preference thing). I only have one tag: #readable for the entries that are longer then just bullet points. Might also start a #keymoment tag for important days.

Things I did to imitate the diary app I had before that as best as I could (fyi I'm on android):

Beyond the Plugins

  • I made a second instance of the obsidian app part of my phone's secure folder, so that anytime I wanna open it or access the files via a file manager, I have to input a code. You can also just install a 3rd party app lock or a password plugin in obsidian for this (in that case I woud recommend choosing the "files stay in the app, not locally stored" vault option).
  • In the editor's toolbar, I added the Previous and Next Daily Note commands at the start so I can quickly navigate from note to note.
  • The swipe down command is Navigate Forward, but it can be anything that got lost because of Zen Mode like Search In Current File (Zen Mode is a plugin I explain later).

Essential Plugins

  • Calendar (on the right navigation tab; a day is marked when a note is there; on click it creates a note when there is none)
  • zen mode by paperbenni (this is a global toggle to hide much of the UI in the editor. this makes it feel much more focused. mostly, you don't need to untoggle it again, but the button is always readily available.)
  • obsidian core plugin: daily notes (runs this whole thing)
    • settings: open today's note on startup (you can also not do that and use the calendar for this, then you don't strictly need the Janitor)
  • *Janitor (removes empty notes on startup, pair with Lazy Plugin Loader plugin to give you a bit of time to fill in today's daily note before it can get deleted. I don't like this setup tbh, but File Cleaner Redux sadly didn't work for me. Do you have a suggestion here?)

Optional Plugins

(if you go overboard with this, Obsidian can get even slower to load, which could hinder you from actually writing if you had a quick epiphany or something. I recommend using Lazy Plugin Loader to delay the loading of certain plugins on startup.)

  • style settings (makes this space beautiful - do what you want with this, you just need a compatible theme)
  • remotely safe of course (saves the files to my cloud) - any sync works, if you wish to sync that is
  • on this day (shows daily notes on a random and/or same day one year/month/week ago etc. -> on the right navigation tab)
  • daily notes viewer (creates a note that's a scroll-down view of full entries - 30 here, changeable) ALTERNATIVE:
  • Note Gallery(Alternative for Daily Notes Viewer, has no Settings, instead all via syntax)
    • create a new note with following query (you can adjust this to your needs):
~~~~note-gallery
sort: desc
sortBy: name (requires YYY-MM-DD to be chronological, you can probably put *date* here, idk)
limit: 30
breakpoints: 1
path: /file path to all diary entries here
fontSize: 10pt
~~~~

Hope this helps :]

2
drdiddlybadger
pawb.social

When I'm in a certain mode I do. I just use daily notes and the calendar plugin, then I link the days together in a long chain just because I like the look of a streak.

Of course I have been absolutely shite about keeping up with it these days though.

2
gokayburuc
lemmy.world

Use tags like #2026-04-06. Or use the Dataview plugin with your notes to filter them by dates—you'll get awesome results. Use bullet lists well, at least as well as possible. Link your bullets to related notes and ideas (💡 logging and linking), so you can connect your small ideas to big notes. Forget nested folders; forget massive plugins. Just write and link your notes. For example, I use quick memo notes with names. Whenever I get a new idea, I write it directly into the mobile Obsidian app in bullet-list form with timestamp tags and links to related notes. Those small pieces create big articles.

1
Alcan
lemmy.world

My format is YYYY/MM/DD.MM.YYYY, so you have organized every month in a folder. Has been working for me for almost the last two years.

Then for the template, I have something like

#journal (tag)
## Daily tasks
A callout ([!NOTE]) with some tasks that i should do everyday + the ones that emerge
## How I feel today?
Where I write about my day and my thoughts
## 3 things that went well
A callout ([!SUCCESS]) with a numbered list
## [Random Wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Randompage) 
I always rename the text for the page and the link as well
## My wordle try
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Keeping a diary / journaling in Obsidian | Spyke