When I first started using Obsidian, I mostly used it for notes, and I almost immediately turned off the Daily Notes plugin. It just wasn't something I needed.

However, in 2023, I started a new job and decided I wanted to try something new: reflecting at the end of each workday.

This would serve a couple of purposes:

1. Recapping what I accomplished that day, both to reflect now and have it in case I needed to check back later (Calendar helps with this A LOT).
2. Writing down something I was proud of.
3. Making a note about how I was feeling that day (with an optional reason why) so I could keep track of my mood over time.
4. Look forward to what was coming tomorrow or next week.

After a few months of doing this, I can say it's something I am going to stick to. I'd like to share how I do this reflection and some of the secondary benefits of this practice outside of the day-to-day reflection.

What did I do today?

The first section of my daily note is making a note of what I did that day, whether that be things I got done, meetings I attended, etc. I also make a point to add links to any goals I may have made progress towards, clients I have met with, or colleagues I met with.

- Met with [[John]] on [[Awesome Project]]
- Met with client [[Obsidian]] on planned work for the quarter
- Completed blog post on reflection ([[Q12024 Goal - Write Blog Posts]])

This serves the purpose of having daily reflection as well as notes that may be useful to future me. Additionally, making mention of other pages allows me to query for these references from those pages. For example, I may want to set up a client page that has an "activity feed" of all times the client is mentioned by querying the bullets using dataview:

TABLE L.text AS "Text"
FROM [[Obsidian]]
FLATTEN file.lists as L
WHERE contains(L.text, "[[Obsidian]]")

I can use a similar query for a note for goal tracking (I have 1 note per goal):

TABLE L.text AS "Text"
FROM [[Q12024 Goal - Write Blog Posts]]
FLATTEN file.lists as L
WHERE contains(L.text, "[[Q12024 Goal - Write Blog Posts]]")

Something I'm proud of?

From my experience, many people, myself included, are bad at giving themselves credit. So many of us suffer from imposter syndrome and don't take the time to look back and appreciate what we accomplished. I also found that with stuff like yearly performance reviews (or mid-year reviews), I spent a lot of time looking back over my calendar trying to figure out what I did and going off of memory.

Instead of going off memory, why not take the time to give yourself a little pat on the back each day? Future you will thank you!

In this section, I write something that I am proud of for that day. That could be something big that you accomplished or even just something small that you were able to complete that day.

- Completed my first client retrospective in which I received very positive feedback

As part of this, I also keep a "monthly hype note". This is an opportunity for me to look back over a month and appreciate my accomplishments as well as share them with my manager. This monthly note uses dataview to query for the bullets specifically under the "Something I'm proud of" section:

TABLE L.text AS "Proud Of"
FROM "Daily"
FLATTEN file.lists as L
WHERE meta(L.section).subpath = "Something I m proud of" AND (startswith(file.name, "2024-01"))
SORT file.name

How am I feeling?

In late 2023, I decided I wanted to pay more attention to my daily mood. Was I happy on average? Sad? Frustrated?

To accomplish this, I have a list of emojis, each representing some of my historically common moods. Additionally, I have an optional "Any specific reason why?" section in case I want to note why I am feeling a certain way.

A fun side effect of this is that you can query this data using the Tracker to create graphs, mood calendars, etc.

# How am I feeling?

**Answer**:
...

**Legend:**
😁 = happy
😅 = Overwhelmed but fine
😨 = Overwhelmed
🤨 = WTF, little annoyed
😕 = Meh, been better
😒 = Very Annoyed
☹️ = Upset
😫 = Very Upset
😡 = Pissed off

What is coming next?

Finally, I like to end my day by looking forward to tomorrow, or next week if it is Friday. I make a note of what events or meetings are coming up, things I will be working on, and things I would like to accomplish.

This allows me to round off my note in a holistic way and feel prepared for what is to come.

Full Template

Here is the full markdown page:

# What did I do today?

- ...

# Something I'm proud of?

- ...

# How am I feeling?

**Answer**:
...

**Legend:**
😁 = happy
😅 = Overwhelmed but fine
😨 = Overwhelmed
🤨 = WTF, little annoyed
😕 = Meh, been better
😒 = Very Annoyed
☹️ = Upset
😫 = Very Upset
😡 = Pissed off

## Any specific reason why?

...

# What is coming next?

- ...

Your Turn

What do you capture in your daily note? Any hot tips on how to make the most of daily notes? Let us know in the comments below!