All the time I talk about doing Yearly, Quarterly, Monthly, Weekly, Daily Notes, and yet I really fail at doing a lot of them.

For example I do my 🍃 NOW Page updates, which are my monthly blog and vlog updating you and anyone else about what is going on in my life (personally and professionally). I have been doing them now consistently for years, even before I started using Obsidian. However I mostly only ever do the public part, not my private upper half, that is more geared towards planning, and helping me accomplish my goals.

I use the Journals plugin to manage the notes for each time layer, i.e. yearly or monthly, etc. It is more suitable than Periodic Notes, let alone the core basic "daily" notes. Meaning I can do the notes at the click of a button, and they are attached to templates for each layer too (another perk of the Journals plugin).

Why do I struggle with doing them?

I just want to be completely upfront about this, as I talk about it alot for other people to do. However I don't want to a hypocrite either, and maybe I'm doing pretty well compared to a lot of people.

However it isn't about comparisons, it is about having the notes and data about my life FOR MYSELF. Me not doing them is only doing myself a disservice.

I think part of it came down to ease of access, I had to have my computer on, and now that I have Obsidian sync finally working it has made a difference already.

When it comes to Weekly and Quarterly I do still feel iffy about how to go about them. I see them as planning layers, but even with the Sync Embeds plugin (which is really helpful for this type of thing) it still is hard to do each time.

I do have a large list of new plugins to test out, and many will help with this I hope.

How do I do each note?

I talked about it in great detail in the post I linked at the top, but I'll quickly go over each here.

This will be explained in the sense of how I do them now, and how I intend to do them. If I am not currently already.

Daily Notes

Not the weakest link, but certainly I can do them more. I have my top area where I write in the morning, or if I have a vivid dream. Then a "today years ago" section I got from ConstructByDee channel.

Then Tasks for Today and Logs sections, but those usually end up blank.

Then I have an "end of the day" writing area, which I wish I used more.

It would be wise to have some meta data for habits and for feelings.

Weekly Notes

I honestly do nothing for this. I've experimented, but nothing has stuck. None of the weekly planning plugins ever really worked either.

However I am determined to find a way. I think this is one crucial weak link that perhaps will drastically change my productivity.

Ideally I'd do them on Sundays at the start of the week. I had the idea of using the Sync Embed plugin to embed each daily note of the week, but I can't do it automatically yet. That plugin is better than the built in embed feature, as you can actually write and edit the note that is embedded.

Monthly Notes

These as I mentioned I do every month pretty consistently, there were a few months over the years where I'd be a few days late. However most of the time I'm pretty on time.

The problem is that I just do the review portion, which is my public part of the note, the now page update.

I never seem to do the planning stage part of the note, which is the private half. Maybe it is because in order to plan, then I'd have to execute on each week. Though without having proper weekly notes, then things don't trickle down.

Those two problems might be related I guess.

Quarterly Notes

These I feel like I've been 50/50 on, as planning at this level is starting to get macro, which I'm pretty good at. It also is easier to do them with the yearly notes.

I often go back and forth between quarterly and yearly, plus it is easier to embed just four quarterly notes in the yearly note, then it is to do 7 daily notes in the weekly.

I often link to the monthly within these, rather than embedding, as the planning stages aren't necessary to connect as much.

To me quarterly is more geared towards life alignment, i.e. the Four Pillars philosophy, or Ikigai. Maybe that helps in a way too.

Yearly Notes

Probably one of my strongest, as again I like thinking in macro-big-picture mode.

Embedding the quarterly notes with sync embeds was sort of a game changer, as I would plan out the year I could edit those notes in one go, instead of context switching back and forth.

Think of it like planning one big project per month, but doing it at the quarterly level.

Bonus: Decade Notes

Not that it is particularly relevant to this post here today, but since it is a novel concept I wanted to share it again. Doing a decade note helps you keep track of everything that happened in that decade. It can be hard to remember it all even at the end of said decade. I.e. I just turned 31, and I am trying to think back at ages 20 and 21, and they feel so long ago.

Hence why it is important to add to the decade note over time, and then reference your yearly, and monthly notes later.

What can I do to improve?

To be frank I just need to get off my butt and do them.

I do have some plans and some plugins that I think will help.

I'm already doing it by writing this Fireside Codex entry

Journaling to me is a mix of public and private, as I am pretty open a lot of the time with my life. However I need to write more, more blogs, more journals, more polypro posts, and even my books.

Thus by channeling my thoughts today into this post, that wasn't planned, it wasn't on my docket to do. Just needed to formulate the thoughts and words about journaling to a post. Now others can benefit from it too.

Using Obsidian Sync with Voice to Text on my Phone

This was such a game changer I knew it would be. When I wake up I don't have the mental capacity to type a whole bunch of things down. I have to wait for the pc to open, then open the note. Which I've done if I had a really strong dream memory or something, but not regularly.

If I just open up my phone and start dictating to my daily note that will make a difference.

I do still have to wait for Obsidian sync to run when I get up, which that is a little tedious and roadblocks a bit.

Speech to Text on my computer/hyprwhspr on my linux laptop

Windows doesn't really do it well, the built in feature never worked, but there are third party tools. Ironically I'm much more experimental with such tools on linux than I am with windows.

There's even a Niri plugin that makes it pretty unobtrusive too, and the TTS/STT will help with AI usage as well.

AI interviewing me at the end of the day

There were a couple plugins like this, where an AI (preferably local LLM) would just interview you about your day. Then input that into your daily note, which seems really helpful.

I'm better with prompts and questions, which is one reason I like doing interviews.