Bullet Journal Plugin

Plugins ideas
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How does Bujo work?

Check it out: Learn - Bullet Journal

The really powerful thing about BuJo is that all your TODOs/events/notes can just be on one single page (your current daily page), and that’s all you need to take care about. One daily page at a time.

In a way, it’s almost Zen-like, which is why it’s developed a huge following in traditional journalling circles. Here’s how it works…

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Three main types of bullets: Tasks, Notes & Events. Under Tasks, we can set different statuses: Incomplete, Complete, Migrate, Scheduled, or Cancelled.

Migration means bringing it into a custom list, which can be a project, such as:

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Here’s an example of BuJo in use:

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Also to tie everything together, there is the use of an Index page

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Why use it in Obsidian?

It would make the Daily Notes plugin immeasurably powerful. We can really good plugins that can work together with the core Daily Notes plugin, like “Rollover Daily Todos”.

What is needed for a BuJo plugin?

The ability to quickly toggle BuJo states.

Tasks are easy - we can just hit Ctrl-enter to get [ ].

Events are harder - we can do [ ] as well but it’s not very clear what’s the difference of a Task vs an Event. Also, an Event comes normally with timing/dates.

Notes are the easiest because we just need them to be a bullet like such - notes.

Toggling statuses of tasks are also important:

  1. Incomplete is easy - just [ ]
  2. Complete is easy too - just [x]
  3. Migrate means bringing the task into a “Monthly Log” or “Daily Log”
  4. Scheduled means we need to shift the task to a specific date, which is displayed on the Monthly Page:
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What an Obsidian BuJo Plugin Could Do…

Firstly, it would co-ordinate all the core pages:

  1. Index - this is a main page that lists all “collections” and other pages.
  2. Future Log - this is a page where events scheduled into the future are dumped into, classified according to Months.
  3. Monthly Log - this is a page that shows an overview of all the things you want to do in that current month.
  4. Daily Pages.

Here’s how it works:

  1. When the month ends, a new Monthly Log for the next month (e.g. November 2021) is automatically generated.

  2. Now your incomplete tasks appear in a list: You process these incomplete tasks and ask “is this worth my time?”

    a) If it isn’t, then you cancel out these tasks and leave the worthy ones as pending incomplete tasks.

    b) If they are worthy and to be done in this New Month, bullet turns from [ ] to [>] and the task is copied over to the new Monthly Log.

    c) If they are worthy and to be done in the future (not in this New Month), bullet turns from [ ] to [<] and task is copied over to the Future Log.

  3. For notes as well, they can be migrated to collections or lists or projects that you want to work on with the same notation [ ] to [<].

  4. Then as you create a new Daily Note, you can continue to retrieve tasks/ events to be done in the New Month, and the cycle continues.

Hope this stirs some interest at least…

19 Likes
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This is a great idea. I’d love the ability to record events easily.

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Maybe we could stir some discussion on how this could be done? How would you like to toggle through states, for example?

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I don’t bullet journal much anymore having migrated bullet journal → onenote → obsidian, but when I did/do sometimes on the go, I never actually bother crossing out the completed events since I only ever did them retrospectively. Maybe something like this could work? I’m not a developer so I don’t know if this would break something else.

- [ ] start brisket
- ( ) barbeque 2021-12-31
- (x) interview with Evil League of Evil

For completed events with no date, it would be nice if it defaulted to the current day? But that could be confusing to people.

1 Like
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I do Bullet Journal and I don’t see myself going digital with it. Nonetheless, a BuJo plugin would be interesting.

Some thoughts on Markup:

- note
- [ ] open task
- [x] completed task
- [~] cancelled (strickenthrough) task – this is the notation employed by Things and I love it
- [>] migrated task
- [<] scheduled task
- [o] event (events aren't supposed to be marked "complete" in original BuJo so we can use this notation)

The above is convenient because Obsidian interprets - [ ] with any symbol in them as a completed task so your notes would be at least semi-readable even without the plugin on.

One issue I see with digitizing BuJo: not sure how “signifiers” (i.e., using * to mark things as a priority, etc.) might be implemented since Obsidian won’t recognize something like * - [ ] as a task anymore

And BTW, Noteplan is a Markdown app that’s very close to a digital BuJo, and it also works with plain text. So you could technically point Noteplan and Obsidian to the same place, and use the former whenever you’re in “BuJo” mode…

4 Likes
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Love that idea with customised markdowns!

Signifiers wouldn’t be too hard either if we can just put [ ]* etc with some javascript or css modification. We can make things pop with bold or highlight too.

Having to use Noteplan alongside Obsidian kind of beats the purpose though, I was thinking more of a all-in-one approach just like how a BuJo can contain both notes and task/event management.

I like [o] as a notation for events! But more practically wouldn’t [2021-11-11] event be even better? Haha

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Typically, you’d add events to daily notes in BuJo so dating them would be kinda redundant.

1 Like
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That makes a lot of sense. I guess we would also need mobility - my guess is that future log can be somewhat like a Kanban board. What do you think?

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Maybe? It depends on whether you’d have automated scheduling into it. If not, it could just as well consist of simple notes. My own future log is pretty close to the original with the difference that I have only one list and I add the month next to each item (mainly to use space more effectively - I was routinely running out of space for the upcoming month before).

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check out the replies in the ITS Theme thread over in share and showcase - there is some discussion of custom icons for different items within the checkbox

edit: found it!

1 Like
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Thanks for sharing! A css snippet which is really cool for the BJ aesthetics. Now we just need to figure out how to get a plugin working :>

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A modification on the traditional paper-form BJ would be to use the Obsidian plugin “Rollover Daily To-dos” (can be found in the plugin store).

So in a way you wouldn’t need to worry about looking back at old daily note pages, each one will be carried forward to the latest daily note page.

Another one I’ve found which could help is the plugin “Review” (also available on the plugin store):

Basically when you run this command, you attach a date to the task/event and also automatically pastes it into the future date. Great for events with specific dates.

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I’m a bit late to this, but throwing my two thumbs up behind this idea. BuJo for Obsidian would be great

2 Likes
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The Task Collector plugin provides right-click and hot-key options for setting tasks to any value you wish (you just have to give it the string of values you want available, and you’re off to the races).

It also has some additional options for adding metadata and removing text when you complete (or cancel) a task.

It works within a file, so it can move completed items to a lower section in the same document (possibly removing their task nature along the way).

A few themes provide baked-in support for custom checkbox values (Sanctum, ITS, ebullientworks, and Spectrum all do). Task Collector will render custom checkboxes in its popover using … whatever that theme or your own personal snippet decides to do (it is agnostic to style). It attaches special meaning only to x, X, space ( ), and - for canceled tasks if you tell it to.

1 Like
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This could be a great plugin. I looked in the community plugins hoping to find one to try out, and ended up here.

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Please also see Snippetor!

A new plugin (released today) that will help you build your custom CSS snippet for custom tasks. :wink: (which would then work with Task Collector to mark them complete)

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I have been interested in the Bullet Journal method and have been using it for a long time. But if we rethink the idea of the Bullet, it should be a modular lifestyle and collections by yourself. So it’s also great for that style:

[!todo] todo

  • work
    …

[!notice] what should be attention

  • things of 1
    …

[!mode] mode name

  • matched things

it’s callout function in Obsidian. it provides a beautiful world representation.

and I often use Python with Jupyter which allows a short and powerful code script to complete my collections task.

all I want to say is may we should concern about the core idea rather than Something metaphysical

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Hi! I’ve been using obsidian for about a year now but I haven’t been able to find a system to maximize it to the potential I think it could be. I am decidedly NOT a tech person so even something like getting the date toggle-able? at the top of daily notes is beyond me. What you’re describing looks very useful! I’m currently installing it as we speak. Thank you for making it! Would you be able to walk me through using it if I have any questions? I’d appreciate it so much. :pray:

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Using a Bullet Journal (BuJo) in Obsidian is a great idea. Thank you for this post. :+1:

I first started my BuJo years ago on paper using a note book. My first migration goes to Microsoft OneNote. It was a great improvement to have a digital search function. The migration to Obsidian was the next important step. Now my BuJo ist part of my Structure Notes from Zettelkasten method. Links between BuJo notes with Permanent Notes are a source of valuable insights.

And the best of all: There is no need for a plugin. It could be done with basic features from Obsidian.

Have a look at my stack of collections:

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BJ is maybe the reason I found and hooked with obsidian now.
I heard the first time of BJ 2 or 1,5 years ago and was very interrested in that system. I tried it for several weeks but was lost after all because of my lack of self-discipline. I need a digital reminder, so I tried some digital tools and hoped to copy BJ in some way. But really nothing worked, like I wanted.
So I bought another noteblock to give the original BJ a new chance and failed again.

Some weeks ago I found obsidian and what should I say. I found more I was looking for.

I don’t think, I would use a BJ Plugin in Obsidian. That would be limitation. I really enjoy to take my notes and attach a task with the reminder Plugin. My index is the daily note with a modified daily agenda from the task plugin example page.

1 Like