Okay- time to get serious about getting Obsidian to work for me! Expect a few of these messages over the next few days. Desperately trying to automate a workflow/organization system of information.
What I’m trying to do
Have just discovered how to schedule tasks, etc when I’m writing out a to do list. What I’d LOVE if there’s a way to do it is this:
Let’s say I’ve made this line in a list: 3. finish optical illusion batch 2025-03-18
Is there a way to get this task to show up in my daily notes for the day it’s due? I feel like I’m SO CLOSE to figuring this out and so far!!
I’m completely technically challenged so if you can explain it to me (or even something close to this!) like I’m an idiot I’d be so grateful!
Things I have tried
I’ve researched how to roll tasks over but cannot figure out templates; I tried this but it doesn’t even change the dates on my templates.
I’m at the point where I don’t even know what to look for to try, so any help would be appreciated. Thank you!
What do you mean with “show up in my daily notes”? Like being copied verbatim into it, or being shown as a query result?
For the latter you can use the Dataview plugin, and a query like the following:
```dataview
TASK WHERE due = date("2025-03-18")
```
Where you would use your templates to insert the current date of that daily note into the query itself. Note that using date(today) will match whatever date is today (even if you’re looking at a daily note from years back).
I would STRONGLY recommend using the tasks plugin. @holroy 's solution works, but the tasks plugin has simpler queries even than the dataview holroy suggests, as well as allows you to directly modify the tasks from within the query return (example: have a popup allowing to edit everything for the task, or easily postpone it, etc.). I love that.
I used to also put the task query into a daily note…after 2 months I took it out. Why?
Because it is only useful for that day…and later when you browse through past daily notes, these tasks are no longer relevant, are likely completed so won’t even show up and it slows down each page because a query needs to run.
Instead, in my opinion, a far better system is this:
install dataview, tasks, quickadd, modal forms plugins
make a file somewhere in your vault that will have all tasks: vaultTasks.md (example)
make a form with modal forms.
make a new quick action for this form. Also assign a hotkey to this action.
make another note: dailyTasksWidget.md
This file has few simple tasks plugin queries for today, overdue, next 10 days, etc.
Put this widget file on the right hand or left hand sidebar and pin it.
Now you will always see your tasks no matter where you are.
As you work in obsidian, you could be in some file doing something. Your brain reminds you suddenly to not forget to do a task ABC next few days, or you get a phone call.
No problem; no need to navigate away from your current work. Hit they hotkey for that Add new Task you added in quickview…and the new task for pops up…you can enter few fields and save…the task gets saved into vaultTasks.md, and it will also show up in your widget sidebar when the date is right. All this…and you have not left the place where you were working…thus, minimal friction.
Now I understand we all work differently. Personally I absolutely love this system, but I realize it may not be how others work. My point was to give you an idea of how it can be done, and if you like it, I can guide you more on how to achieve it. It took me a long while to put all this together, because I was learning how to do it all. Many others have done amazing work for free for others, so if I can help, why not.
As a maintainer and long-time user of Dataview I’m somewhat biased, but I do like this write up and suggestions, and would just add a few more thoughts related to this:
I’ve also used to have my tasks mainly in the daily notes, and kept going back and forth. Next step was to start building queries to gather them from previous sources and display that in the daily note. However, I also arrived at the thought that I don’t really need for the daily note to be cluttered by this list of tasks which is changing, and doesn’t really have any use when looking at past daily notes. So I created a dedicated page for task handling (which admittedly uses both Dataview and Tasks for various operations)
I still add my tasks to the daily notes, but the task handling is done on that dedicated page. To me this makes sense since I also uses custom tasks with alternating status characters to display my various events/actions/thoughts/reflections during the day
I’ve recently installed the Contextual sidecar plugin which I’m evaluating, but it has an interesting concept of changing its panel in the right sidebar according to file context (and/or) tags. This can allow you to have that dedicated “widget” readily available, and have it change according to the context of the note you’re viewing.
This allows for having it display something if you’re in a daily note. Like the current tasks
It also allows for generally having this or that buttons and information generally available. Maybe like having dedicated link buttons to go somewhere or open certain files in your vault
One final point I would like to make: Please don’t duplicate tasks around in your vault. I’m a strong believer that an open task should only exists once in your vault! You could show it off/display it various place if you want to, but it should only be defined once. I’m not in favor of copying tasks over to the next day and leaving a duplicate open in an earlier note. The closest thing I do, is to migrate some tasks between months, where I copy the task and mark the previous task defintion as migrated (using [>]) so it’s closed off. (Yes, it’s a personal preference, but I see so many issues when you just copy and get a multitude of duplicated tasks in your vault, so just please don’t do it!)
first off, thank you for all the help you have provided to the community over the years. It is impossible to not come across many posts of yours as one browse the forums for help. Not just that, but your posts are of the highest quality and I am deeply thankful for that. I have gained a lot of knowledge reading your posts.
Very thoughtful what you wrote. It gives me satisfaction knowing that someone with your experience has reached similar conclusion as me. I really love my setup and am still tinkering with it of course.
The new plugin - I will have a look. It does sound very interesting. I do find most people are under using the sidebar and what it has to offer and put too much into daily notes. In my mind there is a division of what goes where in order to achieve maximum visibility, ease of querying and least amount of friction while using obsidian. Those are my guiding principles. Especially the one about less friction
Totally agree to not repeat tasks; my system does not do that and it is a great advice for those starting out with tasks.
I plan to at one point release my vault on github with sample data and screenshots to inspire people. Not because it is perfect, but because I believe others could use it or at least get inspired by it. But that will be a bit down the road; presently building a log cabin (hency my username) and that takes most of my focus.
2025-03-18
