Gentle Refinement Month 5 — Exploring the Daily Note

April was a blessing. Having the opportunity to spend the month focusing on my previous three refinements was helpful and a good opportunity to lock things in.
But it's a new month, and time for me to begin working on something else.
I've decided it is time for me to explore the idea of a Daily Note.

The Problem

Every day, I am spreading myself across multiple applications. I have my calendar in Fantastical. In the morning, I have been journaling on either my SuperNote or in a paper journal. In the evening, I reflect and journal in Day One. My tasks have been bouncing between Reminders, Todoist, and OmniFocus.

There is power in using all of these different applications. They are all advanced tools with a strong set of features.

Features I barely use.

I stick with (and pay for) Fantastical because I like the way it looks more than any other calendar app, and it can save events as templates: this greatly speeds up my weekly planning. But I don't use any of the other features: task integration, meeting planning, natural language parsing (I have trust issues), or calendar sets and focus filters. My life isn't complicated enough to need those.

OmniFocus is the GOAT of task managers. There are entire courses on how to get the most out of this incredible task/project manager. And while I like some of the visibility features, I don't use the other perspective tools or tags, and find the complicated projects, well, complicated.

Day One is an excellent journaling application. I've been using it for years. But I don't have the need for multiple journals; I am the only one who uses my computers, so I don't need the ability to lock them, etc.

And while I find something beneficial to journaling by hand at times, the increased friction of not having those thoughts with me at times throughout the day makes it less useful. Also, dividing my journaling between two places makes it difficult at the end of the day to look back and really see: How did I do on my intentions, goals, and plans for the day?

The Daily Note

The Daily Note isn't a new concept. But it never clicked for me.

Until recently.

My understanding of a daily note is this: one place for me to save most everything from the day — reflections, tasks, appointments, notes — and be able to come back to all of that and see it together.

I dabbled recently in doing this with Obsidian. I love a lot about Obsidian. But the fact that it is a bit of a janky Electron app is a knock in my book. It always feels like it could fall apart at a moment's notice, even though I know it won't. But I love the idea of using an application that just looks at (and syncs) folders of Markdown (text) files, and then allows you to do work with them.

NotePlan is one such application. Versus Obsidian, it has the advantage of being a native application on the Mac, iPad, and iPhone. It doesn't feel like it is being held together with baling wire and duct tape, particularly on mobile.

And it is designed with the concept of the Daily Note as a top priority.

My Use Plan

I've made a template. Each morning, I sit down and write. I set my intention for the day, write down things I am grateful for, write out one or two goals for the day, and then my tasks. I can set due dates for the tasks, mark them as done, and do all of those basic task management actions.

At the end of the day, I look back at that same note and see how I did. What were my successes for the day? What didn't go as well as I should have? And what is my corrective plan for the next day?

I can move any tasks that need to be moved, and they automatically show up in the next day's note (or whenever I have designated them in the future). My calendar is in the sidebar. I can see my appointments/events, task management, writing, notes, and journal all in the same place.

I don't know if this is going to stick or if this is how I want to manage things. But I want to try. I want to see if this will help me be more mindful, more focused on my tasks, and help me manage my different projects in one place, rather than spread out across 5-6.

I can adjust as needed as the month progresses, and we will look back and see if this is a practice that sticks with me going forward.

So far, for the first few days of the month, I am enjoying the process and finding value in it. We'll see what the month holds.