I’ve tried multiple planning apps, and with most of them, I’m bogged down by feature bloat, subscriptions, or a sense that they’re not quite the right fit. Obsidian was an instant hit when I first tried it, but what I didn’t expect was to find Daily Notes—a planning tool inside a note-taking app that worked better for me than all the other planning tools I’d tried. This was a similar feeling when I tried the Obsidian Bases plugin.
Daily Notes goes way beyond journaling and seamlessly handles planning, task management, and knowledge organization. It’s become my go-to and the backbone of my workflow. It’s the best example of built-in tools that outshine entire apps.
Daily Notes vs. planning apps
Obsidian’s Daily Notes just works
The first time I used Daily Notes, I instantly appreciated how little friction it added to my day. You’ll relate to this if you use a dedicated planning app where, even before getting started, you lose momentum waiting for the app to sync, staring at your dashboard littered with overdue tasks, or clicking through menus to get started. I can program Obsidian to launch with today’s note or use the “Open today’s daily notes” icon to get me planning for the day.
Some of the other planning apps I’ve used create decision fatigue. Apps like Todoist or Notion require me to think through what project a task belongs to, the tags I should give it, and the folders I should drop them in. Daily Notes automatically includes a timestamped home for every entry and removes the burden of thinking about organization in the moment. The date becomes my note’s anchor, with everything else falling into place.
Daily Notes stands alone and plugs directly into the rest of my notes. I can jot down “client follow-up” and, in just two keystrokes, link it to the client’s project, and this connection will live in both places. This is different from most traditional planning apps I’ve used, where the task is abstracted from its context. Obsidian’s Daily Notes plugin ensures that the plan and the knowledge exist side by side. So, without bouncing between apps or tabs, I can review a meeting from yesterday and understand how it shaped today’s tasks.
What struck me most was how Daily Notes feels different emotionally. With many dedicated apps I’ve used, it felt like I needed to feed the system just so my dashboard looked good. Daily Notes just feels natural—less like maintenance and more like reflection.
Flexible planning options
Daily Notes outperforms dedicated apps
In my experience with dedicated planning apps, you often have your tasks locked into some rigid fields. These may be priority flags, project drop-downs, or recurring schedules. But since Daily Notes uses Markdown as its primary file format, I’m not limited. I can shape my workflow on the fly, having a blend of short-term and long-term ideas on a single note.
What stands out, though, is how Daily Notes is able to connect everything. I haven’t seen the level of connection between notes, projects, and ideas in any dedicated app that transforms my workflow into a living map. But since Daily Notes is a core Obsidian plugin, it integrates perfectly with other features and plugins like Dataview, and this lets me build relationships that create a dynamic, interconnected system for all my notes, projects, and ideas.
Daily Notes also solves the cumbersome nature of recurring planning in many dedicated apps. You can pair it with built-in Templates and Tasks integration and, with a single keystroke, a morning template can insert a reflection prompt and placeholders for recurring tasks. It gives me the most flexible planning options of all the planning apps I’ve tried.
Planning built on Obsidian
Daily Notes inherits the benefits of Obsidian
I’ve enjoyed using Daily Notes, but it’s fair to say that many benefits I love are actually inherited from Obsidian. For instance, Obsidian’s vault-based structure means that Daily Notes sit alongside research, meeting notes, and reference material. This kind of integration makes capturing notes seamless because there’s no need to copy, export, or switch apps. This central location grows richer over time.
A second attribute it inherits is the Markdown storage. All my daily notes are text files. I can decide to store, transfer, or archive them as I please. While I don’t see myself leaving Obsidian, if I choose to, nothing is locking me in. I don’t have to jump through hoops to open and use all my files.
This makes me more at ease planning with Daily Notes than with most dedicated planning apps. It’s one of the few times it feels like a product is actually built for me, rather than built for an organization to get something from me.
Daily Notes is for you
If you need to plan regularly and value flexibility and text-first planning, then you should try Obsidian with the Daily Notes core plugin. You’ll capture tasks, reflections, and ideas more seamlessly than you ever have. If you thrive on adaptability, seeing the connections across your notes will make it hard to beat.
The one thing I still feel the best dedicated planning apps have an edge over is collaborative task management. But Daily Notes makes up for it in clarity and ownership of your workflow. If you need reasons to switch to Obsidian from Notion or any other dedicated planning app, Daily Notes is the perfect one.
