Why have a daily note?

I wanted to have a place where I could plan and track what I was doing through the day. I’ve experimented with kanban boards, pomodoro, Eisenhower matrix, and various other productivity techniques. The approach that has worked best for me was timeboxing. When I was working, I’d use the daily note to timebox my day and follow progress in the right hand sidebar with the Day Planner plug in. I have recently retired and am not currently timeboxing. I still have appointments and tasks that I need to do, and the existing format still works for me even though my day is not as structured as it was.

TL;DR: Obsidian’s HTML support lets us embed web pages in notes. I have used this to create a note that will display a random Wikipedia page every time the note is opened.

Introduction

Obsidian will happily render HTML, which is useful as it gives us even more options for layout than are provided out of the box.

I have used this, for example, to allow highlighting in colours other than the default that Obsidian comes with, so, with a bit of CSS, I can highlight text in different colours:

It is very easy to capture notes to Obsidian. With Kepano’s web clipper and a number of other quick-capture tools as well as porting my old notes from Evernote (which I had been using since 2007), I ended up with about 7000 notes in my vault. This is not a big number by any means - I have seen screenshots of vaults with factor of 10 more notes. It is enough, though, that without making an effort to revisit notes, I will likely have no memory of making them, and they will then have questionable value.

The Problem

I’ve been using Obsidian since 2021. When I started, Dataview was the best way to query my notes. I liked the use of inline fields, e.g. “Next::”, as it kept all of the information within the context of the note. I built a bunch of workflow around Dataview and these inline fields, and it has served me well. But…

I’ve noticed a lag in keystrokes when typing into pages with heavy Dataview queries, which includes my daily notes. Also Dataview is no longer undergoing active development. The developer is focused on developing a successor, “Datacore”, which offers much better performance, but a completely different way of defining queries.

Why have a daily note?

I wanted to have a place where I could plan and track what I was doing through the day. I’ve experimented with kanban boards, pomodoro, Eisenhower matrix, and various other productivity techniques. The approach that has worked best for me was timeboxing. When I was working, I’d use the daily note to timebox my day and follow progress in the right hand sidebar with the Day Planner plug in. I have recently retired and am not currently timeboxing. I still have appointments and tasks that I need to do, and the existing format still works for me even though my day is not as structured as it was.

It is very easy to capture notes to Obsidian. With Kepano’s web clipper and a number of other quick-capture tools as well as porting my old notes from Evernote (which I had been using since 2007), I ended up with about 7000 notes in my vault. This is not a big number by any means - I have seen screenshots of vaults with factor of 10 more notes. It is enough, though, that without making an effort to revisit notes, I will likely have no memory of making them, and they will then have questionable value.

The Problem

I’ve been using Obsidian since 2021. When I started, Dataview was the best way to query my notes. I liked the use of inline fields, e.g. “Next::”, as it kept all of the information within the context of the note. I built a bunch of workflow around Dataview and these inline fields, and it has served me well. But…

I’ve noticed a lag in keystrokes when typing into pages with heavy Dataview queries, which includes my daily notes. Also Dataview is no longer undergoing active development. The developer is focused on developing a successor, “Datacore”, which offers much better performance, but a completely different way of defining queries.

Why have a daily note?

I wanted to have a place where I could plan and track what I was doing through the day. I’ve experimented with kanban boards, pomodoro, Eisenhower matrix, and various other productivity techniques. The approach that has worked best for me was timeboxing. When I was working, I’d use the daily note to timebox my day and follow progress in the right hand sidebar with the Day Planner plug in. I have recently retired and am not currently timeboxing. I still have appointments and tasks that I need to do, and the existing format still works for me even though my day is not as structured as it was.

It is very easy to capture notes to Obsidian. With Kepano’s web clipper and a number of other quick-capture tools as well as porting my old notes from Evernote (which I had been using since 2007), I ended up with about 7000 notes in my vault. This is not a big number by any means - I have seen screenshots of vaults with factor of 10 more notes. It is enough, though, that without making an effort to revisit notes, I will likely have no memory of making them, and they will then have questionable value.

The Problem

I’ve been using Obsidian since 2021. When I started, Dataview was the best way to query my notes. I liked the use of inline fields, e.g. “Next::”, as it kept all of the information within the context of the note. I built a bunch of workflow around Dataview and these inline fields, and it has served me well. But…

I’ve noticed a lag in keystrokes when typing into pages with heavy Dataview queries, which includes my daily notes. Also Dataview is no longer undergoing active development. The developer is focused on developing a successor, “Datacore”, which offers much better performance, but a completely different way of defining queries.

TL;DR: Long time Windows user trying an alternative to Windows 10 on hardware that Windows 11 won’t support. Part 1 covers why and how the install was done and Mint tweaks on initial load. Further posts will look at alternatives to Windows programs used and other challenges encountered.

Background

I started my PC journey with an early IBM PC and DOS on the command line way back when PCs were first a thing. I looked at Windows 2 and deleted it in horror, was sucked into Windows 3.1.1 with a corporate job, and apart from a brief affair with OS/2 Warp I have stuck with Windows through its various incarnations (apart from Vista, obviously 😱).

TL;DR: Long time Windows user trying an alternative to Windows 10 on hardware that Windows 11 won’t support. Part 1 covers why and how the install was done and Mint tweaks on initial load. Further posts will look at alternatives to Windows programs used and other challenges encountered.

Background

I started my PC journey with an early IBM PC and DOS on the command line way back when PCs were first a thing. I looked at Windows 2 and deleted it in horror, was sucked into Windows 3.1.1 with a corporate job, and apart from a brief affair with OS/2 Warp I have stuck with Windows through its various incarnations (apart from Vista, obviously 😱).

TL;DR: Long time Windows user trying an alternative to Windows 10 on hardware that Windows 11 won’t support. Part 1 covers why and how the install was done and Mint tweaks on initial load. Further posts will look at alternatives to Windows programs used and other challenges encountered.

Background

I started my PC journey with an early IBM PC and DOS on the command line way back when PCs were first a thing. I looked at Windows 2 and deleted it in horror, was sucked into Windows 3.1.1 with a corporate job, and apart from a brief affair with OS/2 Warp I have stuck with Windows through its various incarnations (apart from Vista, obviously 😱).

TL;DR: Obsidian’s HTML support lets us embed web pages in notes. I have used this to create a note that will display a random Wikipedia page every time the note is opened.

Introduction

Obsidian will happily render HTML, which is useful as it gives us even more options for layout than are provided out of the box.

I have used this, for example, to allow highlighting in colours other than the default that Obsidian comes with, so, with a bit of CSS, I can highlight text in different colours:

TL;DR: Obsidian’s HTML support lets us embed web pages in notes. I have used this to create a note that will display a random Wikipedia page every time the note is opened.

Introduction

Obsidian will happily render HTML, which is useful as it gives us even more options for layout than are provided out of the box.

I have used this, for example, to allow highlighting in colours other than the default that Obsidian comes with, so, with a bit of CSS, I can highlight text in different colours:

Resolutions and goals - big and hairy, SMART or otherwise didn’t work for me. I’m using “25 for 2025” instead.

It’s that time of the year again. The internet is full of annual reviews, resolutions, goal setting and other serious-looking planning by people who seem to have their life way more together than me. I have tried and failed at resolutions, SMART goals, Big Hairy Audacious Goals and most of the other methods I’ve tried. What has stuck, and I am only semi-failing at, is the idea of xx for 20xx (I started with 19 for 2019) - picking a matching number of things to do in the year. These can be big or small, personal or business-related. Some would count as goals but I don’t think of them that way. They are things I want to do, improve or learn. Some are more “Tiny experiments” than goals.

Resolutions and goals - big and hairy, SMART or otherwise didn’t work for me. I’m using “25 for 2025” instead.

It’s that time of the year again. The internet is full of annual reviews, resolutions, goal setting and other serious-looking planning by people who seem to have their life way more together than me. I have tried and failed at resolutions, SMART goals, Big Hairy Audacious Goals and most of the other methods I’ve tried. What has stuck, and I am only semi-failing at, is the idea of xx for 20xx (I started with 19 for 2019) - picking a matching number of things to do in the year. These can be big or small, personal or business-related. Some would count as goals but I don’t think of them that way. They are things I want to do, improve or learn. Some are more “Tiny experiments” than goals.

Can you go for 21 days without complaining, criticising, or gossiping?

TL;DR Yes, but it will take a lot longer than 21 days 😁

The challenge is to go for 21 consecutive days without complaining, criticising, or gossiping. If you catch yourself doing any of these things, you have to start the 21 days again from day 1. You wear a bracelet, or have some other physical thing like a coin in a pocket and do a physical action - swap wrists or pockets each time you complain, ctiticise or gossip.