Hello, I hope it’s not too late for me to give you any advice on this. I have my files named YYYY-MM-DD so I don’t have to sort them manually at all (I still do for years but that’s a preference thing). I only have one tag: #readable for the entries that are longer then just bullet points. Might also start a #keymoment tag for important days.

Things I did to imitate the diary app I had before that as best as I could (fyi I’m on android):

Beyond the Plugins

• I made a second instance of the obsidian app part of my phone’s secure folder, so that anytime I wanna open it or access the files via a file manager, I have to input a code. You can also just install a 3rd party app lock or a password plugin in obsidian for this (in that case I woud recommend choosing the “files stay in the app, not locally stored” vault option).
• In the editor’s toolbar, I added the Previous and Next Daily Note commands at the start so I can quickly navigate from note to note.
• The swipe down command is Navigate Forward, but it can be anything that got lost because of Zen Mode like Search In Current File (Zen Mode is a plugin I explain later).

Essential Plugins

• Calendar (on the right navigation tab; a day is marked when a note is there; on click it creates a note when there is none)
• zen mode by paperbenni (this is a global toggle to hide much of the UI in the editor. this makes it feel much more focused. mostly, you don’t need to untoggle it again, but the button is always readily available.)
• obsidian core plugin: daily notes (runs this whole thing)
  • settings: open today’s note on startup (you can also not do that and use the calendar for this, then you don’t strictly need the Janitor)
• *Janitor (removes empty notes on startup, pair with Lazy Plugin Loader plugin to give you a bit of time to fill in today’s daily note before it can get deleted. I don’t like this setup tbh, but File Cleaner Redux sadly didn’t work for me. Do you have a suggestion here?)

Optional Plugins

(if you go overboard with this, Obsidian can get even slower to load, which could hinder you from actually writing if you had a quick epiphany or something. I recommend using Lazy Plugin Loader to delay the loading of certain plugins on startup.)

• style settings (makes this space beautiful - do what you want with this, you just need a compatible theme)
• remotely safe of course (saves the files to my cloud) - any sync works, if you wish to sync that is
• on this day (shows daily notes on a random and/or same day one year/month/week ago etc. -> on the right navigation tab)
• daily notes viewer (creates a note that’s a scroll-down view of full entries - 30 here, changeable) ALTERNATIVE:
• Note Gallery(Alternative for Daily Notes Viewer, has no Settings, instead all via syntax)
  • create a new note with following query (you can adjust this to your needs):

~~~~note-gallery
sort: desc
sortBy: name (requires YYY-MM-DD to be chronological, you can probably put *date* here, idk)
limit: 30
breakpoints: 1
path: /file path to all diary entries here
fontSize: 10pt
~~~~

Hope this helps :]

Use ISO date format (YYYY-MM-DD) and they will be properly ordered.

I set up forevernotes in Obsidian and configured the daily note format to open the day’s note in forevernotes folder. I don’t journal, but I now use it as a work diary.

You might like !journaling@sh.itjust.works

When I’m in a certain mode I do. I just use daily notes and the calendar plugin, then I link the days together in a long chain just because I like the look of a streak.

Of course I have been absolutely shite about keeping up with it these days though.

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