In Episode 2 of the Personal Knowledge Management series using TheBrain, we discuss setting up Daily Notes from the Journal Hub.
Remember, a hub note is nothing more than a central thought to help streamline navigation through your database.
The Brain Forum
In TheBrain Forums, “Prashant” asks a reasonable question, “Is there a recommended methodology for making daily notes for Brain 13?” [1] And while the question is aimed at the new version 13, “Korm’s” response is right on the money and similar to the methodology I use.
”Personally, I get around this by setting up a hierarchy of thoughts for each year and then 12 thoughts inside them for the months. Daily I create a new thought.” Korm then explains an Apple Shortcut that allows him to gather information and populate the thought at the beginning of each day. [2]
Even without shortcuts, it is simple to create daily notes using a consistent format. The format I use is YYYY-MM-DD. Like Korm mentions above, this daily thought is a child’s thought of the current month (format Journal, YYYY, MM Name). For example, Journal, 2022, 06 June. Month thoughts link to yearly parent thoughts, i.e., Journal 2022, and finally to the central Journal hub.
Daily Note Structure
The structure created in the notes section of the daily thought should be consistent, here is the format I use.
YYYY-MM-DD
I believe including the thought title is the default setting for the notes editor. You can change this via Options> Preferences> Notes Editor> Options [] Include Title.
---
Table of Contents (Autofill)
---
### Tuesday
#### Appointments and To do’s
Add checkboxes and notes as needed. (Episode 3)
---
#### Pomodoro
[Pomodoro 2022]
1. Date stamp: Working on, i.e., Reading, Writing, Journal, news, etc
2. Date stamp: [Project]
I track the number of Pomodoro’s I complete by year and by Project. (Episode 4)
---
### Threads
(Short for discussion threads, (Episode 5)
---
“Daily Notes as an Index to My Life.”
In Episode 15 of Jamie Todd Rubin’s Practically Paperless with Obsidian. Mr. Rubin spends a lot of time talking about “Daily Notes as an Index to My Life.” [3]
Apparently, inside Obsidian is the option to create a “one-note-per-day” model similar to TheBrain. I’ve struggled with creating a note each day, every day model as well, and Mr. Rubin makes four bullet points that we have all probably felt at one point or another if we’ve attempted the same model.
Cumbersome navigation
Link noise (more problematic with Obsidian)
Lack of standards
Time-consuming
I won’t detail Jamie’s reasoning behind each bullet point; however, if you’ve attempted to create and maintain daily notes for more than a year, they are reasonably self-explaining.
While on vacation, Mr. Rubin read a blog post entitled “My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file” by Jeff Huang [4], and Jamie attempted to create a similar methodology inside Obsidian.
Using TheBrain, we can accomplish a similar result by utilizing the auto “Table of Contents” and including the entirety of our daily notes under the monthly heading without the need to create a daily thought. It would look like this.
## Journal, 2022, 06 June
### 2022-06-01
You could then enter bullet points for each daily entry. Or use four hashtags to create sub heading for further clarification. At the end of the day, add a line to delineate between the two dates and;
---
### 2022-06-02
The start of a new day.
One advantage is hiding days at a time using the reduction arrow on the left-hand side next to the main heading.
---
Mr. Rubin’s and Mr. Huang’s blog articles are worth reading as they create a unique way of looking at the same information. I have yet to switch to a single .txt file for two reasons. First, I am slow to make changes to my Brain in general. What do I do with all the old files or formats? Second, I love my Unforgettable Daily Journal link.
Unforgettable Daily Journal
I have a secondary overlay to my central journal hub. This secondary Journal is MM-DD format only, and all 365 days link directly to the Unforgettable Daily Journal as jump links. Each day I consider “unforgettable,” gets connected as a child to the MM-DD for that day. These should be unique events and including a main picture on the daily note helps to identify them. The link pulls all associated child links for the day into view, and at a glance, you can see how incredible certain days of the year can be. For example, as I write this on June 24, 2022, I have just returned from a beautiful day of hiking in Zion National Park. Once connected, I can see that June 24 historically is a good day with unforgettable events happening in 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2020.
It’s also safe to say that getting rid of the one-note-per-day version didn’t work as well as Jamie Rubin had hoped. By Episode 22, he was writing about Daily Notes Revisited.[5]
Next week in Episode 3, we will review specific sections of the daily note structure, starting with - Today.
References:
[1] [Daily notes for Brain 13?](https://forums.thebrain.com/post/daily-notes-for-brain-13-12376390?pid=1332835919)
[2] [Daily notes for Brain 13? - TheBrain Forums](https://forums.thebrain.com/post/daily-notes-for-brain-13-12376390?pid=1332836275)
[3] [Practically Paperless with Obsidian, Episode 15: Daily Notes as an Index to My Life – Jamie Todd Rubin (jamierubin.net)](https://jamierubin.net/2022/01/25/practically-paperless-with-obsidian-episode-15-daily-notes-as-an-index-to-my-life/)
[4] [My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file](https://jeffhuang.com/productivity_text_file/)
[5] [Practically Paperless with Obsidian, Episode 22: Daily Notes Revisited: The Best of Both Worlds? – Jamie Todd Rubin (jamierubin.net)](https://jamierubin.net/2022/03/15/practically-paperless-with-obsidian-episode-22-daily-notes-revisited-the-best-of-both-worlds/)