The Capture Planner · Issue 109
May 30 → Jun 28, 2026
Four weeks to a daily-note habit that survives a bad week.
Build the habit before the system. One template, one hotkey, one mobile pathway, one Sunday pass — added in this order, never together.
RULE ZERO
"The easier it is to create notes, the less likely you are to lose an important idea." [1] Every plugin and template choice below is judged against that one sentence.
The adoption chronogram
don't move to the next week until the current habit has survived a bad day →
WK / DAY
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
01
Daily Notes
Open today's note every day. Even just one bullet.
Tue 02
TEMPLATE
Paste the 5-line template (see right →). Nothing else.
Wed 03
open, type 1 bullet, close.
Thu 04
again.
Fri 05
again.
Sat 06
skip ok — system is reflection aid, not obligation[16]
Sun 07
no review yet. just notice if you opened it.
02
Desktop hotkey
One keystroke captures from any app, any window.
Wed 10
BIND
Ctrl+Shift+N → that capture choice.Thu 11
capture from VS Code, from Slack, from the browser.
Fri 12
notice what you didn't drop.
Sat 13
skip ok
Sun 14
still no formal review
03
Mobile pathway
≤ 2 taps from lock screen to today's note.
04
Sunday review
10 minutes. Promote 3–5 captures to evergreen.
Mon 22
captures pile up. that's the point.
Tue 23
don't process mid-week.
Wed 24
capture is dumb, fast, frequent.[17]
Thu 25
curation is deliberate, scheduled, weekly.
Fri 26
last captures of the week.
Sat 27
tomorrow.
↑ if you forget two days in a row, restart the current week. That's the signal the friction is still too high.
Daily/2026-06-03.md
The five-line template
three buckets. no mood. no weather. no quotes.
# {{date:dddd, MMMM Do YYYY}}
## Captures
-
## Done
-
## Tomorrow
-
## Captures
-
## Done
-
## Tomorrow
-
RULE: remove any section you skip seven days in a row. The template evolves with actual usage, not aspirational usage.[4]
The three-layer habit stack
in this order. skip the order at your own risk.
2
Capture
One keystroke appends a line to today's note. QuickAdd capture choice + global hotkey.
~10 min
[1]
[1]
The under-rated middle gear · Interstitial journaling
A
## Notes heading in the daily note plus one hotkey that inserts the current time.[14] The practice that ties low-friction capture to Linking Your Thinking — fleeting entries surfacing later as evergreen material.[20]
- 14:32 finished compiler refactor; lifetime issue was upstream in the parser
Pick one capture pathway per device
⚠ a second mobile pathway doubles maintenance, halves your habitDesktop · ranked by friction
QuickAdd capture choice only
when Obsidian is already focused · 10 min
when Obsidian is already focused · 10 min
✗ MUST FOCUS
[7]
[7]
App-launcher integration
Alfred / Raycast / ULauncher · 30 min
Alfred / Raycast / ULauncher · 30 min
✓ SPOTLIGHT
[1]
[1]
The plugin pack — when to add each
add when you feel the lack, not pre-emptively
QuickAdd
WEEK 2. The capture choice + global hotkey is the whole desktop loop.
Templater
WEEK 2. Required for date math, nav-links between days, time-insert hotkeys.
Interstitial Journal
OPTIONAL. Tiny. Templater's
tp.date.now("HH:mm") avoids the dependency.
Periodic Notes
WEEK 5+. Three templates to maintain. Don't install until weekly/monthly notes are a felt need.
Antipatterns — what kills the habit before it sticks
Day-one plugin sprawl
Templater + Periodic Notes + Calendar before the first habit forms. Three learning curves at once. [3]
14-section YouTube template
You inherit someone else's daily rhythm. Strip to three sections, add back what you actually use. [4]
Two mobile pathways
Doubles maintenance, splits habit, captures end up in two inboxes. Pick one. [10]
Editing on mobile
Cold-start friction → drops → eroded trust in the system. Capture only; read/edit on desktop. [10]
Naming + foldering at capture
The whole point of capture is dumb-fast. Classification is the curation step's job. [17]
Skipping the Sunday pass
Daily notes become a graveyard; nothing converts to evergreen; system feels useless in a month. [19]
The Sunday review ritual
Houmann (QuickAdd's author) runs exactly this; his version aggregates project mentions across the week into a single review.[16] Stripped to four steps for week-4 first-timers:
- Open each daily note for the past week. 15 minutes total — set a timer.
- For each
## Capturesline: promote to its own evergreen note, move to a project file, or delete. - Skim
## Donefor anything worth a retrospective tag. - Carry unfinished
## Tomorrowitems into next week's first daily note.
Pick this if you capture < 10 items/day. End-of-day inbox sweep[17] if you capture more.
Other chapters in the expedition ← back to parent
Survey · Chapter 1
Linking & note structure
Backlinks, MOCs vs folders. One wikilink per note, then three MOCs.
Survey · Chapter 2
Properties & tagging
YAML metadata so Bases and Dataview can query them.
Expedition · Chapter 3
Bases: live views
Convert reference folders into editable filterable views.
Survey · Chapter 4 · you are here
Low-friction capture & daily-note habits
Five-line template, one hotkey, one mobile pathway, one weekly pass.
Survey · Chapter 5
Plugins & keyboard nav
The starter plugin pack + hotkey patterns for keyboard-first intermediates.
Sources · 20 citations
The Capture Planner · a calendar view of Low-friction capture & daily-note habits in Obsidian · chapter of Beginner → intermediate Obsidian roadmap · Atlas