Daily Workflow Skill

Creates daily notes and provides structured workflows for morning planning, midday check-ins, and evening shutdowns.

Usage

Invoke with /daily or ask Claude to create today's note or help with daily routines.

Create Today's Note

/daily

Or simply ask:

• "Create today's daily note"

• "Start my morning routine"

• "Help me with evening shutdown"

Daily Note Creation

What Happens

Checks if today's note exists

• If yes: Opens the existing note

• If no: Creates new note from template

Template Processing

• Replaces {{date}} with today's date

• Replaces {{date:format}} with formatted dates

• Handles date arithmetic (e.g., {{date-1}} for yesterday)

Automatic Organization

• Places note in Daily Notes/ folder

• Names file with today's date (YYYY-MM-DD.md)

• Preserves template structure

Template Variables

Your daily template can use:

• {{date}}

• Today's date in default format

• {{date:dddd}}

• Day name (e.g., Monday)

• {{date:MMMM DD, YYYY}}

• Formatted date

• {{date-1:YYYY-MM-DD}}

• Yesterday's date

• {{date+1:YYYY-MM-DD}}

• Tomorrow's date

• {{time}}

• Current time

Morning Routine (5-10 minutes)

Automated Steps

• Create today's daily note (if not exists)

• Pull incomplete tasks from yesterday

• Read this week's ONE Big Thing from Goals/3. Weekly Review.md

• Surface active project next-actions from Projects/*/CLAUDE.md

• Review weekly goals for today's priority

Cascade Context Surfacing

Before interactive prompts, automatically surface:

• ONE Big Thing from most recent weekly review

• Active project next-actions from Projects/*/CLAUDE.md (read "Next Actions" section)

• Monthly priority from Goals/2. Monthly Goals.md

Display as a brief context block at the top of the morning routine:

Today's Context

• Week's ONE Big Thing: [from weekly review]
• Active Projects: [project names with first next-action each]
• Monthly Focus: [from monthly goals]

Interactive Prompts

• "What's your ONE thing for today?"

• "What might get in the way?"

• "How do you want to feel at end of day?"

Task Creation Guidance

When adding tasks to the daily note, recommend linking to goals/projects:

• Draft API spec — Supports: [[Projects/MyApp]]
• Review chapter 3 — Supports: [[1. Yearly Goals#Read 12 books]]

Morning Checklist

• Daily note created

• Cascade context reviewed (ONE Big Thing, projects, monthly focus)

• Yesterday's incomplete tasks reviewed

• ONE priority identified

• Time blocks set

• Potential obstacles identified

Midday Check-in (2-3 minutes)

Quick Review

• Check morning task completion

• Compare actual vs planned time use

• Assess energy level

• Identify afternoon priorities

Adjustments

• Reschedule incomplete morning tasks

• Add urgent items that emerged

• Reorder by current energy level

• Note any blockers

Midday Questions

• "How's your energy right now?"

• "What's the most important thing for this afternoon?"

• "What can you let go of today?"

Evening Shutdown (5 minutes)

Capture

• Mark completed tasks with [x]

• Add notes and learnings

• Log energy levels (1-10)

• Record gratitude items

Goal & Project Attention Summary

Automatically generate an end-of-day summary showing which goals and projects received attention:

Today's Cascade Impact

• Goals touched: [[Goal 1]] (2 tasks), [[Goal 3]] (1 task)
• Projects advanced: [[ProjectA]] (3 tasks), [[ProjectB]] (1 task)
• Unlinked tasks: 2 (consider linking to a goal or project)

Reflect

• What went well today?

• What could be better?

• What did I learn?

• What am I grateful for?

Prepare

• Identify tomorrow's priority (preview)

• Move incomplete tasks to tomorrow or delete

• Commit changes to git (/push )

Shutdown Checklist

• All tasks updated (done/moved/deleted)

• Reflection completed

• Tomorrow's priority identified

• Changes committed

Daily Note Structure

Standard daily note template:

{{date}}

Focus

What's the ONE thing that would make today successful?

Time Blocks

• Morning (9-12):
• Afternoon (12-5):
• Evening (5+):

Tasks

Must Do Today

• [ ]

Work

• [ ]

Personal

• [ ]

Notes

[Capture thoughts, meeting notes, ideas]

Reflection

• Wins:
• Challenges:
• Learned:
• Grateful for:
• Energy: /10
• Tomorrow's priority:

Time Block Strategies

Energy-Based

• High energy tasks in morning

• Administrative work after lunch

• Creative work when naturally alert

Context-Based

• Batch similar tasks together

• Minimize context switching

• Protect deep work blocks

Configuration

Customize paths to match your vault:

• Daily notes folder: Daily Notes/

• Template location: Templates/Daily Template.md

• Date format: YYYY-MM-DD

Different Date Formats

• YYYY-MM-DD

• Standard ISO format (recommended)

• MM-DD-YYYY

• US format

• DD-MM-YYYY

• European format

• YYYY-MM-DD-ddd

• Include day abbreviation

Folder Organization by Month

Organize daily notes by month/year:

Daily Notes/2024/01/2024-01-15.md

Task-Based Progress Tracking

The daily skill uses session tasks to show progress during multi-step routines.

Morning Routine Tasks

Create tasks at skill start:

TaskCreate: subject: "Create daily note" description: "Create or open today's daily note from template" activeForm: "Creating daily note..."

TaskCreate: subject: "Pull incomplete tasks" description: "Carry forward uncompleted tasks from yesterday" activeForm: "Pulling incomplete tasks from yesterday..."

TaskCreate: subject: "Surface relevant goals" description: "Review weekly/monthly goals for today's priority" activeForm: "Surfacing relevant goals..."

TaskCreate: subject: "Set time blocks" description: "Establish time blocks based on energy and priorities" activeForm: "Setting time blocks..."

Dependencies

Morning routine tasks run sequentially:

TaskUpdate: "Pull incomplete tasks", addBlockedBy: [create-daily-note-id] TaskUpdate: "Surface relevant goals", addBlockedBy: [pull-incomplete-tasks-id] TaskUpdate: "Set time blocks", addBlockedBy: [surface-relevant-goals-id]

Evening Shutdown Tasks

TaskCreate: subject: "Update task statuses" description: "Mark completed tasks, note blockers" activeForm: "Updating task statuses..."

TaskCreate: subject: "Generate reflection prompts" description: "Prompt for wins, challenges, learnings, gratitude" activeForm: "Generating reflection prompts..."

TaskCreate: subject: "Prepare tomorrow's preview" description: "Identify tomorrow's priority and move incomplete tasks" activeForm: "Preparing tomorrow's preview..."

Mark each task in_progress when starting, completed when done using TaskUpdate.

Task tools provide visibility into what's happening during longer operations. Tasks are session-scoped and don't persist between Claude sessions—your actual work items remain in your daily note markdown checkboxes.

Integration

Works with:

• /push

• Commit end-of-day changes

• /weekly

• Weekly planning uses daily notes

• /monthly

• Monthly goals inform daily focus

• /project

• Surface project next-actions in morning

• /onboard

• Load context before planning

• Goal tracking skill - Align daily tasks to goals

• Productivity Coach - Accountability for daily routines