ballred/daily

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

1. Checks if today's note exists

   • If yes: Opens the existing note
   • If no: Creates new note from template

2. Template Processing

   • Replaces {{date}} with today's date
   • Replaces {{date:format}} with formatted dates
   • Handles date arithmetic (e.g., {{date-1}} for yesterday)

3. 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

1. Create today's daily note (if not exists)
2. Pull incomplete tasks from yesterday
3. Read this week's ONE Big Thing from Goals/3. Weekly Review.md
4. Surface active project next-actions from Projects/*/CLAUDE.md
5. 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

1. Check morning task completion
2. Compare actual vs planned time use
3. Assess energy level
4. 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

1. Mark completed tasks with [x]
2. Add notes and learnings
3. Log energy levels (1-10)
4. 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

1. Identify tomorrow's priority (preview)
2. Move incomplete tasks to tomorrow or delete
3. 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