🪴 Jachére

Journaling, Tasks, and Sourdough Rye Crispbread

Nov 05, 20234 min read

Journaling, Tasks, and Sourdough Rye Crispbread

I’m doing text file based journaling since 2016 and since 2020 almost daily. Somewhere along the way, I got the idea, that managing my tasks this way would be a good idea …

Obsidian makes journaling a breeze, but I never really got warm with the different ways of managing tasks and calendars. I have been using the Obsidian Tasks for a good two years, and it’s beautiful. It makes creating and working with something like tasks within the given context effortless. But, for me at least, it never felt quite right. It’s a bit of a hassle to get tasks into the system, and there is no easy way to get them out of Obsidian.

One of the most important factors for me is that my data stays close and within as-good-as-it-gets data and privacy laws. I’m pretty happy if my data stays in Switzerland. To properly use Obsidian for task management, I had to sync it to my mobile. I didn’t want to pay for Obsidian Sync and iCloud plays right into the data problem, even if Apple is doing an ok job. Sync via WebDAV with a plugin was subpar and I had to stick to iCloud.

I’m also a big fan of everything CalDAV based (and CardDAV for that matter), but there was no sane way to have CalDAV working with Obsidian. I love the system’s integration that comes with CalDAV based task and event management and how easy it is to sync and use different tools for the same sources.

Long story short. I had to realise that Obsidian is a great journaling tool, but a mediocre for task management. But, thanks to two other Obsidian plugins, I was able to make my whole setup overly complicated and have the best of both worlds … 🥲

Tasks

Events and tasks go into my CalDAV based calendars that are hosted in the western part of Switzerland. I can use whatever I have at hand to do so. A modern web interface provided by the hoster, Apple Calendar and Reminders, and, I started to use the GoodTask app for a more expanded task management. What I love about GoodTask is, that it’s built on top of CalDAV. I don’t need to have its own database or data structure. The most important thing, which I already used in Obsidian Tasks, are tags. Through the tags I’m able to create dynamic lists, for example for or a course like .

Journaling

The journaling magic now happens through the Periodic Notes and the Templater plugins for Obsidian. I have created a template for my daily notes, that automatically pulls the events and tasks for a day. The goal is not to work through them, but to add them to the journal, have them present during the day, and also add them to my growing journal archive. It just works on macOS for the moment …

How-to

  • Install icalBuddy, which is a command line tool, that enables you to pull from the macOS calendar and output it as text
  • In the Templater plugin you have to activate Trigger Templater on new file creation
  • I also added two User System Command Functions
    • events: /opt/homebrew/opt/ical-buddy/bin/icalBuddy -nc -po "datetime,title,notes,url" -ps "| |\\n\\t|\\n\\t|" -b "-" -ab "-" -npn -stda -nrd -df " " -tf "%H:%M" eventsFrom:$date to:$date
    • tasks: /opt/homebrew/opt/ical-buddy/bin/icalBuddy -nc -po "title,datetime,notes,url" -ps "||\\n\\t|\\n\\t|" -b "- " -ab "- " -npn -stda -nrd -df " ⏳ %Y-%m-%d" -tf "" tasksDueBefore:$date
  • Customize my daily template below to your needs. Important are the two tp.user calls, which Templater recognizes and inserts the events and tasks.
# {{date:dddd}} - [[{{date:YYYY[/]YYYY-MM}}|{{date:MMM}}]] [[{{date:YYYY/gggg-[W]ww}}|{{date:DD}}]], [[{{date:YYYY}}]]

## 📅 Events Today

<% tp.user.events({date:"{{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}"}) %>

---
## ✅ Tasks Today

<% tp.user.tasks({date:"{{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}"}) %>

Or if you stick with the Tasks plugin … Just remove the backslashes.

\```tasks
happens on {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}
short mode
\```

---
## 📅 Daily Questions

- 🌜 Last night, at the end of the day I …
- 🙌 One thing I've excited about right now is …
- 🚀 One+ thing I plan to accomplish today is …
- 👎 One thing I'm struggling with today is …
- ✨ One thing I'm grateful today is …
- 🧑🏻‍⚕️ Today I feel …

---
## 📝 Journal

Sourdough Rye Crispbread

Another Sunday , another bread. I’m a sucker for all things malty, and I made my favorite Knäckebröd, for which I added some info under Rye Cripsbread. It’s not the most beautiful thing to look at (I’m working on that), but it’s really, really tasty.

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