7 Obsidian Templates to Streamline Your Notes

Let your work flow.

5 min readNov 26, 2022

If you’re using Obsidian and you’re not taking advantage of templates, you’re doing it wrong.

They are one of the most straightforward and easiest features to implement in Obsidian, even if you’re an Obsidian novice.

Templates are file structures that you set up in advance, so you can use for your most frequent note types, such as books or ideas for example, instead of having to start the note from scratch.

Templates do two things: they save you time and they democratize the note-taking process. They give you a scaffolding on which to build. Meaning that for notes which serve the same purpose or are in the same category, you have a predefined format which determines how you capture information.

I use 7 of them. The 7 templates I use are for: daily notes (journaling), weekly review, monthly review, article writing, people, ideas and books.

Depending on your needs, your templates might differ from mine. Perhaps you don’t do monthly reviews, or maybe you keep track of your meetings in Obsidian, in which case you’d benefit from a meeting template. It all depends on the types of notes you add most often to your vault.

Book Template

## Info
| Input     | Output |
| --------- | ------ |
| Author    |        |
| Published |        |
| Theme     |        |
| Keywords  |        |
| Date Read |        |
| Status    |        |

## The Book in 3 Sentences

## Relevant Quotes

## My notes

## Related Books

For my books, I prefer to have a section with general information regarding the book in form of a table: when I’ve read it, what its status is (finished/abandoned /ongoing) etc.

Then, under “Relevant quotes” I’ll add any passages from the book that I’ve found meaningful and that capture the message clearly.

I write my own notes and observations in the same file as the quotes from the book, which I know is a big “No-no” for other people, but it works for me. Sometimes, if I find a particular idea from the book to be important enough to stand on its own, I’ll create a separate note and link to it in the section.

And “related books” is useful for when you read extensively on a subject or from a particular author and would like to see at a glance what other books are connected to the current one.

Article Template

# Type of post
# Rapid fire thoughts
# Tags
# Headlines
# Outline
# Intro
# Main points
# References/ Resources

This is an article template that helps me write a post systematically, from the bare-bones idea, to the finished product.

“Type of post” refers to whether it’s an opinion piece, a guide, a list or some other kind of post.

“Rapid fire thoughts” is a section I use for getting all my raw ideas down, to get a sense of what I may want to research or expand on the piece.

The other subsections are pretty self-explanatory. Under “References” I’ll usually link any notes that are related to my topic or books/articles that can support my piece.

Daily Note

## Story of today

## Highlight of the day

## Top of mind

## Emotional state

##  Evaluation
### Something I did, but shouldn't have done

### Something I should have done, but didn't

### Small wins

### I enjoyed...

As someone who journals daily, it’s important to have a structure to guide my thoughts. I like to keep the “Story of today” section for free-flowing, stream of consciousness writing, while the other headers are more specific. “Highlight of the day” is a nice touch to single out one single moment, whether good or bad, special or ordinary, and put the spotlight on it.

Under “Top of mind” I like to write either what I’m working on at the moment, or any ideas that dominate my day, making me mull over them.

The “Evaluation” section serves as a place of reflection, where I include any things that stands out for the categories listed. “Small wins” are for any moments that made my day better.

Weekly Review

## What did I achieve this week

## What could I have done better

## New things I learned

## Most Memorable Moment

## What I've read

My weekly review template, which I use with the Periodic Notes plugin, is pretty straightforward.

I like to list off any projects I worked on or I completed, areas where I struggled, things I’ve learned, a highlight of the week and any books I’ve read.

Monthly Review

## Highlight of the month

## What did I work on
- [ ] 

## What did I learn
- [ ]

## Goals progress

## Books read

This is similar to the weekly review one. The main difference is that at the end of the month I like to look more closely at the progress I’ve done on the goal that I set for myself.

Idea

{{DATE: DD-MM-YYYY HH:mm}}

## Overview


## Related to


## Ideas that stand in opposition 


## Source

This template serves as the canvas for any idea or concept that I want to explore. Apart from the main idea, I also like to include anything that is related to it and ideas that conflict with it, to have a holistic view of how they’re connected.

Person

{{DATE: DD-MM-YYYY HH:mm}}

## Quick bio
### Date and place of birth
### Field of study
### Their life in 1 sentence
### Skills

## Defining work


## Most notable achievements


## Quotes


## Questions I'd like to ask this person


## Links
Wikipedia page
Personal website

I know some people like to create notes about people in their life, either colleagues or family, containing important information. I, on the other hand, decided to create a template to help me keep track of the fascinating people I read about, such as historical figures, writers, scientists or other notable individuals.

Taking notes on people serves a few purposes: first, it acts as inspiration; second, it’s a way of observing how someone’s interests and skill were integrated in their work; and finally as anecdotes or stories that can be included in my writing.

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