In August 2024, I moved my weekly, monthly, and annual journal from Notion to Obsidian. In this blog post, I want to explore why I decided to make such a change, and how my experiment has gone, and whether I will look to continue with the process as we enter the new year.
My regular planning and review sessions should help me work towards my lifetime objectives and identify any lessons or opportunities as I undertake my journey through life.
How my periodic planning and review system worked up to July 2024
I have kept a daily journal in Obsidian for a couple of years after moving that process across from Notion in 2022. In a blog post detailing why I moved my daily journal from Notion to Obsidian, I explore my reasons for this.
I also keep a bullet journal, which helps keep my task list under control, and I also find it helpful for quickly capturing ideas. You can discover more in a Medium post about how my bullet journal fits in with my digital systems.
In Notion, I would create a new weekly plan at the end of each week, as this is my plan for non-employment-related stuff, including my writing career. My week is from Sunday through to Saturday. Due to this, I usually carry out my reviews on a Saturday.
Before I create a plan for the following week, I review the previous week. As part of that review, I like to look at my daily journal to help remind me of what happened and what issues, successes, or lessons I have learned should be captured in my weekly review.
Why I decided to switch my periodic planning and review from Notion to Obsidian
Switching between applications was frustrating when I carried out my weekly review, creating unnecessary friction in my processes.
In July or August 2024, I got the bright idea that if I moved the weekly journal, I could link it with the daily journal, and the same would be true for my monthly and annual plans.
The combination of unnecessary friction and potential benefits was enough to convince me to switch to Obsidian.
Implementing periodic planning and reviews in Obsidian
I carried out some research, which I will include in the further reading section, and it suggested that I would need to use a few community plugins.
Obsidian has an active community that develops plugins which extend the application’s base functionality. While I could use Obsidian for this task without plugins, it would be less effective and more awkward.
The first plugin I needed to use was Calendar, which I was already using with my daily planner.
The next plugin was Periodic Notes, which eases the management of periodic notes for specific periods: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, and Annually.
I then had to create a template for each period and specify the location where each period note would be stored. I decided to make a specific folder for each period.
My experiences with Using Obsidian so far
My experience using Obsidian so far has been pretty good. It has removed a lot of friction, as I can easily review related notes.
The ability to link related notes is helpful, as it will allow my future self to follow the trail of what was happening at the time when the periodic note was created.
It also seems sensible to keep all my journaling in the same system as my Personal Knowledge Management System. At least in part, our experiences determine how we see the world around us, and altering our behaviours can impact our worldview.
It should also benefit my writing, as it will help me write, at least in part, based on my personal experiences.
Conclusion
After reading this blog post, you should understand why I changed my system for periodic planning and review.
Any changes to your system shouldn’t be taken lightly. They should be made after a period of experimentation to determine whether they will improve your current system.
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Further reading
Why I used Notion as my Daily journal and why I switched to Obsidian
How Obsidian transformed my daily journaling practice
How does keeping a bullet journal fit in with my digital system