Daily Notes Workflow

A comprehensive guide to managing daily notes with zk directly from your editor. This document covers the daily, weekly, and monthly review workflows with NeoVim-specific commands and keybindings.

What Are Daily Notes?

A daily note is a dated entry that serves as your primary capture point for a given day. Rather than deciding “what type of note is this?” every time you have a thought, you write in today’s daily note first. Later, you review and extract tethered insights.

Key characteristics:

One per day - Each date has exactly one daily note
Idempotent - Running :ZkDaily twice returns the same file
Temporal anchor - Creates a timeline of your thinking
Low friction - No categorization decisions needed during capture
Type: daily-note - A distinct zettel type for daily captures

Why Daily Notes Matter

1. Reduces Cognitive Overhead

When an idea strikes, you don’t want to spend mental energy deciding:

Is this untethered or tethered?
What project does this belong to?
What should I title this?

Daily notes eliminate these decisions. Just write. Sort it out later.

2. Creates a Personal Changelog

Daily notes become a searchable history of your work and thoughts:

“What was I working on last Tuesday?”
“When did I first encounter this bug?”
“What did I learn during that project?“

3. Enables Spaced Repetition

The daily review practice naturally resurfaces ideas:

Morning: Review yesterday’s note
Extract anything valuable into tethered notes
Unprocessed ideas get a second chance

4. Supports GTD-Style Workflows

Daily notes function as an “inbox” in Getting Things Done methodology:

Capture everything during the day
Process and organize during review
Tether valuable insights to permanent storage

5. Integrates with Todos

Daily notes can be linked to todos, creating a natural connection between your daily capture and actionable tasks.

The Daily Note Structure

zk creates daily notes with this template:

---
id: "202602130000"
title: "2026-02-13 Friday"
type: "daily-note"
category: "untethered"
tags:
  - "daily"
created: "2026-02-13T00:00:00Z"
---

# 2026-02-13 Friday

## Morning

-

## Tasks

- [ ]

## Notes



## End of Day



## Links Created

-

Section Purposes

Section	Purpose
Morning	Intentions, priorities, energy level, gratitude
Tasks	Today’s action items (can sync with task manager)
Notes	Free-form capture throughout the day
End of Day	Reflection, wins, blockers, tomorrow’s focus
Links Created	Track zettels created today for review

NeoVim Commands

Create or Open Daily Note

" Today's daily note
:ZkDaily

" Yesterday's note (for morning review)
:ZkDaily yesterday

" Specific date
:ZkDaily 2026-02-10

Browse Daily Notes

" Browse recent daily notes with picker
:ZkDailyList

" Browse this week's notes only
:ZkDailyList!

Lua API

-- Open today's daily note
require("zk").daily()

-- Open yesterday's note
require("zk").daily({ date = "yesterday" })

-- Open specific date
require("zk").daily({ date = "2026-02-10" })

-- Browse daily notes with picker
require("zk").daily_picker()

-- List daily notes this week
require("zk").daily_picker({ week = true })

-- List daily notes this month
require("zk").daily_picker({ month = true })

-- Get daily notes synchronously (for scripting)
local notes = require("zk").list_daily_sync({ week = true })

Daily Workflow in NeoVim

Morning Routine (5-10 minutes)

Open today’s note:
```
:ZkDaily
```
Review yesterday (in a split):
```
:ZkDaily yesterday
```
Or use the picker to see this week:
```
:ZkDailyList!
```
Extract insights from yesterday:
- Identify anything worth keeping as a tethered note
- Create new notes with :ZkNote or :ZkTemplate
- Link back to the daily note if relevant
Set today’s intentions:
- Fill in the Morning section
- List 3-5 tasks

Throughout the Day

Capture everything in your daily note. Press your keymap to jump there instantly:

vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>zd", "<cmd>ZkDaily<cr>", { desc = "Today's daily" })

End of Day (5 minutes)

Review the Notes section
Fill in the End of Day reflection
List any notes you created in Links Created
Mark completed tasks

Linking Todos to Daily Notes

One of the most powerful features is linking todos to daily notes. This creates a connection between your actionable items and the day you captured them.

Create a Todo from the Daily Note

:ZkTodo Fix the authentication bug

Create Todo with Full Options

:ZkTodo Fix auth bug --priority high --due 2026-02-15

From the Daily Note

When reviewing your daily note, you can:

Identify actionable items in the Notes section
Create todos: :ZkTodo
The todo can link back to the daily where the idea originated

Weekly Review Workflow

Weekly reviews help you step back and see patterns.

List This Week’s Notes

:ZkDailyList!

Or via CLI:

zk daily --list --week

Weekly Review in NeoVim

Open the daily picker for this week:
```
:ZkDailyList!
```
Scan each day’s notes:
- Press <CR> to open a note
- Use <C-n> and <C-p> to navigate the picker
Create synthesis notes:
```
:ZkTemplate meeting
```
Use the meeting template for weekly summaries.

Weekly Review Checklist

Scan all daily notes from the week
Identify patterns:
- What topics kept coming up?
- What questions remain unanswered?
- What projects progressed? Stalled?
Create synthesis notes:
- Weekly summary note
- Tethered notes for recurring themes
Review todos via :ZkTodoList

Monthly Review Workflow

Monthly reviews are for strategic thinking.

List This Month’s Notes

require("zk").daily_picker({ month = true })