My Task and Project Management Workflow in Obsidian MD (Plugins, Templates, Guide, and Tips)

A modular task-and-project system in Obsidian is built around one core idea: every project and task lives as its own note, while Dataview queries and task-creation plugins keep those notes automatically organized into “hub” lists for planning and execution. The payoff is an all-in-one planning workflow that works on both PC and mobile, with tasks filtered by due date, completion status, tags, and project time frames—so daily planning stays fast even as the backlog grows.

The setup starts with a small set of hub notes that act like dashboards. A main projects note tracks active projects by time frame and also lists completed ones. Each project note contains a task list plus planning prompts, so breaking a project into sub-tasks feels like extending a traditional to-do list rather than starting over. In parallel, a to-do hub note aggregates all tasks, with separate notes used to isolate project-related items and “someday/maybe” tasks. Daily planning is handled in a daily note that pulls in tasks sorted by size, giving a quick view of what matters most and what fits the day.

To make the system work, the workflow relies on community plugins—especially tq, Templater, and Dataview. tq provides a UI for creating tasks that then become separate notes via search queries, enabling tag- and value-based organization. Templater is used more lightly, but it becomes important for the project template: the template can be inserted automatically when a project note is created. Dataview powers the indexing and filtering that populate the hub notes and daily views. Optional add-ons include Quick Add for macros, Admonition for styled blocks, and Checklist for a more visual task UI.

The notes and templates are organized so they can be copied from a GitHub repository. The “to-dos hub” includes a legend for color coding, a tag strategy for Dataview indexing, and Dataview queries that group and sort tasks by due date as well as list completed tasks. Project notes add required fields—most importantly a completed status used by Dataview queries—along with time-frame grouping (though importance, deadlines, or other categories can be used instead).

Templates are where customization happens. The task note itself is treated as fixed, but the project template is built from scratch and can be modified. The only mandatory value is completed, while additional fields like deadline or hibernating can be added. The workflow also borrows a meta-template approach inspired by Brian Jenks: project notes can be prefixed with a tilde so the project template auto-inserts when the meta template runs.

Execution ties everything together through consistent tagging. Tasks are created with tq and labeled by importance/urgency using the Eisenhower decision matrix, plus size tags (small/medium/large) so the daily note can sort them. Dailies and habits can be handled either inside Obsidian or via Habitica; the transcript notes that dailies and habits are incorporated into Habitica, while one-time tasks are handled as Obsidian notes. A practical example walks through creating a weekly project note, filling in fields like deadline and completed, tagging it for Dataview filtering, then creating sub-tasks (e.g., downloading templates and notes, planning projects) with due dates and tags so they appear immediately in the to-dos list. When tasks are checked off, they move into completed sections; when a project is marked completed, it drops out of the active list and reappears under completed projects.