Regular reviews in Obsidian with Periodic Notes

Regular reviews are the backbone of a system that stays useful as life changes—and Obsidian’s Periodic Notes plugin turns that habit into something mostly automatic. Instead of manually creating new review pages, Periodic Notes lets users set notes to recur on a schedule (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly) and automatically applies a chosen template each time. The practical payoff is continuity: daily task intentions can roll upward into weekly, monthly, and yearly check-ins, helping priorities remain visible even when routines shift.

Installation is straightforward for anyone already using Obsidian community plugins. After turning off safe mode, users browse for “Periodic Notes,” install it, and enable it. A key migration detail matters for existing workflows: if Daily Notes is already in use, it migrates into Periodic Notes, and Daily Notes can then be disabled because Periodic Notes includes Daily Notes plus additional review frequencies.

Once enabled, Periodic Notes offers per-frequency controls. Users can choose which recurrences to activate and then configure three main elements for each: the format (usually left as-is), the template to use, and the destination folder where generated notes should live. Templates are where the system becomes personal. A daily template can include end-of-day reflection prompts (proud of, grateful for, and what’s on the mind), an end-of-day checklist, and embedded weekly tasks so every day surfaces the week’s commitments. The workflow can also incorporate lightweight automation—such as pulling in tasks tagged “inbox” and using a dice-roller-style selection to randomly surface unprocessed notes.

Weekly templates typically focus on closing loops and preventing backlog drift. They can include an end-of-week checklist, a review of last week, and a forward-looking section for what to accomplish next. Monthly templates shift from task granularity to initiatives, often embedding “Monthly Initiatives” that reflect the current month’s objectives. Quarterly and yearly templates move further toward principles and measurable outcomes. The yearly layer uses OKRs—objectives with key results—so each objective includes a quantifiable way to judge success rather than relying on vague intent.

To keep the vault tidy, Periodic Notes can generate these recurring notes into a dedicated “Reviews” folder with subfolders per frequency. After templates and folders are selected in settings, users create notes through the command palette by searching for “Periodic Notes.” Each enabled section opens with the correct template already applied, including date-specific content (for example, a weekly note labeled as a specific week of the year). Daily notes can also be opened on demand and automatically switch to today’s date.

Beyond the public release, beta features add faster navigation and more flexible organization. A timeline view lets users jump across days within a week. More importantly, “calendar sets” allow multiple independent recurring schedules for different life compartments. For instance, one set can handle personal daily/weekly/monthly reviews, while a separate work set keeps only quarterly notes aligned to work OKRs. The result is a review system that can match real-world structure—personal rhythms and work cycles—without forcing everything into one calendar stream.