Obsidian Journal Template: A Daily Journal You Can Copy

An Obsidian journal template is a daily note made for reflection instead of tasks: a mood score, three good things, what happened and one question to think about. Save it in your Templates folder and set it as the Daily notes template, and Open today's daily note starts each entry for you.

Below are a full daily journal template, a five-minute version for busy days and a weekly reflection. All three use only core plugins, so they work in a fresh vault with nothing to install.

Checked on November 3, 2026 against Obsidian 1.15.

Download the templates as .md files: Daily journal, Five-minute journal and Weekly reflection.

The daily journal template

---
tags:
  - journal
date: "{{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}"
mood:
energy:
sleep:
---

# {{date:dddd, MMMM D, YYYY}}

## Three good things
1.
2.
3.

## What happened
-

## What's on my mind
-

## One thing I learned
-

## Today's question
What would make tomorrow a little better?

-

Fill mood and energy with a number from 1 to 5 and sleep with hours. Numbers let you sort and chart your entries later; words such as "fine" can't be averaged.

Change Today's question whenever it stops being useful. Others that work: "What am I avoiding?", "What did I say yes to that I should have refused?", "Who do I want to thank?"

If you want a note that plans the day, with priorities, an inbox and open loops, use our daily note template instead. Many people keep both: a daily note for work and a journal for themselves.

The five-minute version

For days when the full entry is too much.

---
tags:
  - journal
date: "{{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}"
mood:
---

# {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}

**Grateful for:**

**Best part of today:**

**On my mind:**

Weekly reflection

Write it on Sunday, with the week's entries open beside it.

---
tags:
  - journal
  - weekly
week: "{{date:GGGG-[W]WW}}"
---

# Week {{date:GGGG-[W]WW}}

## Best moments
-

## Hard moments
-

## Patterns I noticed
-

## What I want more of next week
-

## What I want less of
-

{{date:GGGG-[W]WW}} becomes the ISO week, such as 2026-W45.

Set it up as your daily note

Templates and Daily notes are core plugins, so both ship with Obsidian.

1. Create a folder called Templates and a note in it called Journal, then paste the daily template in. Or download it above.
2. Open Settings → Core plugins and turn on Templates and Daily notes.
3. Under Settings → Templates → Template folder location, choose Templates.
4. Under Settings → Daily notes, set Template file location to Templates/Journal and New file location to a Journal folder.
5. Select Open today's daily note in the left ribbon, or run Daily notes: Open today's daily note from the command palette.

Each day gets a new note named by date, such as 2026-11-03, made from your template. To use the five-minute version on a given day, open a blank note and run Templates: Insert template.

Keep date variables in properties inside quotes, as the templates do. Obsidian's help warns that the properties editor can overwrite unquoted template variables.

See your mood over time

Paste this at the end of your weekly reflection, or into a note of its own, to get a table of every entry with its mood, energy and sleep. It needs the core Bases plugin, Obsidian 1.9 or later.

```base
filters:
  and:
    - file.hasTag("journal")
    - '!file.hasTag("weekly")'
    - '!file.inFolder("Templates")'
views:
  - type: table
    name: Entries
    order:
      - file.name
      - mood
      - energy
      - sleep
    sort:
      - property: file.name
        direction: DESC
    summaries:
      mood: Average
```

The Average row shows your mean mood for every entry in the table. Our Obsidian Bases guide covers filters and views in more detail.

Reflect on a week of entries with AI

Reading seven entries back and spotting the pattern is the part most people skip. An AI can draft the weekly reflection from the entries you choose, and you edit it.

SystemSculpt is a free Obsidian plugin that puts an AI chat in a side pane of your vault. On desktop it can run your own signed-in Claude Code or Codex, with no SystemSculpt account.

1. Install SystemSculpt AI from Obsidian's community plugins and run Open SystemSculpt Chat.
2. Type @ and attach your weekly reflection template, then the week's journal entries.
3. Ask for a draft. For example:

Draft Journal/2026-W45.md from @Weekly reflection, using only
what my entries from @2026-11-02 to @2026-11-08 say. Quote me
where you can. Under Patterns, compare mood and sleep. Don't
give advice.

The draft is a plain Markdown note in your vault that you can rewrite in your own words. Pick Ask mode in the run line (Ask before edits with Claude Code) to approve the file before it is written.

A journal is private, so know where it goes. The entries the AI reads go to its provider: with Claude Code or Codex, the provider behind your own account; with SystemSculpt's hosted AI, our server, a model-routing service and the model provider. Claude Code and Codex read the files a task needs, not only the ones you attach. If an entry should never leave your computer, keep it out of the vault you use with AI.

Questions

Does Obsidian have a journal template? No. Obsidian has core Templates and Daily notes plugins but ships no templates. Copy one from this page, then set it as your Daily notes template.

How do I make Obsidian create a journal entry every day? Turn on the Daily notes core plugin, set its template to your journal template, and open today's daily note each day. Obsidian can also open it when the app starts: turn on Open daily note on startup in Settings → Daily notes.

Should my journal and my daily notes be separate? Only if you use them for different things. If your daily note is for tasks, keep a separate journal folder and insert the journal template there. If not, the journal can be your daily note.

Can I journal in Obsidian on my phone? Yes. Daily notes, Templates and Bases all work in Obsidian's mobile apps, and your entries sync with whichever sync you use.

Is Obsidian good for journaling? Yes, for people who want plain files they own. Every entry is a Markdown file in your vault, and links, tags and Bases let you find patterns across years of entries.

Do I need a plugin to track mood? No. A mood property and a core Bases table are enough. Community plugins can add charts and heatmaps if you want them.

Install SystemSculpt free from the Obsidian plugin directory, or compare its plans for hosted AI on your phone. Eligible new accounts can claim 500 one-time starter credits with no card; paid plans are $9 a month or $90 a year.

Sources

Checked November 3, 2026.

• Obsidian: Templates, Daily notes, Properties, Introduction to Bases
• Moment.js format tokens