This article is coming soon. The preview below outlines what will be covered when complete.
What to expect
Some work repeats. Not every day, but on a cadence – weekly, monthly, seasonally, annually. The Routines collection is where that work lives. Instead of rebuilding the same checklist from scratch each time or relying on memory to know what needs to happen when, each routine is a reusable page with a defined frequency. When it’s time, you create a new instance and work through it.What will be covered
Why routines belong in a database. A checklist buried in a notes app is easy to forget and hard to track. A database of routines is queryable, filterable, and logged. You can see what’s overdue, what was last completed, and how often you actually run each one. Why routines and projects are separate. Both are collections of tasks, but they operate on fundamentally different logic. Routines are ongoing and repeat at regular frequencies – they get handled before projects do. Projects have a defined end point and a specific outcome. When a project closes, those hours open up for the next one. A routine never closes that way. It just comes back around. Keeping them in separate collections reflects that distinction and prevents the two from competing with each other in ways that don’t make sense. Instances vs. templates. The distinction is important. The template defines what the routine contains; the instance is a record of a specific run. When it’s time to do your weekly review, you create a new instance from the template, work through it, and close it when done. The template stays intact for next time. Frequency options. Routines are assigned a frequency using precise numeric labels (e.g.,Every 07 days, Every 12 weeks) rather than vague words like “weekly.” This consistency makes filtering and sorting reliable, and it’s consistent with the precision used in the Projects sizing system.
What routines actually look like. We’ll walk through real examples: the weekly review, the weekly prep, seasonal checklists (spring cleaning, winter prep), and holiday-specific routines (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s). Each one is a real page with real content – not a placeholder concept.
The closed routines log. Every completed routine instance is closed with a date, creating a historical record of what was done and when. This is useful for accountability and for spotting patterns over time.
Integration with the Daily Planner & Log. Routines and daily planning work together. We’ll cover how to connect routine execution to your daily workflow so nothing falls through the cracks.
Notion implementation. Database setup, properties, views, templates.
Obsidian implementation. How to replicate the collection using Bases, including property setup and view configuration.
Last update: 2026.02.25 (PLACEHOLDER)