Keep a daily journal

Start each day with one page: three priorities, a few notes, unfinished tasks carried over, a weekly review, and a lock to keep it private.

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Alex opens the same page every morning: today's note. She writes her three priorities, jots down what happens during the day, and closes it in the evening. The next morning, what she did not finish is already waiting for her. On Sundays, she looks back at the week.

This tutorial sets up the same habit. The setup takes ten minutes. After that, the journal takes about five minutes a day.

Before you start

  • Time: about 10 minutes, then a few minutes a day.
  • Filarr set up. A local profile is enough. To write in the same journal on your computer and in your browser, you need a cloud account: see Create an account and turn on sync.

Step 1: Open today's page

Press Ctrl+Shift+D, or click the calendar button (Daily Note) at the top of the list of notes.

Filarr creates the note of the day. Its title is the full date, for example "Thursday, September 24, 2026", and its icon is a calendar. Later in the day, the same shortcut opens the same note again. See Daily and periodic notes.

Step 2: Give the day a shape

A daily note starts empty: Filarr does not apply a template to it. Three headings are enough, and the editor formats them as you type:

  1. Type ##, a space, and "Top three". The line becomes a heading.
  2. On the next line, type [ ] and a space: a task appears. Write your first priority, press Enter, and write the next two.
  3. Add a "Notes" heading the same way, for what happens during the day.
  4. If you like, end with a "One good thing" heading, and one line each evening.

Keep the same headings every day: the journal reads better, and the outline in the right panel shows them. See Format text in the editor.

Step 3: Put a reminder on what matters

A task with a date is not enough to be warned. For the one priority that has a time, add a reminder.

  1. Hover the task. Click + Due date at the end of the line.
  2. Choose Today, then a time.
  3. Under Reminders, open Add a reminder and pick a moment, for example 15 minutes before.
  4. Press Esc to close the window.

The reminder goes off while Filarr is open, in the desktop app and in the web app. If Filarr was closed at that moment, it shows when you open it again, up to 24 hours later. See Tasks.

Step 4: Write as the day goes

  • Link what you mention. Type [[ and the first letters of a note, a project or a person, then press Enter. After a few weeks, the backlinks of that note list every day you wrote about it. See Link your notes.
  • Insert a date. Type @ and choose Tomorrow or a day of the week, for example to note when to call someone back.
  • Tick each task when it is done.

Step 5: Start the next day

The next morning, press Ctrl+Shift+D again. Filarr creates the new note and copies into it the tasks you left unticked in your last daily note, under a Carried Over heading.

Tick them here when they are done, or leave them: they keep following you from day to day. The previous note stays as it was. Only the note of the current day takes the unfinished tasks: a note created for another day starts empty.

Step 6: Look back

  • The calendar at the top of the right panel shows a dot on each day that has a note. Click a day to open it. The arrows change month, and Go to today brings you back.
  • To find a day by what happened, type a word in Search notes... at the top of the list.
  • The Calendar view of the notes shows your journal month by month: see Views: list, mosaic, kanban and more.

Step 7: Review the week

Once a week, step back:

  1. Under the calendar, click the Weekly tab.
  2. Under Current, check the name of the week, for example "Week 39, 2026".
  3. Click + Create. Filarr creates the note of the week and opens it.

Write what went well, what got stuck, and the priorities for next week. To read the days again first, click them in the calendar. Keep the title Filarr gives the note: that is how it recognizes it as the note of the week. Once the note exists, the button reads Open.

Step 8: Keep it private

A journal is personal. Two settings keep it that way, on a computer that others can reach:

  • A PIN: click your avatar at the top right, then Profile. In PIN Lock, click Set up a PIN. Filarr then asks for it each time the profile opens.
  • Auto-lock: in Settings → Security, set Auto-lock to After 5 min. Filarr locks itself when you leave it alone.

The PIN keeps people out of Filarr's screen, but it encrypts nothing. If someone else can use your computer session, also turn on the enhanced lock described in Lock Filarr.

If you created your profile with New local profile, it has no encryption password yet, so your journal is not encrypted. Set one first: Settings → Security → Set a password. See Profiles and several accounts.

That's the whole habit: Ctrl+Shift+D in the morning, a few lines during the day, a look back on Sundays.

What next?