A habit tracker in Obsidian.

What you’ll build

A habit tracker only needs two things: somewhere quick to tick, and somewhere to see the week. In Obsidian that’s:

• Five habit checkboxes in your daily note (swap in your own).
• A Habits base with one row per day for the last 7 days, how many habits you did that day, and a count under each habit.
• A 30-day view for the bigger picture.
• One line on your Home page that shows the week.

It’s how the habits in our Life OS vault work. There are no streaks: a missed day is just a missed day, and the next one counts the same. You need Obsidian 1.9 or later with the Bases and Daily notes core plugins on. Everything below was tested in Obsidian 1.14 with no community plugins.

Step 1: Habit checkboxes in your daily note

In Settings → Daily notes, set the new file location to Daily and the template to Templates/Daily note. Then make that template:

---
type: day
day: "{{date}}"
energy:
walk: false
outside: false
read: false
water: false
bed_on_time: false
---
## Top 3
- [ ]
- [ ]
- [ ]

## Notes

• day stores the date. {{date}} is filled in when the daily note is made, so the date is right even if you rename the note.
• energy is a number from 1 to 5, if you want to see how your energy and your habits move together. Leave it empty when you don’t.
• The habits are checkboxes. Keep each one small enough to do on a bad day: “walk 10 minutes”, not “exercise”.

Open today’s note from the calendar icon in the left ribbon, or with the command Daily notes: Open today’s daily note, and tick as you go.

Step 2: The Habits base

Make a file called Habits.base next to your notes and paste this in:

filters:
  and:
    - type == "day"
    - '!file.inFolder("Templates")'
formulas:
  done: if(walk, 1, 0) + if(outside, 1, 0) + if(read, 1, 0) + if(water, 1, 0) + if(bed_on_time, 1, 0)
properties:
  file.name:
    displayName: Day
  formula.done:
    displayName: Done (of 5)
  note.bed_on_time:
    displayName: In bed on time
views:
  - type: table
    name: Last 7 days
    filters:
      and:
        - if(day, (today() - date(day)).days.round(0) <= 6, false)
    order:
      - file.name
      - formula.done
      - energy
      - walk
      - outside
      - read
      - water
      - bed_on_time
    sort:
      - property: day
        direction: DESC
    summaries:
      energy: Average
      walk: Checked
      outside: Checked
      read: Checked
      water: Checked
      bed_on_time: Checked

• The done formula adds 1 for each ticked habit, so each day shows something like 3.
• The filter keeps the last 7 days. .round(0) stops a daylight-saving change from turning 6 days into 6.04 and dropping a day.
• Checked under a checkbox column counts the ticks, so you see “walk: 5” for the week. Average does the same for energy.

Step 3: A 30-day view

Add a second view under views: in the same file:

  - type: table
    name: Last 30 days
    filters:
      and:
        - if(day, (today() - date(day)).days.round(0) <= 29, false)
    order:
      - file.name
      - formula.done
      - energy
    sort:
      - property: day
        direction: DESC
    summaries:
      formula.done: Average
      energy: Average

The average of done over 30 days is a kinder number than a streak: 3.2 out of 5 is a good month, even with a week off in the middle.

Step 4: See the week on your Home page

Embed the 7-day view in any note, such as your Home page:

## This week
![[Habits.base#Last 7 days]]

If you pin Home in a tab, the week is the first thing you see.

Changing your habits

• To add a habit, add a checkbox to the template, then add it to order and summaries in the base.
• To stop tracking one, take it out of the template and the base. Old daily notes keep their ticks.
• To rename one everywhere, use the All properties view in the sidebar: right-click the property, then Rename.
• Three to five habits is plenty. If a habit never gets ticked, make it smaller before you drop it.

Mistakes that cost us time

• Daily notes without a day. Notes made before the template won’t show up. Add day by hand, in the 2026-10-12 format.
• The template showing up as a day. The !file.inFolder("Templates") filter fixes it.
• Catching up on old days. Leave them. Tick today and move on.
• Ten habits on day one. Start with three, and add one when those feel easy.