Capacities
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Daily notes

A daily note is one page per calendar day. Integrations append to it automatically; you type into it directly. Use it for general capture—including fleeting thoughts and half-formed lines you might later delete. Capture on impulse with minimal friction; building that habit is a core skill. Later, in review, you decide what still matters and turn lines into people, tasks, projects, tags, or longer notes—or clear what does not.

For calendar layout, templates, and date links, see Dates and daily notes.

What to capture

A note-taking app is a place to write things down—but how do you know what to write? Use two broad signals:

  1. Do I want to remember this?
  2. Am I interested in this?

When you are starting out, err on the side of capturing more. You will review it anyway, and over time you will see what you actually turn into work or writing.

Send it to today’s daily note

To avoid asking “where does this go?” while you capture, send everything to your daily note in Capacities. There is always a path in:

Volume will vary day to day. There is no standard you have to match—some days are empty, others are busy. If something passed the “remember or interested” filter, it belongs in the inbox for that day.

Review: a second filter

After capture comes review. Information piles up quickly; review is how you check you are still working on and thinking about the right things.

You already filtered once when you captured (“important or interesting?”). In review, ask:

  • Is this useful to me now?
  • Is it interesting now, or could it be later?

Only you can judge the answers—there is no universal rule.

Triage each line

  • Delete what you do not need. Clearing noise is valid and keeps the daily note honest—there is no prize for keeping everything.
  • Turn commitments into tasks (see below). Anything that is an action item—“email Marcus before Friday”, “order parts”, “call the bank”—should become a task object, not unchecked prose in the note.
  • Create or link objects when the line is really about something: a person or project you will work with again, a meeting when the capture is the call itself, a book or definition when you want a full page to grow, and so on.
  • Tag or leave when it is reference you might want later but not work to do. Tags group by theme (productivity, habits, curiosity) and show up in a wall view; harmless context can stay on the day without a tag.

Cadence

The cornerstone habit is capture regularly and review regularly. A weekly review is a strong default; do it more often if your work demands it. Missing a week is not catastrophic—it just means some useful material may sit longer before you act on it.

Turn the daily note into structure

The daily note is the inbox; structured objects are where execution and retrieval live.

Action items → tasks

Task management is optional in Capacities, but once you use it, treat action items as tasks. A bullet in today’s note is a reminder; a task is the commitment, with its own status, date, and place in your task dashboard (Inbox, Today, Scheduled, and so on).

Create a task from the daily note the same way you would anywhere else:

  • Type () then a space, or use /task in the slash menu
  • Use Cmd + Shift + T (Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + T (Windows) for the quick-add modal—there you can type @ to attach Context (people, projects, any object) while the task is created
  • On mobile, long-press the task icon or use the + menu

Link context in the task’s Context property so the task also appears on the relevant person, project, or meeting page (and in that object’s Tasks tab). If you create a task while already inside an object, Capacities can pre-fill context for you—see Contextualize a task.

Schedule by setting the task’s date so it leaves the inbox and shows on the calendar for that day—alongside your daily note and events. Today’s calendar also surfaces overdue work and other helpful groupings so you execute from the day view, not by rereading old bullets. Add a deadline when something must be finished by a given day even if you plan the work earlier; deadlines change how tasks rank in dashboard views (deadlines).

Set priority from the task or quick modal with !, !!, or !!! (priority). You can also put date and priority in the task title and let Capacities fill the fields—for example Prepare report !! Friday (naming shortcuts).

For recurring work, recurring tasks, subtasks inside a task, and custom dashboard sections, use the full task management guide.

New objects from a line

Select text, click +, and pick the type—or append #{type name} to convert inline. The new object gets that type’s properties and template.

People

For recurring relationships, link or create Person objects (@Name so blocks appear in backlinks).

Projects and longer notes

Link lines to Project objects, or use block references on the project page when you want the exact wording visible there.

When a daily note is not enough

Daily notes are one page per day. For structured metrics over time—mood, sleep, habit scores—a custom Journal object type with date properties may fit better. Start with the daily inbox until the pattern is clear.

Where to go next

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Use cases

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