Use Claude Cowork + Obsidian To Triple Your Output

The Rundown In this guide, you will learn a dead simple system to plan and manage your workdays. You will learn how to set up the Obsidian notes app so that Claude will create daily plans for you automatically. Who This Is Useful For Anyone drowning in notes apps  who writes things down but never checks them again. Founders and freelancers  who need a system but hate rigid project management tools. Anyone who tried to-do apps  and fell off because maintaining them felt like more work than doing the work. What You Will Build A daily planning system that runs on two things:  Obsidian  (free, open source) for storing and viewing your notes, and  Claude Cowork  for reading your vault and writing daily plans automatically. Every morning you'll open Obsidian and today's plan is already there. What You Need to Get Started Obsidian  (free download) Claude  desktop app (Pro plan or higher) Google Calendar connected to Claude Step 1 Go to  obsidian.md  and download the free, open source app. It works well with Claude because it stores everything as plain markdown files in a folder on your computer, not in the cloud. Open Obsidian and click  Create new vault . Pick a name and a location. This creates a real folder on your computer that you'll point Claude Cowork at later. Inside your vault, create three folders: daily-notes/ projects/ templates/ That's your whole structure. If you go look in Finder or File Explorer, you'll see Obsidian actually created these folders on your computer. Pro tip:  This vault is for tracking your work, not doing your work. If you've got a big project that needs its own space (like a course, a product launch, or a client engagement), create a separate vault for it. That way Claude Cowork doesn't get overwhelmed reading files it doesn't need. Step 2 Download the two starter files from this guide and drop them into your vault: my-workflow.md  goes in the root of your vault. This is the file that turns Claude from a generic AI into your assistant. It tells Claude your schedule, how you work best, what your current priorities are, and what tools you use. Edit it to match your actual life. daily-note-template.md  goes in the  templates/  folder. This tells Claude how to format each day's note: Then add at least one project file in  projects/ . One markdown file per active project. Keep it simple: what's the goal, what's done, what's left. Step 3 Open the Claude desktop app and start a Cowork session. The first thing it asks is which folder to work with. Point it at your Obsidian vault folder. Now give it the morning planning prompt: Read my vault. Look at my-workflow.md to understand my schedule and priorities. Look at my project files to see what's due soon. Then create today's daily note in daily-notes/ with a plan for the day. Put the most important thing first. Flag anything that's overdue or urgent. From here, you just work through your day in Obsidian. Check off tasks, add notes in the Notes section, jot down anything that comes up. It's just a markdown file. Step 4 Running that prompt every morning works fine. But it's better when it runs automatically. In Claude Cowork, click “Scheduled” in the sidebar and create a new scheduled task. Create a morning plan task with this prompt: Read my vault. Look at my-workflow.md to understand my schedule and priorities. Look at yesterday's daily note to see what I got done and what carried over. Look at my project files to see what's due soon. Then create today's daily note in daily-notes/ with a plan for the day. Put the most important thing first. Flag anything that's overdue or urgent. Use my Google Calendar connection to check meetings. Create a “Close Day” scheduled task with this prompt:  Read today's daily note. Look at what got checked off and what did not. Add an “End of Day” section summarizing what got done, what's carrying over to tomorrow, and any new tasks that came up in my notes today. Update the project files if any tasks were completed. Going Further Before your end of day task runs, ask Claude to interview you about your day and update your notes. That way you don’t miss anything that you forgot to jot down during the day.

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