![Official Website for Dustin Miller PolyInnovator [LLC]](https://polyinnovator.space/content/images/2025/03/polyinnovator-logo-2024.png){kind=logo}
The PIOS framework works on a time scale from Macro to Micro, or used to be "Supra to Nano", but really what matters is the Yearly to Daily Scale.
This is a post I've wanted to make for quite a long time, and it wasn't even on my content calendar. However I just finally had a eureka moment of sorts, as I finally grasped some basic Obsidian features, or rather a use case for them.
That being embedding other notes, and using my Journals and Templater plugins more effectively. I find that the calendar in Journals works a lot better than the Daily Notes Liam Cain basic Cal, or the Periodic Notes plugin. Not only is the UI just a bit more effective, but you can click on each layer. Part of what made me excited to write this post was that I was working on my Yearly Note (finally, after procrastinating), and I wanted to embed the Quarterly Notes within it. However I needed to quickly MAKE them, as I that is one layer I've been still wrapping my head around how I want to use it.
Thus I clicked each Quarter for 2025 Q1 all the way to 2026 Q4, to quickly generate each one. I should note that this was AFTER I made sure the Templater plugin had the right template pre-selected.
How this post is going to work is that I am going to go over how I use each notes for each time layer for the PIOS. Then I'm going to go a bit more broad, as each person reading this might be a bit different. I'm thinking more along the lines of fundamentally how do you make these layers function or work together. Within the actual notes themselves may be a bit more subjective or personalized.
Why is it important to do these notes?
Look I'm not going to sit here and tell you the importance of journaling. There are plenty of other creators who do that. It is important, but the reasoning is different for everyone. For me it is a mix of a lot of things.
I also try to mix my journaling with productivity, as it gives me more motivation to do it personally.
You are not where you want to be in life because you are not documenting, pure and simple. The reason that is so prudent is because you need to know what you have done previously. Let alone plan ahead for the future for projects and goals.
While I take a philosophical approach to the Quarterly notes, they are essentially your 12 week year, and you can get so much done in a quarter.
The saying always goes people over estimate what they can do in a year, but under estimate what they can do in a decade.
However for me I think it is more like people over estimate what they can do in a month, but they under estimate what they can do in a quarter. You can't predict extrinsic things, i.e. war or Covid, or even just getting regular sick, but you can fall to the level of your systems. Your Quarterly planning helps you cement your habits into systems more effectively.
Each quarter you reflection on your Four Pillars, the mind, body, spirit, and emotions. Then you see if you are following steps towards alignment with your Ikigai, your reason for being. If you don't have any progress on your Pillars, i.e. exercise for the Body Pillar, or if you don't know what your Ikigai is; Then systems and frameworks like the PIOS won't help you, UNTIL YOU FIND OUT WHAT IT IS. That should be your first goal, Ikigai, and then pick a Pillar to start developing.
To learn more:
Dustin Miller | PolyInnovator
How to do Yearly Notes
I had a hard time setting up the template, even for myself, as I couldn't figure out the right balance for reflection and planning.
At first I had the planning at the end of the year template, but then it didn't make sense to go into 2025 for the plans of 2026. Instead I flipped it. The planning going in the front of the template, then have the reflection at the end.
You take the time at the end of the year to go back and reflect (which is 75% of the note sort of). Then you start the next year's note (in this case 2026), and do that 25% of the beginning to plan the next year ahead. Now I try to do the yearly note on Dec 31st or so, as the Monthly note for me is always on the 1st, and the quarterly note I have on the 2nd or 3rd. However the New Year can be a bit busy, so I'm doing my notes actually on the 4th right now, while writing this post when it is front of mind.
The interesting thing is that while there are things to do in the actual yearly note for planning big picture, there was this nagging feeling for me that I needed to include the Quarters in there as well. Especially when it comes to reflection later on, and being able to see all of them. Thus I embed each quarter within the yearly note.
Planning Ahead
As I said before the planning part is more of something you do at the start of the note, after you have finished the previous years note. Thus you end up messing with both notes I.e. 2025 and 2026 at the same time.
The reason why this is also helpful too, is that you get to reflect on what you did and DIDN'T do the year prior. Helping you carry over any leftover ToDo's, and also add any new ones you may have not realized before.
I really wanted to get into the weeds of what you are trying to go for, hence all of the questions in this portion. It is supposed to get you thinking, and that first section is where I write the almost "journal" portion, where it is more free flow of thought.
Next is the theme, and I think it is important to think of the year having a theme of focus. It doesn't have to be productive, but just something you can imagine the year being about.
Goals and projects are pretty self-explanatory. I think this section, and at the end of the note as well. There should be an embed for a projects database view or something. Maybe you can embed the holistic projects database into the template, then each year you make a new note, then you just segment it by filtering to that particular year.
Reflecting Behind
I think the Ikigai thing is something that everyone should employ. It helps you orient yourself towards what you want to get out of your life. Maybe if you're not a fan of the idea, then you could instead do a weeks or days of life dot chart like the stoics use. There are a couple plugins for that, and who's to say that you can't do both! The Ikigai check is simply there to remind you to do the things that align with your reason for living.
Getting out of your comfort zone is an important thing, and really this should be a daily thing, or at LEAST weekly/monthly layers. However for now I thought about 3 big times you do it in the year. Might be worth adding to every layer.
Once again a project and goals section, can be filled with whatever planning mechanism you're using, and maybe this should be projects. Whereas the section earlier in the note should be purely goals. I just like having them in both sections for the before and after type of thinking.
Finally we have the "What Happened this Year?", which I guess since I started writing this post I moved to the middle part of the note, just above the Quarterly notes, and I'm not sure which is best. So I'm thinking out loud here.
However this is like the journal portion of the note, where you just literally write out as MUCH detail as you can about the year. It might even be helpful to do it THROUGHOUT the year, if you can remind yourself.
How to do Quarterly Notes
This is both up in the clouds, and hands in the dirt. You gotta have a bit of finesse and creativity with the visuals here. I'm giving you a blank canvas, and I need you to paint it for me.
I see the quarterly note either as the productive "12 Week Year", or alternatively as a tri-monthly alignment check. To see if you really are keeping up with your habits, particularly for your Four Pillars, as well as towards your overarching Ikigai of life.
Doing them individually
I have it set to the 2nd of the month, for every 3rd month. That way I have a reminder on my calendar to go in and do them, but I can also see you checking them whenever you do your monthly notes as well.
Personally I don't because I treat my monthly notes like content.
You go in, plan your months ahead, and what projects you need to get done. Then you check out the big picture stuff like habits and self learning (modular degree), etc.
Doing them Yearly
Going back to the big picture, you should embed the quarterly notes into your yearly notes. That way you can quickly access them, but also have the linking in your note-graph.
You can collapse them too, as the Q1-Q4 HEADINGS are toggleable.
You could theoretically plan out each quarter during the yearly layer, but I think that might be too much to handle in one day. You are already doing a LOT in the yearly, but I think having them linked like this helps you when it comes to checking your status, and going back to the yearly note periodically.
Note: I think I need to figure out a way to automatically tag the yearly note i.e. [[2026]] whenever you make the quarterly note. Could be a query, or you could just remember to do so and copy it between the notes I guess!
What is Ikigai and the Four Pillars?
How to do Monthly Notes
There's two ways of going about this, and really only one of them is for you. However I think you might want to copy what I do. Firstly check out this monthly note I did a while back, it is one of the only ones I've ever done...
Short sweet, an update of what was going on in my life, and I think that is a healthy way of approaching a monthly note. Helps with reflection, yearly note writing, and looking back years from now for the aforementioned reflection.
However what I ACTUALLY DO is my monthly 🍃 NOW Page update. Which is a blog and video vlog series I make each month on the 1st. Talking about what is going on professionally and personally in my life. It is a public series journal, and it helps me stay accountable for the note taking. Perhaps also my family would want to know what's going on in my life now, or descendants in the future.
My one issue I seem to be facing is an information architecture one, which may be a simple fix but Idk. Essentially the monthly notes only work in the plugins with a numerical form "2026-01", but I work on the monthly notes in an alphabetical form, as to me they are blog posts/videos. I.e. "NOW Page 66 Jan 2026", so where does that leave me (or you)? I guess I could just merge the ideas, treat the filename numerically, and just have the blog post name within the note itself. That works, just seems crude to me if not functional at least.
For reference this is my template:
I realized monthly was a good cadence for tracking how my Obsidian vault looked, as I do tend to change things often. Sometimes I don't for a full quarter, and then other times I change things weekly. Thus having a screenshot is nice, and maybe I could do a simple animation every year of all the months that would be cool.
The intro part is more of a blog post thing, but it is sort of what happened before. Then you have the NOW portion, and then what's coming up. A simple flow, but really does make you think when you're writing it.
Finally, I added a "consumption" section, as I thought it would be cool to include things I am watching, reading, listening, all to etc. However I really need to do better at taking advantage of that section, or adding more to it.
How to do Weekly Notes
I'll be honest this is where I struggle, especially right now as I am in this Macro mode thinking. Maybe down the line I can think about what to do more, and honestly I'm probably missing a plugin for this type of thing.
Something I talk about in the next section is literally just embedding the daily notes into the weekly note. I think that is probably the most useful. Both for planning the week ahead, and for checking back on what happened that week.
I'm not 100% as of the time of this writing how to go about doing that, as there seems to maybe be a few ways. However I'm not sure how to implement it into the actual embeds automatically for when you make a new note. I don't really want to be doing it manually every week. Doing it in the yearly note is one thing, but weekly is a whole other story.
While the calendar for bases plugin is amazing, and I have been using it to be my calendar lately. As I can plan out my year of content ahead, it doesn't really help me in the sense of seeing what is on my actual doing calendar or google cal. That's where the Day Planner plugin comes in, it only has a daily and weekly view. It is also only 1-way, which means it can only read your cal not write to it.
I've tested every calendar plugin, and while Full Calendar got an update, it doesn't play well with other plugins or look as good. Big cal/magic cal/ and some of the others simply don't work at all.
Weekly notes are certainly a weak part of my system, and I'll work on that.
How to do Daily Notes
Now this is probably the most divisive layer amongst them all, as so many people will have their own opinion on how to do it. Personally I care about two things: journaling what happened that day (even though I'm terrible about doing it), and knowing what tasks I need to get done that day. Although I have other places I'll see that blog post task for example.
Now in this screenshot you can see it on the right too, that is a plugin that allows you to view your daily note in the sidebar, and it will automatically update to the latest one. I didn't find it as useful as I hoped though, and there is also a daily note pinner plugin that lets you as it says automatically pin the daily note to your tab bar. Both can be useful to many people, but for me the journals calendar on the top right is good enough.
I've seen some cool stuff like having a feed of notes for a week, either in the weekly note, which is probably more my style IMO. Alternatively you can do like a feed in the Bases plugin, or something else visually like that which is cool.
In the end I think you need to experiment, and see what works for you. I wanted this section to be more of showing what can be done.
I finally got the daily notes to showcase what I need to work on that day automatically, sort of like how Capacities brings it up. Basically I got Claude to give me a query code snippet to pull whatever item has a "Do Date" on that day. I planned out all of my content in the Obsidian Bases plugin database for content planning. Using the Calendar View I can interact with it, but when I go into the Daily Note I want to be able to see it, and see what I was working on that day in the future too.
Here is the code snippet, however you have to have a property in your notes that says "Do Date" and it has to be a date property type. Its helpful to make them in a database from the "Bases" plugin.
```dataview LIST FROM "" WHERE string(file.frontmatter["Do Date"]) = string(this.file.day) ```I hope this helps you! I'm sure you can configure it to do other things as well, but don't ask me I used Claude hahaha.
Bonus Idea: Decade Notes
This is something I've not seen anyone else talk about, and maybe they're just hidden away (but let me know cause I want to soundboard with them).
Think about it we have notes for every other layer of time, why not decades? In fact I plan on writing an autobiography one day, and I'll be damned if my memory is strong enough then to remember all that happened in my life. I barely can remember what happened last year considering so much happened. Sure we can have AI now summarize all of our daily notes, and that would be helpful. However I don't want AI having access to my vault... just yet.
Maybe we'll have memory machines decades from now, but also what if you die tomorrow? Your descendants will also want to know what the decades were like for you. Maybe even historians!
Currently I don't have much in these notes, barely even an outline:
However it is an idea worth sharing and passing along.
Each Person Needs a Unique Combination
Look I'm not going to lie to you and say that my way is the only way of doing things. I do think that I've made it the most optimized it could be, besides maybe weekly notes, but maybe you come from a more logical point of view. Meaning my more philosophical Quarterly note may be not ideal for you.
Perhaps August Bradley's Pipes Pillars Vaults ethos will be more your style, or Ali Abdaal's version of the Life OS, etc. You can combine any way you like, and I just want to give you the foundation to be honest. Let you fill out the specifics, if you don't like my way of doing it at least!
How would you do things differently, or do you have any questions?
The PIOS is ever evolving, just like ourselves, and I want to hear from you. If you have any questions then please reach out to me on social @ PolyInnovator everywhere.
Currently the best way to gain access to my notes and templates is through my Ko-Fi, and I'll be updating the template here soon with the new note templates!
