Focus Plugin for Obsidian

A visibility firewall for your tasks. Focus helps you concentrate on what matters NOW by hiding everything else.

The Problem

Traditional task managers show you everything at once—hundreds of tasks competing for your attention. This creates decision fatigue and anxiety. You spend more time managing tasks than doing them.

Focus is not a task manager. It's a visibility firewall.

The Philosophy

Focus is built on three principles:

1. Radical Constraint: You can only see a handful of tasks at any time. If it's not in your immediate view, it doesn't exist (for now).

2. Temporal Boundaries: Tasks exist in three states:

   • Immediate: What you're working on right now (max 3-5 tasks)
   • This Week: Your commitment for the current week
   • Backlog: Everything else (hidden from daily view)

3. Weekly Planning Ritual: Once a week, you surface your backlog, review what matters, and commit to your week. Then you close the lid and focus.

Features

Focus View (Sidebar) Your daily command center. Shows only: Daily habits: Recurring habits that reset each morning Immediate tasks: The 3-5 things you're actively working on This Week tasks: Your weekly commitments Everything else is hidden. Out of sight, out of mind.

Daily Habits

Track up to 3 recurring habits that reset each morning. Add them to your task file under ## Daily Habits. When completed, they disappear until the next day.

Planning View (Modal) A weekly ritual for intentional task management: Review your progress Surface tasks from your backlog Schedule tasks for the upcoming week Clear completed tasks

Quick Add Add tasks on the fly without breaking your flow. New tasks go to your weekly list by default—they won't clutter your immediate focus unless you explicitly promote them.

Drag & Drop

Easily move tasks between Immediate and This Week sections. Promote when you're ready to focus; demote when priorities shift.

Context Menu Actions

Right-click any task to:

• Mark complete/incomplete
• Move to Immediate or This Week
• Deprioritize (send back to backlog)
• Delete

Vault Sync (Optional) Pull tasks from your existing notes into Focus: Sync all tasks from your vault, or Only sync tasks with a specific tag (e.g., #focus) Two-way sync: completing a task in Focus marks it complete in the source file

Keyboard Navigation

Navigate and manage tasks without touching your mouse:

• j/k or ↑/↓: Move between tasks
• Enter or Space: Toggle completion
• i: Move to Immediate
• w: Move to This Week
• u: Deprioritize to backlog

Backlog & Completed Tasks Access your full backlog through the Planning View. Completed tasks are archived by month for easy reference.

Task Limits Focus enforces a hard limit on immediate tasks. If you try to add more than allowed, you'll need to make room first.

Wiki-Link Support

Tasks can contain [[wiki-links]] to your notes. Click to navigate directly to the linked note.

Installation

Manual Installation

1. Download the latest release from GitHub Releases
2. Extract to your vault's .obsidian/plugins/focus-plugin/ folder
3. Reload Obsidian
4. Enable "Focus" in Community Plugins settings

Note: Community plugin listing coming soon!

Usage

Daily Workflow

1. Morning: Open Focus view (sidebar). Your Immediate tasks are your focus for today.

2. Working: Check off tasks as you complete them. If something urgent comes up, add it with Quick Add.

3. Shifting Priorities: Drag tasks between Immediate and This Week as needed. Deprioritize anything that can wait.

4. End of Day: Optional review prompt to reflect on your progress.

Weekly Workflow

1. Planning Day: Focus prompts you to open Planning View (configurable day, default Sunday).

2. Review: See your progress—completed tasks, incomplete tasks, overall stats.

3. Surface: Browse your backlog. What actually matters this week?

4. Commit: Schedule tasks for the week. Be realistic—less is more.

5. Close: Exit Planning View. Your backlog disappears. Focus on what you committed to.

Settings

Setting	Description	Default
Task file path	Where Focus stores your tasks	focus-tasks.md
Maximum immediate tasks	Hard limit on Immediate section	5
Weekly planning reminder	Prompt to plan on a specific day	Enabled (Sunday)
End of day review	Daily reflection prompt	Disabled
Vault sync mode	Pull tasks from other notes	Off
Sync tag	Tag to filter synced tasks	#focus
Rollover behavior	What happens to incomplete tasks	Immediate → This Week → Backlog
Periodic notes	Daily/weekly note integration	Configurable

Settings Screenshots

Keyboard Shortcuts

Configure these in Obsidian's Hotkeys settings:

Command	Suggested Hotkey
Open Focus View	Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + F
Open Planning View	Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + P
Quick Add Task	Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + A

Data Storage

Focus stores your tasks in a markdown file within your vault (default: focus-tasks.md). This means:

• Your data stays in your vault
• It's plain text and version-controllable
• It syncs with your existing Obsidian sync solution
• You can edit it manually if needed

FAQ

Q: How is this different from Obsidian Tasks or other task plugins?

A: Most task plugins help you manage more tasks. Focus helps you see fewer tasks. It's not about organization—it's about attention.

Q: Can I have more than 5 immediate tasks?

A: Yes, the limit is configurable (1-7). But we recommend keeping it low. If everything is a priority, nothing is.

Q: What happens to completed tasks?

A: Completed tasks stay visible (faded) until your next planning session, then they're cleared. This lets you see your progress without manual cleanup.

Q: Can I use this with my existing task system?

A: Yes! Enable Vault Sync to pull tasks from your existing notes. Focus becomes a "lens" over your existing tasks rather than a replacement.

Q: Is my data safe?

A: Your tasks are stored in a plain markdown file in your vault. Focus never sends data anywhere. Back up your vault as you normally would.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read our contributing guidelines before submitting PRs.

Development Setup

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/nelakay/obsidian-focus-plugin.git

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build
npm run build

# For development with watch mode
npm run dev

Project Structure

src/
├── main.ts           # Plugin entry point
├── types.ts          # TypeScript interfaces
├── FocusView.ts      # Sidebar view component
├── PlanningModal.ts  # Weekly planning modal
├── AddTaskModal.ts   # Quick add task modal
├── EndOfDayModal.ts  # Daily review modal
├── SettingsTab.ts    # Plugin settings
└── taskParser.ts     # Markdown file parser

Support

• Report a bug
• Request a feature

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

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Focus: Less noise. More signal. Get things done.