Writing Stats Panel
Writing Stats Panel
Section titled “Writing Stats Panel”The Writing Stats Panel is a persistent sidebar that shows real-time word counts, goal progress, deadline pacing, and your writing streak — all in one glance.
Opening the Panel
Section titled “Opening the Panel”- Ribbon icon — Click the Lighthouse icon in the left sidebar
- Command Palette —
Lighthouse: Open writing stats
What It Shows
Section titled “What It Shows”File & Folder Stats
Section titled “File & Folder Stats”When you have an active markdown file open:
- Current File — Word count of the active document, with an optional per-file goal progress bar
- Current Folder — Total words in the folder containing the active file
Project Stats
Section titled “Project Stats”- Project Total — Complete word count for all content folders
- Goal progress bar — Visual percentage bar (turns red if you exceed an at-most limit)
Session & Daily Tracking
Section titled “Session & Daily Tracking”- Today — Words written since midnight (persists across Obsidian restarts)
- Session — Words written since you opened Obsidian
Deadline Pacing
Section titled “Deadline Pacing”Shown when your project has both a word count goal and a deadline:
- Words/day needed — Required daily output to hit your goal by the deadline; recalculates automatically as you write ahead or fall behind
- Days left — Calendar days remaining until the deadline, inclusive of today
- 7-day average — Rolling average of your actual output over the past 7 writing days, colour-coded green (on pace) or orange (behind pace)
Read & Speak Time
Section titled “Read & Speak Time”Shown when the project has words:
- Estimated reading time at 250 wpm
- Estimated speaking time at 130 wpm
Writing Streak
Section titled “Writing Streak”Shown once you have writing history:
- N-day streak — Consecutive days with any writing recorded
- Personal best — Longest streak you’ve ever had (shown as a sublabel when it exceeds the current run)
- Mark rest day / Unmark rest day — Appears when today has no writing yet. Marking a rest day keeps your streak alive without requiring words.
Features
Section titled “Features”Real-Time Updates
Section titled “Real-Time Updates”The panel updates automatically as you type, with a 200 ms debounce to avoid flickering during fast typing.
Persistent Daily Count
Section titled “Persistent Daily Count”Today’s word count persists across Obsidian sessions and resets automatically at midnight, using local time (not UTC).
Adaptive Pacing
Section titled “Adaptive Pacing”The required daily target is not static. If you write 500 extra words today, tomorrow’s target decreases proportionally. Miss a day and the remaining deficit is spread evenly across the days left before your deadline — no impossible catch-up numbers.
Smart Session Tracking
Section titled “Smart Session Tracking”If you delete a large block of text, the session baseline slides down so subsequent typing is still counted forward. The counter never goes below zero.