Title: A few years ago, I read an excellent article on HN [0], which recommended keeping a daily log in a simple text file. I&#x27;ve been following this advice. Recording many short entries over a day is very useful for me. I can easily find items for my performance review, leave notes for myself, etc.<p><i>Questions</i>:<p>1. What is your workflow?<p>2. What tools do you use?<p>3. If you log to a text file, how do you format your entries?<p><i>My framework</i><p>Daily log vs. daily journal<p>For me, entries in a daily journal require deeper thought and reflection on what you have done, your goals, etc. Usually, journaling is done 1-2 times&#x2F;day. Conversely, entries in a daily log concern immediate actions and are done many times a day. However, your daily log could inform entries in your daily journal.<p>Daily log vs. a to-do list<p>For me, entries in a to-do list are only the things you need to do. Also, most to-do lists I&#x27;ve seen don&#x27;t store the timestamp of when a to-do item was created. Conversely, entries in a daily log are more diverse and are all timestamped. They may include to-do items but don&#x27;t have to. My entries are updates, notes, questions, and to-dos.<p>My log is a markdown file, which I edit in Sublime Text. I created Espanso [1] shortcuts to add timestamped entries. E.g., &quot;zzq&quot; expands to &quot;[2022-10-26 10:45:24]: Question []:&quot; and &quot;zzn&quot; expands to &quot;[2022-10-26 10:45:56]: Note:&quot;. For proper task&#x2F;to-do management, I use Amazing Marvin [2], which is decent.<p><pre><code>   [2022-10-23 09:18:44]: Update: prepared slides for meeting with @Laura   #1on1 #projectLion

   [2022-10-23 10:54:36]: Note: I created a new keystore key using these instructions https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xxx.xxx, stored in keys dir #projectGamma

   [2022-10-23 11:16:54]: TODO [x]: deploy a new build, which fixes the bug with incorrectly parsed dates (id:1332); [2022-10-24 10:12:12]: rolled out, v17 (2.0-17) #projectGamma

   [2022-10-23 12:27:56]: TODO []: ask about daily log software on HN @me

   [2022-10-23 13:38:00]: Note: password for W in stored in LP #projectGamma

   [2022-10-23 13:43:25]: Question [x]: should the style guide be in the repo or YouTrack? @Alex #weeklymeet #projectGamma; [2022-10-25 15:17:13]: @alex said in YT because we&#x27;ll use it in other projects

   [2022-10-23 14:11:15]: Question []: should we use Red Frames (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;maxhumber&#x2F;redframes) in addition to Pandas? Criteria for decision? @me #projectLion
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<i>What do you want to improve and why?</i><p><pre><code>   - I need an easier way to find, e.g., all questions from this week for @Alex about #projectGamma. I&#x27;d like to easily filter entries by date, project (#projectGamma), person (@Alex), and type (Update, Question). 

   - Nice to have but not required:
    - sort entries by status (not done: [], done: [x])
    - auto-timestamp when a to-do item was created and completed
    - surround selected text with [], {}, &quot;&quot; and auto-close them like a programming text editor, e.g., ST, VSCode
    - duplicate &amp; move entries via shortcuts
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<i>What have you looked into?</i><p><pre><code>   - People enjoy Obsidian [3] and Logseq [4]. I find them alluring too, but I don&#x27;t yet know how to make them support my daily log. I&#x27;d need to spend at least a full day to figure out each of them, the time I don&#x27;t have at the moment. (I use Obsidian for code snippets; it is excellent.)

   - Org-mode is very popular, but emacs and vim are way too much of a time investment (I tried many times before). Do share your evil and holy workflows, though. There are org-mode extensions for other text editors and EasyOrg [5]. I still need to try them.

   - I like the todo.txt format [6] and I am considering forking pter [7], but making it fit my needs would take quite a bit of work. 
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<i>Dealbreakers:</i><p><pre><code>   - No Windows version

   - No desktop app

   - Subscription-based software, including charging for syncing between computers

   - No export option
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