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Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?

#33

Org Mode stored on Dropbox. At any given moment I have two "running" files - one being a general tasklist, and one being this month's notes. On the general tasklist I maintain my own, much more detailed, copy of what's in the issue tracker we use. I rotate that file every few months, copying over unfinished tasks. I also use it to record any bug and weird thing I spot with the application, if I don't have time to inv…

I do something similar, org in Dropbox, with todo list in one file and "engineering journal" in another.

But I just create the journal entries as needed (often for meeting notes) with function that creates opens the journal buffer and narrows it to a single new timestamped entry.

I see there's now a package https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/OrgJournal for this kind of thing.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?

#36
post #4

I use a notebook with a pen and something roughly corresponding to the bullet journal format. Portable, power outage safe, hard to steal remotely and easy-ish to slot into the legal process if required.

I'll second this. I keep a fountain pen with my notebook because fountain pens make me want to write more.

This is the way to do it. With a nice notebook and a nice pen, writing becomes a pleasure. I has the added benefit of your notes naturally becoming neater.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?

#37
I use this system which I've mentioned before (AGPL):

http://onemodel.org

...because it tracks all my to-dos, and I mark them off when done ("archived") in a few keystrokes. Then there is a simple feature for displaying the ~"journal" for a date range which defaults to starting yesterday at midnight: everything created or archived in that time is shown, so I've basically stopped keeping track in any other way, of what I have done, as I can always look it up.

I used to use org-mode, "inspiration" (an old windows program for collapsible outlines and mind maps), and various text editors, but this is the most efficient and flexible I have found.

It has no mouse or mobile support yet, but it is the best thing I've found for any kind of notetaking (I'm the author). It needs simpler installation and added features but is stable and works really well, really efficient once you get familiar, and everything is on the screen. I hope to add anki-like features in the future. Contributions welcome.

ps: this program is like a textual mind map that is highly efficient to use from the keyboard, uses postgresql, and can handle large amounts of data, having the same thing linked in more than one place, etc etc, so you can organize all possible stuff in aribitrary ways to suit yourself: I tend to use a few hierarchies and some frequent categories go in multiple places, for convenience. I use it to keep lists of gift ideas, todos, calendar, all notes, plans, personal journal, and it just gets the job done with the lowest impedance of anything i have tried or heard of. It has an auto "journal-generation" feature, some finicky import/export features to html or to/from text, searching, somewhat limited file storage, and more.

edit: pps: lots of info at the web site, FAQs etc. The latest code is in github in the "wip" branch, where I am working (very slowly) on an infrastructure for sharing/linking info between instances.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?

#39
post #4

I use a notebook with a pen and something roughly corresponding to the bullet journal format. Portable, power outage safe, hard to steal remotely and easy-ish to slot into the legal process if required.

I'll second this. I keep a fountain pen with my notebook because fountain pens make me want to write more.

I also love the Pigma Micron 03 pens.
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