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Ask HN: The best app to keep a work diary

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Re: Ask HN: The best app to keep a work diary

#16

Post by rkwz »

I use plain text file.

I use the following format:

  ----

  2015 September
  Weekends/Holidays - 13,15,20,23
  Wasted days - 26,27
  Project{Name}/Component{Name}
  01 - what I did
  02 - what I did
  ...
  Project{Name}/Component{Name}
  14 - what I did
  16 - what I did

  2015 October
  ....

  ----
So, I have a breakdown of my worklog by days and grouped by months. Multi-month components/projects have an entry in each month. Holidays and weekends are noted down for me to quickly know why there's a gap in the middle of working on a component. Whole days wasted due to meetings are also noted down.

Re: Ask HN: The best app to keep a work diary

#17

Post by mercer »

rasengan0 wrote: post #7

After many years of trying everything, a few conclusions have greatly helped: only PLAIN TEXT, cross platform and date stamp every line item (add to your dotvimrc or dotemacs or js bookmarklet) mindmappers? - bought and tried them all cloud subscription notetakers - yep pretty much all Best to have data close at hand - Oh nooos, everything is locked in that proprietary app I bought in the 90's or cloud service I thre…

I agree. I've been keeping work/life journals using various systems and inevitably either the tool would become unsupported, my data would get corrupted, or the 'friction' of opening the application would eventually make me stop keeping track of things.

What really worked well for me instead has been to us Notational Velocity (nvALT to be specific). I create a new note for every day (titled YYYY-MM-DD), and especially for work notes I add a timestamp for every new entry for that day (ISO 8601).

The result is one folder full of text files that I can quickly update and search through using nvALT. I can use the same app for storing all kinds of other things, but I can also use any other text editing tool for my notes as well (grep, WriteRoom, Sublime Text with markdown plugins, etc.).

Currently I moved my 'journalling' into a locally running web tool, but because the source data is just text, 'migration' has been trivial. It's quite possible I'll move back to the plain text + nvALT solution though. I usually do. I just can't help tinkering.

Re: Ask HN: The best app to keep a work diary

#18

Post by Scarblac »

rasengan0 wrote: post #7

After many years of trying everything, a few conclusions have greatly helped: only PLAIN TEXT, cross platform and date stamp every line item (add to your dotvimrc or dotemacs or js bookmarklet) mindmappers? - bought and tried them all cloud subscription notetakers - yep pretty much all Best to have data close at hand - Oh nooos, everything is locked in that proprietary app I bought in the 90's or cloud service I thre…

I actually went back to paper, a good quality notebook with squared paper (to turn into checkboxes). People who want to explain stuff to me can scribble things on the next page, I can draw outlines of UIs, and doing something away from the computer screen helps me focus.

Re: Ask HN: The best app to keep a work diary

#19

Post by apricot13 »

My first suggestion would have been DayOne but since your on windows that’s ruled that out! (or moo.do) I think evernote is your best bet - maybe using a digital bullet journal style?

Or just keep a bullet journal open on your desk and photograph the pages into evernote at the end of each day. (That’s what I do)

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