| One single text file per year named journal<year>.md in Markdown edited in an always-open window of a text editor (VSCode) throughout the day. Oldest entry is at the top, newest is at the bottom. To-do items are below the newest entry so that I they are always visible. For me the most convenient thing is that I can use the editor's search feature to find things. There's no specific format (no tags, for example). There is just a new heading for each work day: "## Sep 13, 2021 Mon". I also don't go crazy with Markdown syntax. I very rarely render the Markdown. It's mostly bullet lists, code blocks and links to other files. My text editor allows me to click the links without rendering Markdown. The file is located in a directory called work_journal. Content that is linked from journal<year>.md is broken up into directories: diagrams, images, logs, projects. I do have a few other files that are project or tech-specific: tech_xyz.md, project_xyz.md, but those are edited infrequently and, once created, mostly used for reference. I also have a few temporary files called scratchpad.md and commit.md. Scratchpad is for quick pastes from logs and need to be massaged between systems and commit.md is a running edit of the Git commit message for stuff I'm working on. The major downside is that the file is really only editable on one PC. I don't trust the enterprise sync solution I have available to me, and I certainly don't want this kind of info in the cloud. Thankfully it is very rare that I have a need to edit the file from another computer. |
I like the idea of a monolithic journal per year. How long have you been at it (if you don't mind me asking)?