[rigmarole]

What syntax are you trying to use or thinking that you need? In Obsidian for example, remove all plugins except Daily Note and just start typing. Ignore all syntax except maybe bullets. Ignore properties and links. Ignore any habit-tracking or database tricks people say you need. Ignore the graph.

Or consider using Vim/Neovim and set a leader hotkey to open today’s journal/YYYY-MM-DD.txt

[setopt]

> Or consider using Vim/Neovim and set a leader hotkey to open today’s journal/YYYY-MM-DD.txt

For a broader audience: Create a shell script that runs “$EDITOR $JOURNALDIR/$(date +%Y-%m-%d).md”, and bind a system-wide keybinding to run that script. Works even for GUI editors.

[esskay]

This kinda highlights the exact issue I'm talking about. "Just open this, add that, change this, build that...sure it may work, but it's far too much effort for a journal."

[setopt]

I kinda agree that there should be a market for more journaling apps. Something like Logseq for non-programmers would be a hit.

At the same time… I think you overestimate how hard it is to get started with your own solution. The shell script and system-wide keybinding is just a convenience, since many of us like to automate things that we do daily. If you don’t want it you really don’t need it.

Just make one large file in whatever editor you prefer, and keep it always open. Manually add a new heading like “2024-07-14” to that file every day. Write notes in bullet points.

The basic system is independent of any app or script, and is more or less identical to what you would do in a paper journal. It’s a bit harder to add equations and diagrams, but a bit easier to search through it and access it from any device, that’s the trade-off. But writing a date stamp daily is really not a dealbreaker if your top priority is to not configure anything.