Ask HN: Best solutions for keeping a personal log?

This is my top one issue, because most logging apps require constant manual inputs and commitment, but not all.

Recently, I have been using Journey [0], an app that is helping me in the difficult task to write entries nearly every day. Problem: those are free-form, so it's only a good old journal, not a tracking app for custom metrics.

I have tried using another app to track my food habits [1] but that required way too much effort to get it right (finding the right food for every intake is just too much, I'd rather wait for something more automated like computer vision accurately seeing what I am eating, and how much of it).

I passively track my spendings, cross accounts with an bank aggregator called Bankin [2] (EU focused). From it, I can export the normalized data. You should look into similar services.

> a general purpose app for the iPhone to write new records to a database

I don't like it, but Notion [3] does that.

In the end, if you're committed, a spreadsheet is not that bad to start prototyping and checking what your really need.

Don't forget passive tracking with apps such as Google Fit, Swarm (Foursquare), Google Location, etc.

[0] https://2appstudio.com/journey/

[1] https://lifesum.com/

[2] https://bankin.com/en/home.html

[3] https://www.notion.so/

Google form entries have an automatic timestamp.

No other ideas besides the ones already stated (also a jrnl.sh user).

It's not exactly what you are looking for, but has some good properties:

- Always easy to jump in to, since I use TG to chat with people all day long; works on all devices (I need to journal from desktop and mobile)

- Easy to forward in/out notes to/from others

- No formatting woes since it's pretty much open ended. Supports hash tags and search. Can easily find all media and links.

- Telegram already supports tons of different kinds of media files and attachments; can easily snap of a pic of what I'm doing

- Can easily export HTML archive of convo at any time for analysis in other software

With my setup you'd have trouble automatically injecting content from programs, but you could make a Telegram bot that does that work, and just have conversations with it instead of yourself. (Telegram's API is incredibly simple to get started with and doesn't even require webhooks)

For passive logging, I've got Orger, set of scripts that are pulling data from different APIs and render it as org-mode [1]. Having it as org-mode allows me for quick search and recall in the logs.

There is also Memacs that uses similar approach [2].

1. https://beepb00p.xyz/orger.html

2. https://github.com/novoid/Memacs

Notes:

    # .profile
    function note { mg +-1 "/home/.../notes/$(date "+%Y-%m-%d").txt"; }

Transactions:

I record my transactions into ledger[0]. I wrote an auto-complete wrapper in Python to help speed up entry and another to keep the formatting consistent, but otherwise it's a manual job. It helps keep me aware of my transactions, plus I like to add comments and customize the entries instead of just loading them from the institution's CSVs.

[0] https://www.ledger-cli.org

I built a prototype that does this. It’s got a UI very similar to twitter but organized by day. Special hash tags on a messages at the end of one day appear front and center on the next day so you can get cached in on what you were doing.

I gave up after a few weeks. I don’t use it enough for it to be useful.

So I need to iterate a lot for this to be valuable. I wanted to prototype this before going crazy about building a tool that I wouldn’t even use. Glad I did because now I know the magic needs to happen on the data entry side to make that more frequent.

Ive got a bazillion ideas on how to extract meaning and apply organization to the random little messages ... but without having a personal corpus of entries to mine it’s impossible.

I keep seeing this question pop up though so I know it’s a problem for more than just me, and there is a need in the market. An iOS/Android app was showcased here recently called ZenJournal but it’s not quite what I’m looking for either.

I almost need a lapel mic that can be activated very easily - so I can dictate to this thing as stuff comes to mind. Sometimes the friction comes from trying to organize my thoughts before I write them, which defeats the point.

You can use it to automatically keep track of your online research, notes etc, and have a nice knowledge base as a result. It connects to Telegram too, so you can take notes on the go. You don't need to install a new app for that.

If you're like me, you have trouble sticking to journals/logs. I like having one collapsible document in outline form. I can remember it, and I come back to it. It works well with the natural chaos of life. And it feels more satisfying to add to one big log.

http://www.davidrm.com/

Personally, at the end of each work day, I use the spreadsheet method to record my progress for that day. I have one column for the date and one for a 1 or 2-sentence summary or notes about what I did during the day. I've been doing this for years and it's nice to have a historic "captain's log" of my work.

It would be easy to add more columns to this type of spreadsheet to break the day into hourly increments or even 15 minute increments. Any shorter than 15 mins and it's too easy to get frustrated by the interruption of needing to write the log. Hourly would probably be more realistic.

In Google Sheets, use command-shift-colon to do a timestamp.

Supplement this approach with a small paper notebook (originally I used 3x5inch pocket then moved to a 5x8 inch) where you no longer need your phone/computer to log entries (enter them later). I'm collecting a nice physical library of notebooks that are chronologically ordered and contain everything from in depth technical tasks to notes on groceries. Also acts as a good spot for stickers collected on your travels.

Regarding transactions, I've started using everydollar.com. I've only started using it in 2019 so I cannot 100% vouch for it yet.

1. It is a highly personal process. I've tried copying high-level systems (like GTD and its derivatives), specific note-taking / TODO paradigms, productivity/habit tracking apps, and other journaling approaches, and I've always found that if the system is not built around your own habits and preferences, you will eventually lose motivation. Figuring out your own style seems to be important. Another general principle I’ve found is keeping the tools simple. Mostly text-based, always available offline, built to last, etc. Develop the habits, then adopt fancier tools.

2. For quick context-capturing and bookmarking, I rely on email and Pocket. I prefer email because it is reliable, it'll be here in 20 years, and it is fast to flag a message as "needs attention" or e-mail yourself an important thought or reminder. Pocket seems to just work across all my devices, so I haven't had any reason to branch out. Whenever I have time during the day, I organize this “unorganized” view by either taking care of the item (if it’s a quick article in Pocket or errand in email), skipping it (it’s fine to de-prioritize things until later), or by triaging it into Evernote:

3. I use Evernote for a lot of things (including all my technical notes, paper highlights, personal journaling, my "principles" document, philosophy on nutrition, habit aspirations, workout plans, and so on), but of interest for this question is probably a topic-specific log and backlog system. Near the top of my Evernote shortcuts are four log links (Daily Log, Technical Log, Health Log, Workout Log).

4. Daily Log is where I can make a plan for each day, or put nothing here, or just have a place to ramble (writing down thoughts helps internalize them, after all). This is something of an unstructured personal journal.

5. Technical Log is for all technical work that I undertake (coding train-of-thought, reading papers, reading blog-posts, etc.). In reality, under each date, this log contains a bunch of Evernote links to more detailed notes on specific technical topics, but the big benefit here is being able to look back over the course of a week or month about what kind of insights or interesting concepts I’ve come across. It’s particularly useful to read the day after and get most of the context back quickly. I usually always have this log file opened.

6. Health and workout logs track both metrics and how I generally felt that day (health-wise and workout-wise, respectively). It’s ok to have empty days. The important part is filling in on days when things are particularly bad, or particularly good, so you can reflect.

7. After this, I have a bunch of backlog shortcuts — so when I triage items from Pocket or my email, they go into the appropriate backlog list. Examples for me: Backlog of {ML reading, CS reading, Bio reading, Travel destinations, Video/TV/Movies, Restaurants, Games, Running routes, Books, etc.}. Backlogs are great -- they are lightweight, they can grow indefinitely, and you'll naturally prune them of things that you don't care about after some time. Really, lists are a great way of writing things down! When I'm at a coffee shop, I'll pick and item from one of my reading backlogs, if I'm not already working on something. When I have time to plan a weekend, I can scroll through my recreational backlogs and combine some items to fill out my schedule.

8. I like having a high level view of what I did and what I have coming up on long time scales, and for this I use a big spreadsheet, one sheet per year, one row per week, where all past and future social events, travels, and “macro” ev...

[1] https://hledger.org/timeclock.html

As for automation, I wonder if it might be worth looking at some simple Python scripts running somewhere (a cheap DigitalOcean $5/mth droplet?) pulling data as needed and writing to Google Docs via the Google Docs API? It does require some programming know-how however.

What I like about it is that I can combine the journal/log aspect with a general knowledge database and seamlessly interlink the two.

Theoretically, TiddlyWiki is ridiculously customizable, so any kind of automation would be possible. Unfortunately, it has fallen victim pretty badly to the "inner platform effect" - instead of letting people simply use the Javascript that it's built on, customizing is supposed to happen in a template language that is just plain horrible and makes even the most simple things like concatenating strings comically hard when done in a context where that kind of operation wasn't planned for.