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I do something similar but I gave up using org-mode (mostly because that was all I was using emacs for and I spent more time configuring the thing 'just so' than I did actually using it.

Now I just keep everything in plain text and aliased it to 'tj' (todays journal).

alias tj="touch ~/Dropbox/journal/$(date +%d-%m-%Y).org && code ~/Dropbox/journal/$(date +%d-%m-%Y).org"

Effortless backups as well (and as a side benefit the NSA now knows I need to look at better ways of handling css in packages pulled in from npm etc).

Perhaps old fashioned, but I fill up a page of TWSBI [1] every evening, using a Sheaffer Prelude [2].

[1] http://www.twsbi.com/collections/notebooks/products/twsbi-no...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Sheaffer-Prelude-Black-Featuring-Foun...

I've never head of TWSBI, although I do enjoy Moleskine. Would you be able to give a comparison between them?

Cannot comment on Moleskine as I've never used one. I am loving TWSBI notebooks [1]: the paper is thick, and does not feather or bleed with fountain pen ink. There is very little ghosting which makes it possible to use both sides of paper. Here [2] is a review I found helpful.

[1] http://www.twsbi.com/collections/notebooks

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RJkNfiP_ys

I am curious, what does the "code" alias link to? and why is it that you need to touch it before you edit it? wouldn't an editor do that for you?

It's the name of the binary for Visual Studio Code.

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux

The NSA are making backups of your backup. Double win.

I've been using jrnl (https://github.com/maebert/jrnl) for this. Pretty similar idea - still plain text, but adds a CLI wrapper with a few more features.

No matter where I am or what I'm doing, a keybinding quickly flips to today's daypage. From there, keybindings can go back or forward by day or by week. I just jot everything down as I think of it or experience it. (I implement this with emacs/org-mode, but i'm sure you could extend this idea to any configurable text editor)

vimwiki's diary [0] functionality offers exactly the same.

  <leader>w<leader>w

opens a new file under

  ~/vimwiki/diary/

with the current date as a filename.

  <CTRL>-up

and

  <CTRL>-down

jump to the previous/next day.

[0] https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki/blob/master/doc/vimwiki.t...

I'm doing something similar but use the mac/iphone app "Day One" version 1 for it (Not version 2 that requires you to sync with their proprietary cloud).

During the day I write down bullet points and roughly outline what happened. Then on the next day noon, or same day evening if I feel like it, I fill out the points and write a full page.

For tasks I am using GTD (OmniFocus and lately Things). Every thought I have of something I should do, I quickly capture through Siri in OmniFocus/Things or use the global system shortcuts. All few hours I go through my GTD inbox, schedule tasks, create events, delegate if necessary and get to "Inbox Zero".

> "it's only a `git grep` away"

Off topic, but how did I not know this was thing? You never know what you're gonna learn reading hn comments.

You forgot to RTFM.

Have you tried zimwiki? http://zim-wiki.org/

* It's basically a collection of text files

* Uses a markdown like syntax

* Has built in git support, so you can use git for versioning and looking at edit history.

* There is a gui that let's you edit in wysiwyg style * Can link between pages

* Written in python, so pretty much runs anywhere (no proper android/ios app still though)

* Todo item support

* most importantly, it's open source

* plugin system so you can add functionality easily

I pretty much use this as a knowledge management, daily task tracking system. It has a journal plugin that essentially creates a files for each day, similar to what you are doing.

I have it for both work and personal stuff.

I do something very similar, and have also been doing it for the past 3 years. I started out somewhat structured, not with org-mode but something similar, but I fairly quickly switched to just using plain text.

A few days after I started, I noticed that the vast majority of the things I was writing down were not actually important to be reminded of. I just needed to get them out of my head, and an unstructured plain text file made that somehow easier.

That said, as the number of tasks and appointments I need to keep track of has increased, I might give switching new files to org-mode a try. Integrating agenda items and such might just work for me.

PSA: if you like a thrill, don't do backups of your journal.

You monster. :-)

Backing up a folder of daypages is easy though. Backing up a cloud service like Evernote or Trello sounds more difficult...

Evernote supports XML and HTML export. I have mine on external drive and in Dropbox. Migrating to a new platform would be horrible, but at least the data's there.

Mind sharing how you do this on emacs? (Forwarding to the next day)?

I'm using a tweaked version of this package: https://github.com/almost/org-daypage/blob/master/org-daypag...

The important keybindings to set are for `todays-daypage`, `daypage-next`, and `daypage-prev`.

On top of this, I use `helm-git-grep` for incremental searching.

i had no idea that emacs had so many features (from this and other comments).

This system doesn't really require emacs. The general idea is to assign keybindings to jump to today's daypage, the previous file, and the next file. Being able to create a daypage that doesn't exist is helpful (but not necessary -- you could create 300 of them with a shell script once a year), and being able to search for things in a folder is also helpful.

You can implement that with your favorite text editor. You could do it with Notepad and AutoHotkey if you were persistent.

Org-mode adds organization, but honestly I benefit from its syntax highlighting and the bragging rights more than anything else. :-)