The technique of journaling as you work is sometimes called “interstitial journaling” and I became a big fan of it as a way to help focus as well as keeping track of what I was working on.
I made a tool to associate those notes with a color coded project and timestamp:
It ended up being unintentionally similar to an invoicing time tracking tool a freelancer might use but the use case Im interested in is more personal productivity.
Can’t say the project has generated much interest outside my own personal use but I find it very nice to track notes as I go and then easily see how much time I spent on a given project. You can also add a #hashtag in the notes and then filter by that hashtag in the calendar view.
Completely free in case anyone else finds it helpful!