Revisting my Journaling habits in 2024
2024-08-28 18:12:00
In 2017 I wrote this article on how I used Github issues to track my daily routine. Fast-forward 7 years it’s time to revisit it with my current workflow.
It hasn’t changed much conceptually except I dropped the labelling days part but this is something that I will certainly bring back to get a better overview of my current mental state at work.
Instead of being hosted on a proprietary SaaS it’s now fully self-hosted and plain-text which guarantees I can still revisit my past later on.
I have a new text file per day in which I log what I intend to do today and add what I really did. This is all done under Emacs using org-todo, org-roam and org-roam-dailies.
- org-todo allows me to create todo lists easily, I can toggle the status of a line with S-left or S-right. My current org-todo labels are “TODO”, “DOING”, “MEETING”, “DONE” and “POSTPONED”.
- org-roam is labelled as a second brain, it allows me to create file entries on any subject I like and link them if needed. For example I have a git entry with the how to do X in git I use the most but always forget. It’s available by pressing C-c n f then the title, git in this case.
- org-roam-dailies is part of org-roam and creates an entry per day like any other org-roam node. I chose to save my dailies in another folder than reference nodes for easier search.
All the entries are saved locally in a folder that I sync with my various machines using Syncthing.
So as of August 2024 here is what it looks like.
From the screenshot you can see what a typical daily entry looks like. I have tasks that I need to do, that I’m doing and that are done. I also have meetings in there to remember them and add notes to. Finally I have a postponed label to which I can add a date.
Tasks can have sub-tasks, I can link to other entries thanks to org-roam too. See the underlined Update DynamoDB? It’s a link to my DynamoDB node where I store all my findings.
My typical workflow is still doing my daily standup with myself but now I open the previous daily entry with C-c n d b, copy everything to today’s entry C-c n d d, cleaning the Done tasks and adding new tasks or meetings. Manual process yes but it’s deliberate and that’s something that works well for me. Some things don’t need automation. Afterwards I’ll go on with my day bringing back today’s view with C-c n d d many times to update and add stuff.
All I can say is that this sytem serves me pretty well, it’s been my main tracker since November 2021 according to my earliest daily entry. How could I have known this without these local files? :p
It’s “future me” proof as these are just plain-text files that I could transfer to any other format I’ll need more or less easily which is very nice.
Other than tracking my daily routine I use this system when it’s performance review time, it allows me to remember what I did in the previous period which is really helpful as my brain doesn’t want to store this.
I only use this system for work currently, this could be expanded to personal tasks too but I prefer to write these by hand on a a dedicated place near the fridge for now. I could also upgrade it with some shortcuts to transform a mail into a task but as I said writing things down manually deliberately works better for me.
That’s about it, let’s see if it sticks or if it will evolve once again in the next few years!