: How should I organize my journal as plain-text files? I want to keep a digital journal on my computer. I keep a physical journal in notebooks and on pieces of sheets, but I now want to back

Vote Up Vote Down

I have experimented with this over the years and have found that a single plaintext markdown file under Git source control is the way to go for a chronological journal. If you store it on GitHub you can even edit the file in a browser if necessary. I tried chronological order and reverse chronological order and settled on chronological.

I tried one text file per month but would rather search a single file than a set of files.

I occasionally want images in my notebook. I put the images in the same directory and link to them using Markdown. I use the MarkView Chrome extension when I want to view the formatted document with the images inline.

Subject matter that is not chronological can go into separate text files in the same directory as the journal, one file per subject. You can link to them from the journal if necessary.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

I store everything as plaintext as a rule.

There has to be a good reason to use more sophisticated software.

I also keep my journal as one long text file, by year.

Using Linux, I could keep them as daily files and use the immensely powerful 'grep' or 'cat' functions to search or assemble all the files into one but I choose to keep the journal as one file.

Why?

Because it allows me to scan what I did yesterday and follow on a few of the key points to make the writing and thought process flow.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

The answer completely depends on what you want to do with the files--how you want to access them in the future. Otherwise, organization doesn't matter.

Do you want to access them programmatically, using a program to read and operate on the text files? Open files manually, separately, and view them? Decide specifically how you want to access them later, and the organization should arise naturally from that.

You said you want to convert them using pandoc, but--what output? That's what I mean. Pandoc can manage whatever organization scheme you have.

Myself, I keep a journal in a single markdown file. Each #heading is a day's entry. Then, I can search a single file. I could easily do "one file a day", but I have no reason to.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

I've kept journals in a variety of formats some that have gone obsolete, and I have settled on a big old .rtf as a reasonable solution.

I use a key combo to insert a date and time stamp so I don't even have to worry about the formatting.

The .rft format allows for some basic formatting that allows for some nuance.

When I go back and read a single file per year makes it very easy to read over that year, and the file size is more then small enough to be easy to store on all sorts of platforms.

One thing I find I sometimes have to do is add contextual details to old entries because I forgot why that was a big deal. If you weren't in the loop at the time someone reading it later just has no clue what it all means and why it was important to me.

I do need to do a better job tagging my images because they are important too so they can be related back to the context as well.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

I wanted the same thing as you - the ability to do a journal, fully searchable, all text files. I also wanted to be able to cross reference things to create a sort of commonplace book without duplicating work. It took a lot of looking but I eventually found Wikidpad and have been using it ever since. It's really powerful.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

I've used quite a few note-taking tools over the years, and eventually stuck with Zim Wiki for a few reasons:

The underlying format is a set of plain text files automatically organized into folders when you create pages and sub-pages.
The plain text files can be rendered with just the right amount of formatting (headings, bold, italics, code blocks, checklists, bullet lists).
The available plugins are awesome and can be used to embed LaTeX equations, plots from the R programming language, and more.
It's cross-platform, so I can store my notebook files in Dropbox and access the same files whether on my Windows workstation in the office (bleah) or my awesome Ubuntu laptop at home (whoo!).
Autosave is awesome, and even more awesome when combined with a cloud syncing service like Dropbox.
Multiple notebook support--very nice when working on multiple projects.
If your notes for a particular day are long, you can use headings within the note, and a "table of contents" pane can be displayed in your window to easily navigate your entry.
At the end of the day you can export entire notebooks as markdown files, which means Zim + Pandoc = Love.

For your specific purpose, Zim Wiki also has an (inbuilt) "journal" plugin. You can see some of the settings here, one of which is to generate a new file for each day, week, month, or year. Based on your choice, Zim Wiki will store your files in different ways. For example, if you were going with a daily journal, it would create, say, a folder named "2013", under which it would create another folder "08" for "August", and a plain text file named "13.txt" for the thirteenth.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

I like to use this naming convention:

yearmonthday - optional_filename_or_description.txt

for example:

131012 - The day I did such-and-such.txt

This number format means that if you sort the files alphabetically they will always be in sequential order.

You could add dots if it makes it easier to read: 13.10.12 - etc.txt

I like to use Dropbox (http://dropbox.com/) to back up my files online because it happens without you having to do anything. When I want to protect private writings and information I use TrueCrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org/‎) to encrypt the files. This is a good idea when using any digital or online backup, as you never know when you might get hacked or have your computer stolen.

I also use a text editor that allows me to browse an entire folder of files in a sidebar, so I can easily jump around and browse different files. This gives me the best overview of all my work in progress. I use Sublime Text, (http://www.sublimetext.com/‎) but this feature can probably be found in other software that is more specifically for writers.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

Recommend you check out TiddlyWiki, which is a single-page HTML file you can keep on your computer (or thumb drive, etc, or even check into version control).

The app creates small entries in the single-page file called Tiddlers, which you can later export to plain text for inclusion in a book, etc.

TW offers all of the indexing, search and add-on functionality you want while requiring only a browser. Everything is done in-browser by clicking on links, and there's a journal feature which creates a new entry with the date title on a single click.

It's been really useful for me to keep journals, knowledge bases, copybooks, etc. Check it out.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

One file per year, fixed entry header format so that you don't have to guess, was that 4.Jul or July the 4th or 4.07 or 07.04 - pick any format you want but stick to it.

Why one massive file instead of many smaller ones? That way finding given entry is trivial using find tool. Appending at the end is less hassle than creating new files. But above all, searching is much easier. I mean: you have a keyword that repeats roughly 40 times across all your entries. You know the entry you look for contains it. If you use multiple files, you'll have to click every single file found that contains that word, read, close, open another, read, close... 40 times. With single file it's as simple as "find next" or F3. Also, with more advanced tools you can do more advanced searches, say, you remember 2 days in sequence, in one you wrote about a camera, in another you mentioned visit to your mother. There are hundreds of entries mentioning your mother and at least 40 about cameras. grep for camera including 40 context lines around each match, then find 'mother' within the found context. With one full line with specific sentence containing 'mother' you should be able to pinpoint the entry easily. You can still easily narrow down to "roughly end of spring" by scrolling to some halfway the length.

Oh, and plain reading, entry by entry, will be much smoother too.

(0)