Journaling has a long history. Here are three open source tools to help
make your journaling life a little easier.
![Note taking hand writing][1]
In previous years, this annual series coveredindividual apps. This year, we are looking at all-in-one solutions in addition to strategies to help in 2021. Welcome to day 10 of 21 Days of Productivity in 2021.
When I was in primary school in the days before the commercial internet, teachers would often give my class an assignment to keep a journal. Sometimes it was targeted at something particular, like a specifically formatted list of bugs and descriptions or a weekly news article summary for a civics class.
People have been keeping journals for centuries. They are a handy way of storing information. They come in many forms, like the Italian [Zibaldone][2], [Commonplace Books][3], or a diary of events that logs what got done today.
![Notebook folders][4]
(Kevin Sonney,[CC BY-SA 4.0][5])
Why should we keep a journal of some sort? The first reason is so that we aren't keeping everything in our heads. Not many of us have an [Eidetic memory][6], and maintaining a running log or set of notes makes it easier to reference something we did before. Journals are also easier to share since they can be copy/pasted in chat, email, and so on. "Knowledge is Power. Knowledge shared is Power Multiplied," as [Robert Boyce][7] famously said, and the sharing of knowledge is an intrinsic part of Open Source.
![Today's journal][8]
Today's journal(Kevin Sonney,[CC BY-SA 4.0][5])
One of the critical points when journaling events is to make it fast, simple, and easy. The easiest way is to open a document, add a line with the current date and the note, and save.
Several programs or add-ons are available to make this easier. [The GNote Note of the Day Plugin][9] automatically creates a note titled with the date and can be used to store content for just that day.
Emacs Org has a hotkey combination to "capture" things and put them into a document. Combined with the [org-journal][10] add-on, this will create entries in a document for the day it was created.
The KNotes component of Kontact automatically adds the date and time to new notes.
![Finding a note][11]
Finding a note(Kevin Sonney,[CC BY-SA 4.0][5])
Keeping a journal or record of things is a handy way of keeping track of what and how something was done. And it can be useful for more than just "I did this" - it can also include a list of books read, foods eaten, places visited, and a whole host of information that is often useful in the future.
