Writing daily is a good thing for many reasons, and making it dead-easy is a great way to ensure you stick to the habit. Over the years I’ve tried various applications to write and ultimately I’ve ended up with plaintext markdown-formatted files in a Dropbox folder. I have a small bash script that will either open todays journal file or create a new one. It also supports piping into the journal, although I rarely use this.
Here is the script:
#!/bin/bash
# Create a dated text file at a specific location and append text to it.
#
# Usage:
# $ jrnl something you want to jot down (appends that text to the file)
# $ xclip -o | jrnl (appends your clipboard to the file)
# $ jrnl (opens the file in your editor)
#
# Produces:
# YYYY-MM-DD.md in your $NOTES_DIRECTORY (this is set below).
set -e
readonly NOTES_DIRECTORY="${NOTES_DIRECTORY:-"${HOME}/Dropbox/journal"}"
readonly NOTES_FILE="$(date +%Y-%m-%d).md"
readonly NOTES_PATH="${NOTES_DIRECTORY}/${NOTES_FILE}"
if [ ${#} -eq 0 ]; then
if [ -p "/dev/stdin" ]; then
(cat; printf "\n\n") >> "${NOTES_PATH}"
else
eval "${EDITOR}" "${NOTES_PATH}"
fi
else
printf "%s\n\n" "${*}" >> "${NOTES_PATH}"
fi
Running jrnl in a terminal will open the days journal file.
I use a folder structure of journal/YYYY-DD-MM.md for the current year. For
each new year I archive the years notes in a YYYY folder. So far this has
worked well, but I’ve considered keeping a journal file per month instead.