Hi all - I currently use a couple of writing/journaling apps along with OmniFocus. These include Evernote, Ulysses and Obsidian. (I have opinions on all three. ;)) Evernote has keyboard shortcuts for time and date stamping. A step up from that would be an app that auto stamps time and date every time you start writing. So let’s say this stamp is applied each time you add a new paragraph to your diary/journal. This would be great, if for example, you’re keeping a work journal that you update when adding or completing a project. So that way you have a journal with a record of your work activities, recorded as you work through the day. A key piece of this is that time and date are always visible in front of each paragraph.) Does anyone know of a writing/journaling tool that will do this type of auto stamping?
No. I use Joplin where a shortcut inserts date & time just like Evernote. The idea of auto-insertion on paragraph break sounds horrible. How could one organise text or use Markdown sensibly? You can write plugins for Joplin (there is one offering a click for date only, no time) so the scenario is presumably realisable in that or some equivalent product.
Day One is a journalling app for macOS. On creating a new topic, the date and time is automatically applied—but only at the topic/journal entry level and never at the paragraph level. Day One (optionally) has a menu bar icon that can be used to create a new topic (with date and time stamp) quickly and easily, without being in the app.
The key here is that journal entries are automatically date-time stamped and not paragraphs. Which leads us to a journal writing strategy and methodology.
I started out in Day One creating one monolithic journal entry for the whole day, with subjects in sections indicated by headings. That proved unwieldy when it came to searching and writing. My method now is to create a discrete journal entry for each subject. This results in multiple journal entries for a given day. Advantages include easier content management, using tags for individual subjects, and date-time stamp management.
For the usual macOS interoperability between apps, you can embed an app link to a particular Day One journal entry in the comments of an OmniFocus task or project. Conversely, you can embed an app link for an OmniFocus task or project in a Day One journal entry.
+1 for DayOne. I’ve been using it for years now.
I use Keyboard Maestro and have a defined shortcut, ,dstamp, that inserts the current datestamp like 2024-11-05. Similarly, ,tstamp inserts the time like 11:34:11. That works for any app so I don’t have to count on any of them to implement it directly.
Some time ago I created a plugin for someone creating a timestamp in OmniFocus that you could paste into a title or note. Just FYI.
Was not really sure you were looking for timestamps in OF or something else.
