Time Journal

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Time Journal guide

Welcome to Time Journal

Time Journal is a personal space for tracking what you did, how long you spent on it, and what mattered most. Think of it as a lightweight journal, planning desk, and reminder system all in one place.

Quick start

Create a journal for a project, area of life, or focus category.
Choose the active journal and add a new entry with a title, date, and time blocks.
Write a few notes, add tags, and save the entry when you are ready.
Use the date filters, deep research, and tag views to revisit your history later.
Set reminders and reusable stanzas to make recurring habits and journaling easier over time.

Best habits for first-time use

Keep a journal per area like Work, Family, Personal Projects, or Travel.
Log entries as close to the moment as possible to keep details accurate.
Use tags like focus, admin, planning, or personal to make filtering effortless.
Use stanzas for signatures, status snippets, or recurring note blocks you repeat often.

Markdown notes

Time Journal supports a compact subset of markdown to help you format notes quickly and clearly:

# Heading and ## subheading styles
**bold**, *italic*, __underline__, ***bold + underline***, and ~~strikethrough~~
- bullet lists and 1. numbered lists
> blockquotes for pull quotes or important notes
`inline code` for small snippets or commands
``` code fences for multi-line examples
--- or *** horizontal rules
[link text](./notes.md) and ![image alt](./image.png) for references
[signature] or any saved stanza key to insert reusable text blocks

Example

# Weekly review

## Wins
- **Completed** the launch checklist
- *Updated* the notes for the client handoff
- __Good momentum__ after the design review

> Keep the next step simple and visible.

1. Publish the summary
2. Share the follow-up tasks
3. Save the final version

[Project notes](./notes.md)
![Sprint board](./sprint-board.png)
`npm test`

```bash
npm test
```

[signature]

Journals are your containers

Use journals to separate different parts of your life. The most common pattern is one journal per area, such as Work, Health, Home, or a specific client project. Switching journals changes which entries appear in the overview and summary panels.

Create and organize journals

Use the journal list on the left to create a new journal.
Import or export journal data when moving between browsers or devices.
Filter journals by tag to quickly focus on a category or theme.
Sort by most recent, longest total time, or entry count depending on what you need.

Log entries with structure

Each entry can include a journal, date, title, notes, time blocks, and tags.

Use the title to capture the main event or task.
Add one or more time blocks when your work happened in separate stretches.
Set idle minutes when you want to subtract breaks, context switching, or inactive periods.
Leave a detailed note with reflections, outcomes, and next steps.

Entry controls that save time

Use Full screen mode when writing longer reflections.
Check the Total time field while building an entry to confirm the duration is accurate.
Use the search bar to find past entries by title, note text, or keywords.
Use the date range presets to jump between today, the last week, or all time.

Reminders keep important moments from slipping

Use the reminder button to track tasks, follow-ups, recurring routines, or personal commitments. The reminder tool can work in a list view or a calendar view.

Set up a reminder

Give it a title, optional description, and a start date or time.
Toggle All day for date-only reminders such as birthdays or deadlines.
Enable Recurring to create daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly habits.
Select how far in advance you want to be reminded, such as 5, 15, 30, 60, or 1440 minutes.

Use the reminder views

List view helps you scan upcoming, completed, or recurring reminders.
Calendar view shows the month at a glance and makes it easy to spot patterns.
Use the status filter to focus on all items, upcoming tasks, completed ones, or recurring routines.

Recurring reminders and patterns

Recurring reminders are especially useful for routines like daily planning, weekly check-ins, or monthly reviews. You can also exclude certain days from a recurring daily schedule when needed.

Stanzas are reusable note blocks

Stanzas let you save text snippets that you reuse often, such as a closing signature, a team status note, a weekly check-in template, or a common reflection prompt.

How to use them

Create a stanza with a key such as signature, weekly-review, or gratitude.
In any note, type the matching shortcode as [signature] or [weekly-review].
The app replaces the shortcode with the saved text when rendering your notes.
Keep the content short and reusable, or use long blocks for consistent summaries.

Good stanza ideas

Personal sign-offs for journaling or email-style notes.
Daily reflection prompts like wins, blockers, and next actions.
Common status updates for projects, clients, or teams.
Recurring formatting blocks you want to drop into entries quickly.

Search is built for browsing your history

Use the entry search box to quickly find notes by keyword, date, phrase, or topic. Use the date ranges to focus on a single day, week, month, or all time.

Deep Research for broader discovery

The search icon opens Deep Research, which helps you look through note content, tags, and journal entries in one place. It can also launch a web search for the same topic when local matches are not enough.

Choose a mode such as entries, tags, full text, or all.
Search by a project name, subject, or theme.
Open a matching entry directly from the results list.
Use the quick web lookup when you want more context beyond your saved notes.

Helpful search habits

Search by a project name instead of an exact phrase if you are not sure of the wording.
Combine a tag filter with a keyword search for more precise results.
Use Deep Research when you are trying to connect related ideas across many entries.

Tags make your journal easier to navigate

Tags help you group entries by theme without creating a whole new journal. They are especially useful for focus, admin, personal, planning, client work, or ongoing projects.

How tags work

Add tags in the entry form as a comma-separated list.
Use suggestions while typing to keep categories consistent.
Search and filter by tag in the journal list or the entry list.
Edit tag descriptions to explain the purpose of a category to future you.

Best practices

Keep tags short and reusable instead of creating too many vague labels.
Standardize naming across diaries so searches stay meaningful.
Use tags as filters for recurring themes rather than duplicate entries in multiple diaries.

Your data stays local by default

Time Journal stores journals, entries, reminders, tags, and stanzas in your browser using local storage and IndexedDB. This means your information stays on your own device unless you explicitly export or import a backup.

Backups and transfers

Use Save to create a JSON backup of your current app data.
Use Import to restore a backup on the same browser or a different device.
Keep backups in a safe location if you want a recovery option for a future browser reset.

Code of conduct

Keep your notes respectful, honest, and kind. This app is meant for personal productivity, reflection, and planning, so avoid abusive, discriminatory, or harmful content in diaries, backups, or saved text.

Data management

This tab is for actions that affect your saved records. Use it carefully, especially when you are about to permanently delete local information.

Back up before making big changes

Use Save to export a full JSON backup of all journals, entries, reminders, stanzas, and tags.
Use Import to restore a backup if you need to recover earlier data.
Keep a backup before clearing data, switching devices, or testing a major reset.

Clear App Data

If you want a complete reset, use the button below. This permanently removes the local data stored in this browser, including entries, journals, reminders, tags, and stanzas. If you may want to keep anything, export a backup first.

The Vault keeps private secrets separate

Trunks are simple groupings for journals. The Vault is a separate encrypted space for your private notes, credentials, phone numbers, or other details you do not want exported in a normal app backup.

How it works

Use a passphrase to unlock the Vault.
Keep sensitive data in the Vault instead of in journal entries or trunk metadata.
Regular backups remain simple and lightweight by default.
Export the Vault only when you intentionally want to move private secrets.

About the project

Time Journal is a custom, browser-first journaling and tracking app built as a small web application with plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It is designed to run directly in the browser without a heavy framework or build pipeline, which keeps it easy to inspect, extend, and self-host.

Where the code lives

index.html defines the page structure, side panels, forms, dialogs, and app shell.
styles.css contains the layout, visual design, palettes, modal styling, and responsive behavior.
app.js handles app state, UI rendering, modal wiring, journal management, reminder logic, and user interaction.
entry-logic.mjs contains the data normalization, date math, markdown output, tag logic, reminder calculations, search, and backup validation.
entry-logic.test.mjs exercises the core logic with runtime assertions to catch regressions in date handling, reminders, backup payloads, and search behavior.

How it is built

The app follows a simple two-layer structure:

The UI layer in app.js reads and writes app state, updates the DOM, and responds to user actions.
The logic layer in entry-logic.mjs keeps computations pure and testable, such as sorting, formatting, cleanup, and normalized data creation.

This keeps the codebase understandable without introducing a framework abstraction layer or a large build system.

What is included in the app

Journal-based organization for projects, life areas, or focus categories
Entry creation with date, time blocks, notes, and tags
Reminder management with list and calendar views
Reusable stanza snippets for recurring note blocks
Search and deep research across saved notes and tags
Backup and import flows for moving data between browsers or devices
Local-first persistence to keep data on-device unless you export or import it

Architecture notes

Instead of relying on a backend, the app stores structured data locally and works directly in the browser. That gives it a fast, privacy-friendly workflow while still allowing full JSON backup exports for migration and restoration.

Browser local storage and IndexedDB-style local data patterns keep the app personal and lightweight.
Formatting and conversion logic are centralized so the same markdown, search, and reminder rules are used consistently.
Modular helpers make the app easier to extend without rewriting major sections.

Further references

Final note

This project is intentionally small but surprisingly capable: it combines journaling, tracking, search, reminders, and backup workflows in a single local-first app. The design is simple enough to understand quickly, while still carrying enough structure to scale as a personal productivity system.

Destructive action

Clear App Data

Warning

This will clear all the data.

Type Delete to confirm

Reminders

Title Description

Start date & time

All day Recurring Pattern

Remind me

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Stanzas

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Restore

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Warning

This backup will replace your current diaries, entries, tags, stanzas, and reminders. This cannot be undone.

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Notes

General

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