Hourlies Journal
A downloadable time tracker for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android
What?
This app lets you jot down what you were doing during each hour of your day, easily tag it with customizeable emoji, and look back at the summary at the end of the day! It can also copy what you wrote down in a spreadsheet-pasteable format!
Why?
At the beginning of 2024 i went to therapy. One of the things i was recommended to do was to write down what i was doing so i could objectively look back at how i spent my time instead of judging and beating myself up based on vibes.
I've been doing this for a year at this point and i wanted to streamline the process so I could keep this up even when I'm low energy!
I've found it to be really helpful at "exposing my sims bars" and noticing if I've been deviating from what tends to keep me in a good mental state! Some examples include "oh i didnt hang out with anyone / do any creative projects this week, that's why i feel shit! i should do that soon!" or "i drank on 3 weekday nights this week, whats up with that" or "i slept an average of 4 hours a day this week, i should probably change that!".
The idea is not to police yourself according to any prescriptive set of rules but rather to have an objective view of what you did and how you spent your time! You are the one who sets up alerts and makes judgements on that. It's less about strict self control and more about course-correction before you feel the consequences of your life going off-balance. It also helps me not overcorrect and to make sure I'm adjusting things in the right direction!
Privacy?
All data is stored locally in a plain text json. No telemetry no nothing. I'm keeping it opensource in case you wanna check for yourself or add a feature you feel is lacking! You can synchronize data between multiple devices using an external tool! There's a devlog detailing how to do that for 0$.
Philosophy?
- agile - i want to benefit from my work ASAP
- eating my own dogfood - I'm using this thing daily
- customizeable - i bring the structure, you change the rest
- non-prescriptive - i dont know your life
- opensource & diy - make it better, tailor it to your needs
A friends WIP interpretation of this app that runs in your browser!
Check it out! It's in active development while this project has been on the backburner for a better part of the year now
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- v1.5 good enough to feed othersJan 06, 2025
- Synchronizing desktop and mobile appsJan 05, 2025
Comments
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At last I get to give this a spin :) Will let the people know if it helps reveal my mood manipulations
Looks neat and I could see myself fill it every day… except it's so tiny on my screen, I can barely see the icons and read text. I'm too old for this, please let me have sizing options! (I'm on Mac btw)
I second this! Love the tool but I have some vision impairment. Even just slightly larger text would help!
good point! i might get back on this and add scaling options, until then consider trying my friends version of it that runs in the browser!
only been using it for today so far but it’s been working out well! love the simplicity
Hey Ash, I'm working on some task/idea management tools with a very similar set of philosophical pointers except additionally everything is stored as clean markdown for easy no-GUI or alternative client editing. The emoji tagging and katamari idea is brilliant by the way. I'll let you know how my attempt goes.
lovely! would love to see it!