plainleaf/website/Guide/Journaling.md

#guide

This guide sets up a daily journaling workflow. Each day you get a fresh journal page where you capture what's happening throughout the day. By linking to topic pages from your journal entries, those entries automatically appear on the topic page via Linked Mention — building a timeline of activity for every topic you care about.

1. Create the journal template

Create a page called Library/Page Tempaltes/Journal (or any name you like) with the following content:

---
command: "Journal: Today"
key: "Ctrl-q t"
suggestedName: "Journal/${os.date('%Y-%m-%d')}"
confirmName: false
tags: meta/template/page
openIfExists: true
---
#journal

* |^|

This is a Page Template that:

• Registers a Journal: Today command (accessible from the Command Palette)
• Binds it to Ctrl-q t (first press Ctrl-q then press t) for quick access
• Creates pages under Journal/ named by today's date (e.g. Journal/2026-03-04)
• Opens the existing page if you've already started one today
• Tags the page #journal and places the cursor at the first bullet

Optionally, you may also create an ^Library/Std/APIs/Action Button in your top bar for quick access. For this put the following in your CONFIG:

actionButton.define {
  icon = "pen-tool",
  priority = 3, -- or whatever order puts it in the spot you like
  run = function()
    editor.invokeCommand "Journal: Today"
  end
}

Then run the ${widgets.commandButton("System: Reload")} command to activate.

2. Start journaling

Press Ctrl-q t (or run Journal: Today from the Command Palette). You’ll land on today’s journal page with a bullet list ready to go.

The real power comes from linking journal entries to topic pages. Instead of plain text, reference the pages that matter:

* Reviewed the Q2 roadmap with [[Alice]] and [[Bob]]
  * Agreed to prioritize the API redesign
  * [[Alice]] will draft the migration plan
* Started reading [[Invisible Cities]]
* Fixed a bug in the [[Login Flow]]
  * Root cause was a missing null check in the session handler

Each [[link]] connects that journal entry (and its sub-items) to the referenced page.

4. Watch topic pages come alive

Navigate to Alice’s page. In the Linked Mention section at the bottom, you’ll see your journal entries that mention her — complete with the surrounding context and sub-items. Tomorrow’s journal entry mentioning Alice will appear there too.

Over time, each topic page accumulates a reverse-chronological log of every journal entry that references it. You don’t maintain this log — it builds itself from your daily writing.

This works for any kind of page: people, projects, concepts, books. Your journal becomes the connective tissue between all your topics.

5. Query your journal

Use Space Lua/Lua Integrated Query to pull insights from your journal pages. For example, show recent journal entries on your Index Page:

${template.each(query[[
  from j = tags.journal
  where j.tag == "page"
  order by j.name desc
  limit 7
]], templates.pageItem)}

What's next?

You now have a daily journaling workflow where topic pages automatically collect every mention from your journal entries.

• Guide/Knowledge Base — build a personal knowledge base
• Guide/Task Management — track projects and tasks
• Guide/People Notes — keep track of people and conversations
• Manual — the full user manual