Or, here's an even better alias.

  alias jim=' \
    journaldir="$HOME/journal" ;   \
    year="`date +%Y`" ;            \
    yearpath="$journaldir/$year" ; \
    [[ -d "$yearpath" ]] || mkdir -p $yearpath ; \
    jfile="log_`date -I`.md" ;                \
    jfilepath="$journaldir/$year/$jfile" ;    \
    header="# log_`date -I`\n\n# Highlights:\n\n" ; \
    [[ -f "$jfilepath" ]] && echo "Opening log: $jfilepath" || { echo "Creating new log: $jfilepath" ; echo -e "$header" >  $jfilepath ; } ; \
    vi $jfilepath ; '

Copy this to your .bash_aliases file. It's fully automatic. It'll create the directories automatically.

This will now create a /home/user/journal/YEAR/journalfile.md. It's now separated by year, so that you can run this forever, and have a maximum of 365 files per year directory.

This is a markdown file. And in the header variable, I had it fill in the new file with some basic headers. You can edit this yourself to add more.

Try it out, and let me know.

jim date: illegal option -- I

on macos

It seems Bash on Mac doesn't work quite the same as Linux.

Try this instead. It works for me. Let me know.

Copy it to your ~/.bash_aliases. And source it.

  alias jim='
    function _jim() {
        journaldir="$HOME/journal"
        year=`date "+%Y"`
        today=`date "+%Y-%m-%d"`
        yearpath="$journaldir/$year"
        [[ -d "$yearpath" ]] || mkdir -p $yearpath         
        jfile="log_$today.md"
        jfilepath="$journaldir/$year/$jfile"
        header="# Log: $today\n\n# Highlights:\n\n" 
        [[ -f "$jfilepath" ]] && echo "Opening log: $jfilepath" || { echo "Creating new log: $jfilepath" ; echo -e "$header" >  $jfilepath ; } 
        vi "$jfilepath"
    }; _jim'

I have something similar, with the folder syncing to google drive, you could encrypt if you want to before hand but I never got to it, I separate one file per month.

  alias journal="vim ~/workspace/google-drive/journal/$(date "+%Y-%m")"

Then in vim I have this mapping, by pressing F2 it opens a new line at the end of the file so you can just start typing. I add goals to the beggining of the week with the F3 map.

  nnoremap <F2> Go<NL><Esc>i<Esc>"=strftime("\%A, \%Y-\%m-\%d \%H:\%M:\%S")<CR>po    - 
  nnoremap <F3> Go<NL><NL><Esc>iWeek <Esc>"=strftime("\%V ")<CR>p<Esc>i goals:<CR>    - 

Monday -> Press F3 -> like a bujo, review what is still relevant and move to next week or drop it.

  Week 10 goals:
      - [ ] check connectivity with service x, splunk and service Y, from new environment
      - [ ] xxxx

Then whenever I will change context in my mind I just go back to the open buffer and press F2. I normally start my day looking at what happened over the other remote branches, and update my weekly goals task list

  Thursday, 2020-07-09 08:25:52
      - emails / slack

  Thursday, 2020-07-09 08:36:13
      - support x person

  Thursday, 2020-07-09 10:00:00
      - dog break

  Thursday, 2020-07-09 10:00:00
      - HN

Then at then end of the year I create a folder `archive/201X/` and move all the files under it.

I had a calendar event reminding me to review what happened over the week on Friday afternoon, but that is just lying to myself. I got to do once or twice over the last couple of years, that is something I need to improve on which is the whole point of article, review it while it is fresh and learn from it.

edit: code format

Neat. I'll try this out. I had never remapped a key in Vi before.

Check out my other alias, in the sibling comment. I improved on it.