activity-log.el

Currently tested under GNU Emacs 25.1.1 on OS X.

I use this to keep track of what I've done, issues that I have solved, and everything else while at work. Originally, this was a part of my ~/.emacs but it seemed ripe for extraction into its own library.

So what does it do?

It inserts a template for the upcoming week so that I don't have to do it manually.
And when Emacs starts up, I open the log file and place the cursor on today's header.

Screenshot

Usage

Invoke activity-log-insert to insert a week template for the next week. If a week has already been entered in the current buffer, then it insert the template for the week after that (see "Better date detection" in the TODOs section). With a prefix argument, it inserts the template for the next N weeks.

Invoke activity-log-goto-today like so to open and place the cursor on the current date (I do this in my ~/.emacs to see what I need to do for that day):

(activity-log-goto-today
  ;; find-file opens the file in a new buffer
  ;; (if one doesn't exist) and switches current
  ;; window to that buffer.
  (find-file "~/Desktop/work-notes/notes.org"))

User customizable variables

activity-log-week-starts-on defaults to the 'monday. It must be one of: sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, or saturday.
activity-log-exclude-days defaults to '(saturday sunday). Days added to this list won't be output when you invoke activity-log-insert.
activity-log-day-header defaults to "<%Y-%m-%d %a - day %j>". This is how the day will show up. See screenshot. Note: this or the week header should be surrounded by < and > for date detection to work.
activity-log-week-header defaults to "%Y-%m-%d (week %U)". This is how the week header will be formatted. See screenshot. This can be set to nil in which case the week header is not rendered.
activity-log-week-header-level defaults to "**". This and a space is added before inserting the week. Day header will also add an extra *.

Here is a way to have days listed in your activity log with only daily headers:

(setq activity-log-week-header-level "")
(setq activity-log-week-header nil)
(setq activity-log-day-header "<%Y-%m-%d %a>")

gives you toplevel days

* <2019-01-22 Tue>
* <2019-01-23 Wed>
* <2019-01-24 Thu>
* <2019-01-25 Fri>

TODOs

Move user customization from defvar to defcustom.
Better date detection in activity-log-latest-in-current-buffer. Currently, any org header (a line that starts with '*') with a timestamp (starts with < and ends with >) is considered a valid date.