Clarity Compounded

Clarity That Grows With You.

Why I Built a 200-Line Journaling CLI

Every productivity guru says, "journal daily." I tried Notion, Day One, Obsidian, pen and paper. Nothing stuck. Then I realized: I don't need another app. I need less friction.

The Problem:

  • Desktop apps: requires context switching
  • Web apps: requires internet, accounts, privacy concerns
  • Pen and paper: can't search, can't sync
  • Obsidian/Roam: too many features, too much setup

The Solution: A CLI tool that does ONE thing well:

  • Lives in your terminal (you're already there)
  • Uses your preferred editor (you already know it)
  • Stores in git (you already use it)
  • Zero configuration (just works)

How It Works:

$ journal
# Opens today's entry
# Edit, save, close
# Commits if changed
# Done.

The Result:

  • 100+ consecutive days of journaling
  • ~50KB total (just text files)
  • Searchable with grep
  • Synced across 3 machines
  • Zero maintenance

Key Insight: The best productivity tool is the one you actually use. For developers, that means:

  • Terminal-native
  • Git-based
  • Editor-agnostic
  • No accounts, no cloud service, no subscription
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