I’ve been refining a daily logging workflow for a while now. The goal: capture notes throughout the day with as little friction as possible, then funnel them into a Day One journal entry at the end of the day. The whole thing runs across an iPhone 4S, iPad Mini Retina, and a desktop iMac/MacBook Pro. Dropbox and TextExpander Touch are the essential glue that holds it together.
Here’s how the pieces fit.
Part 1: Launch Center Pro
Each weekday at 08:25, Launch Center Pro fires a scheduled action that creates a new daily notes file in Dropbox and opens it in Editorial on my iPhone.
The file lands at Dropbox/Apps/Editorial/Daily-Notes-[date].markdown. The URL scheme that makes this happen:
launch://x-callback-url/clipboard?text=Daily%20Notes%20{{date}}&x-success=editorial://new?title%3DDaily-Notes-{{date}}%26root%3DdropboxOne timing quirk worth noting: there’s a brief window between when LCP fires the action and when Editorial actually creates the file in Dropbox. If you switch to another app immediately, you may end up with an empty file or no file at all. Waiting a second or two for Editorial to finish writing resolves it.
Part 2: Editing in Editorial and Byword
On the Mac, I use Byword for editing the daily notes file. It’s clean, stays out of the way, and syncs via Dropbox without any fuss.
On the iPad, Editorial is the better choice — especially for an IT admin role. The integrated browser means I can look something up, copy relevant details, and paste directly into my notes without leaving the app. Editorial’s custom actions also let me build small automation steps into the writing environment itself. It’s meaningfully more capable than a plain text editor.
Part 3: Appending in Drafts
When I’m away from my desk and need to add something to the day’s notes, I use Drafts on iPhone. A custom Dropbox action appends directly to the current day’s file without needing to open it first.
The action is configured as follows:
- Name: Append to Daily Notes
- Path:
/Apps/Editorial/ - File template:
Daily-Notes-[[date]].markdown - Date format:
yyyy-MM-dd - Write mode: Append
- Separator: Newline
Write anything in Drafts, run the action, done. The content shows up at the bottom of the day’s file the next time I open it in Editorial or Byword.
Part 4: Editorial to Day One
At the end of the day, the daily notes file gets piped into Day One as a journal entry. Dropbox sync means the file is already available on every device, so the transfer is straightforward.
The result is a relatively semi-automated daily journal: I’m capturing notes all day with minimal effort, and Day One ends up with a record of the day without me having to manually write a journal entry from scratch.
It’s not fully automated — there’s still a manual step to push the notes into Day One — but the friction is low enough that it actually happens.
Resources
- Launch Center Pro — Scheduled and contextual actions for iOS
- Editorial — Markdown editor with automation for iPad
- Byword — Clean Markdown editor for Mac and iOS
- Drafts — Quick capture with powerful action workflows
- Day One — Journal app for Mac and iOS
- Dropbox — Cross-device file sync
- TextExpander Touch — Snippet expansion across iOS apps