What did I actually do today?
At six in the evening the day is a blur. You know you were busy, but the hours between lunch and the last meeting have already merged into one. Rebuilding a day from memory feels accurate and usually is not.
Why memory fails here
Small tasks, interruptions and switches between them leave very little trace. By evening only the big events and the last hour are clear. The fix is not a better memory, it is writing things down while they are still fresh, in a way that takes almost no effort.
A one sentence log, once an hour
Hourly is a small Windows tray app that does exactly that. Once every hour of real activity it asks "What did you just do?" You type one sentence, about ten seconds, and it is saved with the time:
09:10 - Reviewed the pull request and left comments 10:15 - Call with the designer about the onboarding screens 11:20 - Fixed the date bug in the export and wrote a test
- The clock only counts real time: a locked screen and sleep pause it, so you are not asked about time away.
- One skip per day, for a meeting or deep work you do not want to interrupt.
- Click the tray icon to see today, or any earlier day, at a glance.
What you can do with the log
- Answer "what did you do yesterday" in a stand up without guessing.
- Fill in a timesheet at the end of the week from real notes.
- Paste a week into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and ask where your time went.
- Keep it in your Obsidian daily note if you use one: Hourly can add each entry there.
Hourly is free, has no account, and your entries stay on your computer.