A minimalist plain-text journaling system for long-term thinking, pattern recognition, and honest self-study.

OBTF (One Big Text File) is a journaling and personal knowledge practice built around a single idea:

Keep your life in one chronological text file.

No apps.
No databases.
No dashboards.
No optimization theater.

Just continuity.

OBTF is a plain-text journaling method where everything goes into one long file, written in chronological order.

It is used to record:

• daily life events
• work and creative output
• health and energy signals
• travel and environment
• money and logistics
• ideas, insights, and questions
• moments of clarity, fatigue, or change

Nothing is filtered at the point of capture.
Meaning is extracted later—if at all.

Most note-taking and PKM systems fragment life into folders, tags, and databases.

OBTF does the opposite.

A single file preserves:

• context
• cause and effect
• rhythm
• recovery
• long-term patterns

Memory works through repetition and proximity.
OBTF respects that.

OBTF is especially useful if you:

• prefer plain text over apps
• think in long arcs instead of daily goals
• care about energy, health, and attention
• dislike rigid productivity systems
• want fewer tools, not more
• value truth over optimization

If you’re looking for a task manager, habit tracker, or productivity app, this is not it.

OBTF works in:

• .txt
• .md

Markdown is recommended but optional.

Entries are chronological and date-based.

Example:

## 2026-01-16
- Walked by the water
- Paid electrician
- Felt unusually clear in the afternoon #clarity

That’s enough structure.

Tags in OBTF are lenses, not categories.

Most entries are untagged. Tags are applied only when something rises above the noise.

Used sparingly.

• #signal
• #pattern
• #shift
• #warning
• #clarity

These mark moments worth revisiting later.

Used when creative potential appears.

• #essay-seed
• #book-seed
• #course-seed
• #story-seed

This allows ideas to surface organically without forcing output.

These describe operating conditions, not moods.

• #low-energy
• #clear
• #overstimulated
• #rested
• #fragile

Over time, these reveal correlations between health, environment, and work.

• routine chores
• obvious logistics
• most media consumption

Chronology already handles those. Tags exist only to lift meaning out of time.

At the end of a week, you may add:

## Weekly Signals
- Body:
- Mind:
- Work:

Three lines. No analysis.

This turns the journal from a record into a pattern detector.

OBTF works anywhere you can edit text:

• Obsidian
• VS Code
• iA Writer
• Vim / Neovim
• Any plain-text editor

Search is the primary interface.

• Not a productivity system
• Not a task manager
• Not a database
• Not a public journal

OBTF is a private thinking instrument.

This repository is shared for inspiration and adaptation, not standardization.

Useful contributions include:

• workflow ideas
• tag philosophy refinements
• lightweight scripts
• documentation improvements

Feature bloat will be rejected.

Shared openly for reference and remixing. The journal content itself is personal and not intended for reuse.

Use the idea. Build your own file.