This is incredibly close to what I currently do, except I journal by the day and some of the markers are different (I use `-,.=*[` to give meaning to each item)

This is incredibly close to what I currently do, except I journal by the day and some of the markers are different (I use `-,.=*[` to give meaning to each item) and items are organized hierarchically via indents. I used to use vimwiki, then neorg, until finally realizing rolling my own simpler solution wouldn't be very hard. The syntax highlights help significantly, and linking is done via just vim's `gf`. I added a couple custom commands to auto open / generate diary entries and it became a super smooth note-taking experience for me.