I have tried some similar things. I like your approach and write-up a lot! You asked about tools. Well, from the "when you have a hammer" department.. you coul

I have tried some similar things. I like your approach and write-up a lot! You asked about tools. Well, from the "when you have a hammer" department.. you could use plain text accounting tools for some quick reporting wins. Some examples: If you have a.dat: 2020-05-28 18:41 Eat Pizza 2020-05-29 09:00 Slept with the window open 2020-05-29 09:00 Headaches This is close enough to hledger's timedot format to do some reporting. Each line is interpreted as an empty transaction, which you could query by date or description: $ hledger -f timedot:a.dat print 2020-05-28 * 18:41 Eat Pizza 2020-05-29 * 09:00 Slept with the window open 2020-05-29 * 09:00 Headaches $ hledger -f timedot:a.dat print date:2020/5/28 2020-05-28 * 18:41 Eat Pizza $ hledger -f timedot:a.dat print desc:eat 2020-05-28 * 18:41 Eat Pizza You could transform your data to a plain text accounting format, with quantities. Eg, make it TSV: $ perl -pe '$c=0; $c++ while $c < 2 && s/ /\t/' a.dat > c.tsv $ cat c.tsv 2020-05-28 18:41 Eat Pizza 2020-05-29 09:00 Slept with the window open 2020-05-29 09:00 Headaches and use hledger CSV conversion rules to customise and enrich it: $ cat c.tsv.rules fields date, time, description # save the time as a tag comment time:%time # count each item as one "event" by default account1 (events) amount1 1 # special cases if pizza account1 (food) amount1 200 cal Now you have a (single entry) accounting journal: $ hledger -f c.tsv print 2020-05-28 Eat Pizza ; time:18:41 (food) 200 cal 2020-05-29 Slept with the window open ; time:09:00 (events) 1 2020-05-29 Headaches ; time:09:00 (events) 1 Allowing quantity reports: $ hledger -f c.tsv balance -MATS cur:cal Balance changes in 2020-05: || May Total Average ======++=========================== food || 200 cal 200 cal 200 cal ------++--------------------------- || 200 cal 200 cal 200 cal $ hledger -f c.tsv activity -D desc:headache 2020-05-28 2020-05-29 * $ hledger-bar -v -f c.tsv cur:cal 2020-05 200 ++ $ hledger-ui --all -f c.tsv # explore with a TUI More at https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/examples/self-tracking https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/examples...