# Keep a work journal

Canonical: https://godspeedmissioncontrol.com/guide/journal

## Start a task

Start a message with `journal`, `j:`, `log:` or `Tagebuch`. For dictation, `track journal` avoids speech recognition hearing "log" as "look". Other "track" messages go to your [trackers](/guide/trackers).

```text
Journal: starting the invoice, done means sent and filed
```

It saves your words first and replies "Saved." If you leave out what done means, it asks once: "What does done look like?"

## Finish a task

```text
Journal: invoice done, sent it
```

It compares what you said with what done means:

- All there: "Saved. All of it:" and the items.
- Something missing: "You said done includes filed. That's not in what you just said. Did it happen?"

Answer `yes` and that item counts. Answer `no` and it asks nothing more. If it happens later, say "Journal: the invoice is filed now".

## Ask about your time

- `What did I do today?`
- `where did my week go?`
- `What was on my mind this week?`
- `what did I say about the invoice?`

A task's clock runs while it is the last thing you wrote about. Four hours without an entry stop it, and the answer then says "at least".

## Change how it answers

- `just save it, no comments`: it only says "Saved."
- `check it when I finish`: the usual way.
- `ask me something to reflect`: one short question after a finish.
- `shorter` or `a bit more`
- `don't ask what done means`
- `I don't want to say journal first`: a message that plainly moves from one task to the next counts too.

## Check-ins and the evening list

The journal can write to you first, once you switch it on. Ask in the chat:

- "check in after four hours": after a task has run that long with no entry, it asks once how it is going.
- "evening list at seven": at 19:00 it lists the tasks still open and what a finish left out.
- "a weekly summary on Sundays": where your week went.
- "no check-ins", "no evening list": switches one off again.

They arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled time, from the machine running your routines: in Telegram if connected, otherwise **Notes**, **From your routines**. Quiet hours: 21:00 to 08:00 unless you change them. **Settings**, **Routines** calls them **Journal check-ins**.

## What it never does

- Judge, praise or give advice you did not ask for.
- Invent a done item, a time or a task.

## Where entries are kept

Entries are files under `routines/journal/entries/` in your mission control folder, in your own words. A [backup](/guide/back-up) includes them.

Without the chat: in **Settings**, section **Your journal**, type a line and press **Save in my journal**.

## Pause the journal

First, [update Godspeed Mission Control](/guide/update).

In **Settings**, section **Your journal**, press **Pause journal capture**. This stops new entries from the chat and journal forms, and stops check-ins. Existing entries stay available.

Press **Enable journal capture** to start saving entries again.