Welcome to Hier

What is Hier?

Hier is an easy way to track what you've done over time.
It allows you to write free-form notes and provides a simple interface for aggregating these notes per timespan, so you always have access to relevant summaries of your activities.

Why did you start Hier?

Hier started as a desktop app I wrote for myself when I started my first industry job. I wanted a way to keep a record of what I was accomplishing, both for my own personal growth and in case it became useful during evaluations. I enjoyed using it so much that I decided to share it with others. Unfortunately, I had written it quickly as a command-line tool. It was MacOS specific and didn’t display information as intuitively as I would have liked. So I rewrote everything as a webapp to make things more user-friendly and accessible.

What's unique about Hier?

The main feature I needed (and couldn't find) when I decided to write the original desktop program was an easy way to aggregate accomplishments over time.
A year from now, I'm probably not going to care about exactly what I got done on 8/4/19. But I might care what I finished over August. Hier lets you quickly build high-level representations of what you've accomplished to date, by providing a simple interface for note-taking while simultaneously displaying lower-level notes from the timespan. For example, when writing a summary of the month of August, Hier shows you what you did each week in August.
Conversely, if a scenario calls for me determining exactly what date something happened, that information is only a few clicks away, even years later.
TL;DR: Hier is the only (hier)archically-organized and timespan-based note taking app.

What should I use Hier for?

Whatever you like! Because each timespan gives you a blank markdown form, you can use Hier for all sorts of different things. Popular use cases include:

• the original use case: track accomplishments at work
• personal projects (I used it while building this site, for example)
• a mood tracker
• a dream journal
  

Why not use todo lists?

By all means, use a todo list. I used Gitlab for this project. We have JIRA at work. These are great tools for helping to stay organized.
But, I find that todo lists have a couple serious shortcomings, which I'll fully address in another post. Hier's main advantage over a todo list (besides its hierarchical structure) is that you are logging what was actually done, as opposed to what you wanted to do or thought you needed to do when you wrote your todo list. This makes it more useful for long term record keeping.

Have feedback or suggestions?

So many task trackers differentiate themselves by offering every feature imaginable. We want Hier to be immediately intuitive, so we move carefully on new features. But if you have a suggestion for a feature, or just want to tell us what you think about the app, we'd love to hear it! Comment below, or submit feedback through the app.