I've found keeping a software-engineering logbook very useful at work.
Recommend the vim-wiki plugin for this https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki; in any vim-window the logbook for today is accessible via [leader-W-leader-W].
or maybe http://orgmode.org/ if you are using emacs. I do not know how awesome orgmode was, and I was missing it. plus you can export it even to latex if you wanna track your research and write your thesis.
Recommend the vim-wiki plugin for this https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki; in any vim-window the logbook for today is accessible via [leader-W-leader-W].