Trades & contractors
Job pads become site diaries, timesheets and invoice drafts — without the evening admin.
Records of work, from the notes you already write
From notebook
to record — automatically.
Keep writing by hand. Diary of Work reads your notes and forms them into structured, searchable records — a living diary of everything you've done, ready to export as timesheets, invoices, site diaries and reports.
No new habit to learn. Snap a photo of the page — that's it.
Built for people who work away from a keyboard —
- trades & contractors
- field engineers
- freelancers
- researchers
- care workers
- makers & studios
The problem
Hand-writing is fast. Paper is a dead end.
A notebook is the quickest way to capture work in the moment — on a roof, at a bench, on a ward, on the road. But once it's on paper it's stuck there.
Can't be searched
"When did I last service that unit?" means flicking through pages.
Easy to lose
Smudged, rained on, or left in the van. One notebook, one copy.
Never written up
Turning notes into timesheets and invoices means re-typing. So it doesn't happen.
No proof
A paper note has no reliable timestamp and no audit trail when it matters.
How it works
Four steps. You only do the first one.
-
1
Capture
Snap a photo of your notebook page — or write on a tablet, or forward a scan. Batch and multi-page welcome.
-
2
Digitise
Handwriting recognition reads the page — any language, messy handwriting included.
-
3
Form a record
It understands the note and fills the fields: date, project, tasks, hours, materials, people, status.
-
4
Keep & use
Every record lands in your Diary — searchable, provable, and ready to export as the document you need.
The key move: this isn't just OCR. OCR gives you text. Diary of Work gives you a record — the same note understood as billable hours, a job done, a part fitted, a visit made.
Features
Everything between the page and the paperwork.
Capture
- Photo capture, multi-page & batch
- Write directly on tablet / stylus
- Offline capture, sync later
- Email or forward a scan in
Understand
- Multi-language handwriting recognition
- Record forming: dates, hours, materials, people, amounts
- Learns your shorthand & recurring clients
- Every field editable
Organise
- The Diary — a filterable timeline
- Projects, clients, sites & assets
- Full-text search across everything
- Tags & saved views
Use & trust
- Export: timesheets, invoices, site diaries, reports
- Share a read-only record or diary
- Every record links to the original page
- Timestamps & immutable change history
Who it's for
If the real work happens away from a desk, this is for you.
Field engineers
Every call-out note becomes searchable service history, per asset and per site.
Freelancers & consultants
Scribbled hours become clean, defensible time logs that turn straight into invoices.
Researchers & labs
Lab notebooks become a structured, timestamped, exportable record of every experiment.
Care & healthcare
Visit notes become consistent records — less admin at the end of a long shift.
Makers & studios
Studio journals become a searchable diary of projects, materials and decisions.
Exports
One note, whatever document you need.
A record isn't the end — it's the source. Turn a week of notes into the thing someone's actually asking you for.
PDF site diary
CSV / PDF timesheet
Invoice draft
Project report
Client share link
Weekly roll-up
FAQ
Questions worth asking.
Do I have to change how I take notes?
No — that's the whole point. Keep your notebook, your shorthand, your handwriting. You add one step: photograph the page. Everything else happens for you.
Will it read my messy handwriting?
That's what it's built for. Recognition handles messy, cursive and mixed handwriting across languages, and it learns your particular shorthand and abbreviations over time. Anything it's unsure of is flagged so you can confirm it in a tap.
What if it gets a field wrong?
Every formed record is fully editable, and each one stays linked to the original photo of the page — so a record is always traceable back to exactly what you wrote.
Can I trust the records for billing or compliance?
Records carry a reliable capture timestamp and an immutable change history, so you can show when something was captured and how it changed. That makes them useful for billing disputes, handovers and regulated trades.
Who owns my notes and data?
You do. Your notes are private by default. You can export everything or delete it at any time.
Does it work offline?
Yes. Capture on site with no signal; your pages queue and digitise as soon as you're back online.
Turn your notebook into a record of work.
Diary of Work is in the making. Leave your email and we'll tell you the moment it's ready to try.
A concept preview. No spam, no sharing your address — just one email when there's something to show.