At first when I read this I thought why not use Vimwiki or org-mode or taskwarrior, etc... but actually I really like these simple aliases.

I use the same approach for a super simple "pomodoro" timer:

  alias pomo='echo "Starting timer for 25 minutes"; sleep 1500 && zenity --info --text "Pomodoro break; 5 minutes"; sleep 300 && zenity --info --text "Pomodoro: back to work"'

Notably, this doesn't add the date at a reliable place in the file. Instead, it adds the date at the last place your cursor was when you had the file open last.

I think adding a command to go to the next line would be the sweet spot

this doesnt seem to work in the same way for me, it doesnt print a timestamp to the file

oh thats smooth