I've been enjoying a featherweight alternative to log levels, made possible by org-mode. Try this the next time you write a little throwaway command-line utility script: Step 1: Add asterisks to the front of your printf traces. Step 2: Tee your STDOUT / STDERR to a file named log.org Step 3: Open the log file in org-mode. Step 4: Rejoice! Optional: You can tail the logfile with M-x auto-revert-mode. This illustration uses a Github scraper as an example: https://github.com/mengwong/git-scrape https://twitter.com/mengwong/status/1274236595109982208 This is no substitute for real structured logging, of course :) That is all.