[HN Gopher] How I finally get daily journaling done with a workf...
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How I finally get daily journaling done with a workflow on my
iPhone
Author : isaacfrond
Score : 147 points
Date : 2022-06-09 08:18 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (michael.team)
(TXT) w3m dump (michael.team)
| zaplin wrote:
| An interesting twist about the gratitude practice:
|
| It turns out that it does not work they way we think it works. At
| least that's what the scientists say. To get the desired results
| the practice needs to be inverted.
|
| "The key elements of highly effective gratitude practices are
| [...] the essential need for story (narrative), receiving or
| perceiving gratitude rather than giving it, and the role that
| theory of mind plays in this context" [ _]
|
| [_] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVjfFN89qvQ
| hackernewds wrote:
| This is one of the most authoritative and influential 90m talk
| on this matter. It has been transformational
| npunt wrote:
| I've discovered so much about myself journaling. Journaling
| allows me to _listen_ to myself in a way I cannot otherwise do;
| it separates me from my thoughts & feelings, which gives me the
| perspective I need to see myself a different way. I can't
| reliably get this meditating the way I can journaling.
|
| If you're a curious person, the habit of journaling is a
| fantastic engine to drive your curiosity inward, and is often
| quite fun and something to look forward to. It's also a great way
| to get better as a writer - writing 500+ words a day, and really
| thinking about the words being written, over a long period of
| time really adds up. I'm so much faster at writing than I was
| when I started.
| dSebastien wrote:
| Journaling is key to my productivity and creativity. I think that
| many people associate the activity only with writing about their
| feelings and personal stories. It's that, but also so much more.
| My journal is central to my days. It's where I keep track of what
| I've done, what I've discovered, the challenges I've faced, my
| ideas for the future, etc.
|
| I've blogged about this here: -
| https://dsebastien.net/blog/2021-10-07-periodic-journaling-p... -
| https://dsebastien.net/blog/2021-10-07-periodic-journaling-p...
| rg111 wrote:
| Journaling is definitely one of the things where you have to
| figure your own way out.
|
| I tried a lot of things. Markdown based apps (Obsidian), Diary
| apps (Diarium), and so on.
|
| What worked finally was pen and paper. Not any pen. Bought a
| bunch of good fountain pens (Lamy, Pilot, Parker), and bought a
| nice refillable leatherbound journal.
|
| And I journal every night before my meditation session before
| going to bed.
|
| I do not plan to read them or store them. I just write my heart
| out. I use writing as a tool of thinking, and dumping my
| thoughts. The stuff that have some particular qualities, evolve
| into actions (anywhere from visiting a friend or a travel trip to
| learning something new), blogs, or projects.
|
| I do not plan to do OCR or any kind of special storage.
|
| I hated digital journaling because I had to pick up the phone or
| sit somewhere to use the laptop/desktop. Also a quick figure
| would require me to at least open a tool, and at most made me
| connect my graphics tablet. Pen and paper just removed the
| friction. Now I just journal in bed sitting or half-lying under a
| lamp with my wifi turned off.
|
| Pen and paper is my ideal workflow, and I reached here after
| _months_ of trial-and-error.
| kirso wrote:
| Love it. The only issue I had with this approach is aggregating
| notebooks but not enough storage (due to constant travel) to
| keep doing this without having a separate bag just for it.
|
| Its very contextual but I truly believe this is the best way!
| bambax wrote:
| I built myself a system that sends me an email every day, and
| all I have to do is respond to that email; the answers get
| stored in an SQLite database, which is backed up on Dropbox.
|
| So, opposite to you, my system lets me revisit and read my
| previous thoughts, something I do enjoy. It's also a great
| tracking system that tells me when this or that event happened.
|
| But, like you, it's not dependent on any specific tool. I can
| lose my phone and all my devices, as long as I can receive and
| send email, it'll work.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| >Pen and paper is my ideal workflow, and I reached here after
| months of trial-and-error.
|
| I finally stopped yak-shaving my writing workflow when I built
| a web app with a single text field and no editing capabilities,
| just pushing letters. It feels "dummer" than a piece of paper,
| but works for me. 2.5 years of almost daily writing (700 words
| on avg) so far. I practice calligraphy, but my regular hand
| writing is terrible. I used to hoard piles of paper with
| doodles and notes, and I'd always felt bad about throwing them
| out. I do like that the list of notes keeps getting longer
| every day although, but rarely re-read them. Otherwise I'd just
| use a pen.
| hkc wrote:
| I think Diarium [1] is the most underrated journaling app. I have
| been using it for around a while and can definitely recommend it.
| Also, it is one time pay (for each platform though which I think
| is still better than an overpriced subscription)
|
| [1] https://timopartl.com/#diarium
| political12345 wrote:
| He fooled me until
|
| "This also aligns perfectly with my roman-catholic faith as Jesus
| Christ ..."
|
| lol
| fsiefken wrote:
| hi pol1-5, I don't understand what made you feel this way.
| Gratitude practice is universally human, in catholic culture
| Christ is the human ideal and spiritual teacher (apart from
| divine). You may disagree with the latter personally or think
| people who are catholic - like me as well - are not to be taken
| seriously. Fides et Ratio can go hand in hand (see the
| encyclical or Contact by Carl Sagan).
| rpastuszak wrote:
| Seems like a good place to mention the writing web-app I made a
| few years back: https://write.sonnet.io
|
| I've been using it almost daily for 2.5 years, and I've been
| quite happy with it so far.
|
| I'm terrible at sticking to habits, but since the tool is so
| limited and de facto aimed at inducing the flow state, eventually
| it gets really hard not to end up with 700-800 words after just a
| few minutes.
|
| Sometimes this ends up being word soup full of typos, but that's
| ok since I use it mostly as a "mental shower": I look at the past
| day and try to understand my reactions better, gain perspective,
| or just vent. For me, it's about staying focused and writing,
| instead of over-analysing.
|
| The fun part is that now I can go to almost any date in the past
| couple of years, and look at the mental/emotional snapshot from
| that time.
|
| Some context: https://sonnet.io/posts/ulysses/
| j1elo wrote:
| The UI and UX of this is superb. Congrats for the nice taste!
|
| I enjoy reading my writings from years ago... Are the notes
| stored somewhere and are they available for re-reading later?
| Is it possible to download or sync with external storage? I'm
| on mobile so the site encouraged me to come back later on
| desktop.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| What I've been doing for a while now is doing daily voice or
| video logs rather than written logs. I find it removes any
| barrier to journaling.
|
| The app I use called Day One will show you previous entries "on
| this day" from previous years and it can be fun to look/listen
| back on.
| mettamage wrote:
| Thanks DINKLEBERG! (What show was that again?)
|
| Thanks for the app tip, you removed my barrier to immediately
| try it today. And I can skip the lengthy blog post too!
| dinkleberg wrote:
| Haha thank YOU for the message. That makes me happy to know
| someone recognized the name. It was from the TV show The
| Fairly OddParents.
|
| And I've been loving the voice/video logs. It's so much
| easier to just talk to my future self for 5-10 mins rather
| than writing it all down.
| wnolens wrote:
| I like to talk things out with the Google Recorder app on my
| Pixel phone.
|
| The app automatically (and for free) transcribes as you go, so
| you also have a readable and searchable version of your entry.
|
| It's probably my favorite phone app after maps.
| gennarro wrote:
| I'm surprised by all the app and website talk here. I've always
| associated my journaling with quiet reflection, which means no
| phones or computers. That is, no notifications or requests for
| updates, or other distractions so I've never considered anything
| but pen and paper. I have one of these quite nice notebooks [0],
| that I keep handy morning and night for my journal activity. Even
| with quiet mode my phone is too distracting and my computer is
| too closely associated with work.
|
| [0] https://unsharpen.com/leuchtturm1917-notebook-sizes/
| wenc wrote:
| Journaling is actually a great way of promoting mental and
| emotional health.
|
| I don't journal daily because I don't have enough to say every
| day, but I do something similar called "writing therapy",
| especially when I'm feeling emotionally stuck. I find bad
| emotions to only be bothersome because they are inside and
| unprocessed. Externalizing emotions onto a physical page (not
| digital!) helps me process them. The physical act of subsequently
| crumpling the piece of paper and throwing it out is catharsis.
| The act itself somehow tells my brain not to hold on to certain
| feelings -- I've done the work to process them and I can now let
| them go.
|
| I do this when I'm experiencing minor issues that don't rise to
| the level of needing to talk to a $150/hr therapist. Some people
| prefer talking things out, but I prefer writing.
|
| "So what do therapy, journaling, and meditation all have in
| common?
|
| All three are techniques to help us convert what is usually the
| subject of our consciousness into the object of our
| consciousness.
|
| That's it." [1]
|
| [1] https://markmanson.net/how-to-get-better
| nindalf wrote:
| When my friends ask why I pay for my journaling software
| instead of a free option, I tell them $22 a year is a great
| price for my primary therapist.
|
| I found I wasn't being completely open and honest when I was
| journaling on pen and paper because I was subconsciously
| concerned someone else would read it. A password protected
| journal works better for me.
| dominotw wrote:
| curious, whats the software called.
| maxxam wrote:
| Maybe https://dayoneapp.com/ which is popular on Apple
| platforms.
| nindalf wrote:
| DayOne. OP mentions it as well.
|
| I like it because it's password protected and cross
| platform. It doesn't hurt that I can add pictures in for
| trip reports.
| prox wrote:
| I can really recommend the book "If you want to write" by B.
| Ueland.
|
| It's a lovely ode to writing and ofcourse goes into the subject
| of the title.
| sdze wrote:
| Forgetting is as good as journaling.
| wenc wrote:
| Ah, if only my brain would let me selectively forget!
|
| Journaling is actually a way to forget as long as one throws
| out what one writes and never revisit (which I never do). It
| works like an accelerated Ebbinghaus curve.
|
| That said, I suspect forgetful people are often less
| emotionally burdened.
|
| Similar to how heavy sleepers tend not to be grumpy people
| because nothing prevents them from having a good night's
| sleep.
| karencarits wrote:
| And, although it may be obvious, journaling is not a general
| miracle cure;there are many stories of suicide where a diary
| has been left, only to show to those left how someone has been
| stuck in a spiral of desperation, self-hatred and anxiety for a
| long time
| hooande wrote:
| > I don't journal daily because I don't have enough to say
| every day
|
| Just recount what happened I the last 24 hours. Had to be
| something even if you just worked and watched netflix. ie, what
| specifically did you do at work, how could you have done it
| better, etc
|
| I journal off and on, not currently doing it. But I found it to
| be a great tool for introspection and improvement. I would
| think in depth about technical problems, social interactions,
| various distractions and impediments to productivity. It's a
| great tool if you have the time. but you have to _make_
| yourself do it, every day
| rpastuszak wrote:
| > Journaling is actually a great way of promoting mental and
| emotional health.
|
| Can't agree more. I built myself a simple writing app[1] a
| couple of years back, purely because I wanted to have a place
| to slow down, somewhere I could just pour my emotions/thoughts
| into, without self-editing. I posted a bit more about in the
| root thread. If you give the app a shot, let me know. I think
| you might like it.
|
| > "So what do therapy, journaling, and meditation all have in
| common? [...]
|
| I'd add any unconstrained (and ideally "childish") form of art
| to the list. I write in the morning then doodle just before
| going to bed [2]. I generally struggle with sticking to new
| habits but relying on this form of mental hygiene, plus therapy
| made a huge improvement in my quality of life.
|
| [1] https://write.sonnet.io and
| https://sonnet.io/posts/ulysses/ [2] https://potato.horse
| vishnumohandas wrote:
| write.sonnet.io is beautiful, you're quite the artist :)
| liquidf0x wrote:
| going to set this as my homepage and use it daily. thank you.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| Glad to hear that, good luck!
| ham-sandwich wrote:
| JimBlackwood wrote:
| Breathing, eating, drinking and sleeping are also hallmarks of
| mass shooters and incels. I even hear they cloth themselves
| frequently.
|
| In all seriousness; that is a really toxic take. I'm surprised
| to find it on HN, where I feel constructive criticism and
| thought-out comments are common.
| ham-sandwich wrote:
| krallja wrote:
| Day One includes every feature requested by the author, including
| templates, scheduled notifications, and cross-device sync. I
| gladly pay the annual subscription. I have been journaling with
| it for almost ten years, when it was in some free app bundle.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Find a lot of people I know living what I tend to consider an
| overexamined life.
| jl6 wrote:
| There's certainly a public form of journaling that happens on
| social media that seems to start with good intentions but then
| descends into self-diagnosis.
|
| In terms of private journaling - well, it's private, so hard to
| draw any general conclusions, but I tend to think that if
| you're spending more than half an hour each day writing about
| yourself then you might have a problem.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Public journaling it seems inevitably devolves into
| glorifying the highlights and seeking attention and
| acceptance, rather than honesty. Which expectedly the media
| platforms exploit for engagement metrics.
| mpalmer wrote:
| You pass judgement pretty easily. Private journaling is not
| always "writing about yourself" in the narcissistic sense you
| seem to mean.
|
| Plenty of people feel like their thoughts and ideas are
| worthwhile but can't keep track of them without writing them
| down. Some of them even pass the 30 minute cutoff doing so.
| jl6 wrote:
| Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% behind keeping a private
| journal, even one where you just write about yourself, but
| you can have too much of a good thing, and I see 30 minutes
| a day as the reasonable limit.
| helpfulclippy wrote:
| Yes, and addressing those problems is what I seek to
| accomplish by writing to myself about them. :)
|
| Highly verbose and time consuming journaling has gotten me
| through divorce, major career changes, single parenthood,
| relocation, a new relationship and a bunch of other life
| changes. I usually journal only a few times a week, but in
| the thick of that stuff, I needed much more than a 30 minute
| window each day to check in with myself about where I was at
| and where I was trying to get to each day. Sometimes I spent
| hours. I took a year and a half away from it -- which turned
| out to be by far one of the most impulsive and reckless
| periods of my life!
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| What are the effects, in your opinion, of an overexamined life?
| spoonjim wrote:
| Anxiety, dissatisfaction, relentless comparison of oneself
| with others, etc.
| criddell wrote:
| It would be very strange if gratitude journaling would lead
| to those kinds of thoughts.
| hackernewds wrote:
| I have heard people say the unexamined life is one not as
| gratifying
| spoonjim wrote:
| There is an optimal middle ground
| petegordon wrote:
| I agree self examining requires middle ground.
|
| I made an Apple Watch App and then Shortcut[2] to record
| by voice how I spend my time and write it to my calendar.
| The goal was to make it so easy (<10 seconds) to record
| when and how I spent my time that I would record even
| every time I went to the bathroom. I did it consistently
| for a few weeks and just couldn't bring my self to
| continue, I was recording only ~40-50 activities per day
| and I still felt burden by such detailed self
| examination. What did I learn? That I was playing a lot
| of Xbox with my son and too much alone. That the free
| form text I was recording needed categorization and
| keyword analysis to even hope of being useful and that I
| really love spontaneity and aimless wandering, curiosity,
| and learning--but ultimately what a weight it is to do
| such detailed analysis of one's own self. I do still some
| times have dreams of doing something similar with all of
| my Google data[1] at some point maybe bringing both ideas
| (recording how I spend every minute and full Google
| download) together for analysis and self awareness.
|
| [1] https://takeout.google.com/ [2] https://www.icloud.co
| m/shortcuts/66271d52e6174d1a8b61c48e700...
| longrod wrote:
| I think journaling can be a great funnel to collect everything of
| interest during your day. Like anything general a lot of it is
| just noise but the few gems inside can really be worth the
| effort.
| DantesKite wrote:
| I always compare journaling to trying to solve a math problem
| with paper and pen. Of course you can do math problems in your
| head, but it's so much easier when you can express thoughts as
| symbols.
|
| But the problems you're trying to solve aren't mathematical.
| They're emotional and perhaps even spiritual ones; petty ones and
| unexamined ones.
|
| It's a great tool more people should use, not out of obligation,
| but because once you become aware of it, you'll automatically
| want to.
| somat wrote:
| To me it is the act of turning abstract thought into concrete
| thought.
|
| For this reason there is nothing wrong with talking to your
| self. you are taking thoughts which are always a bit fuzzy and
| turning them into solid actionable items. Writing things down
| is even better at this. But the best is teaching someone else.
| stoicjumbotron wrote:
| I've started journaling daily myself and just pouring out my
| thoughts somewhere makes me feel really really good. It doesn't
| matter what those thoughts/feelings are: love, hatred, sadness,
| gratitude, jealousy, ambition, anything really. Just writing
| stuff down made the difference for me.
| j1elo wrote:
| There is this thing called https://750words.com/ which has
| existed since seemingly forever by today's standards.
|
| It is a simple and neat way to introduce the habit of writing 3
| pages of text a day.
| rudolfwinestock wrote:
| The author uses a text file in a Dropbox account. That's one way.
| There's another way that's just as future-proof. The idea was
| described on Lobsters.
|
| https://lobste.rs/s/utdgs1/what_is_good_journaling_desktop#c...
|
| Make an email account which only you know about. Send yourself
| mail to that account. Each mail is a journal entry. Any email
| client (desktop or mobile) becomes your journal editor. Mails are
| automatically time-stamped and can feature rich text and all of
| the attachments supported by modern email providers.
|
| You can switch all of your mail to another email provider thanks
| to facilities built into email since the 1970s.
| sircastor wrote:
| I really like Day One for journaling. It's a very clean
| experience though I admit I don't journal everyday.
|
| I have bristled against the idea of subscribing to it as an app.
| I think It's a great app, and I want to support the author, but
| subscription to apps just rubs me the wrong way. So I live in the
| free mode.
|
| I've tried a few alternatives that are free (including markdown
| and plain text), but always come back to it because it's so
| comfortable.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Yes, Day One is great.
|
| I push about 30k-50k words of text journaling into it per year,
| for about 6 or 7 years now, and it handles it seamlessly while
| keeping everything organized.
|
| The most important feature to me is that it feels lightweight
| and lagless to open the app and get to typing.
|
| My impression is that Day One has a ton of features for people
| who want multimedia entries, or sharing, or all the other
| bullet points that keep it from getting squeezed out by
| competitors, but it seems to keep those out of the hot path so
| that my own niche experience is never ruined by bloat.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| Why write on the phone when routinely journalling before and
| after bed? I always feel stifled by typing speed on a touch
| keyboard; in this case especially, it seems minimizing the
| friction of expressing a spontaneous thought would take priority.
| I don't see mention of dictation, unless it's a given with the
| app. Or is that particular workflow feature so beneficial as to
| offset this?
| swatcoder wrote:
| It doesn't take that much practice to get typing speed/comfort
| up to the speed of organized, phrased thoughts.
|
| A lot of people have that already from communicating on their
| phones a lot, or (for the young ones) growing up on touch
| screens, but even if you just dive into journaling like the OP,
| you'd probably get their soon enough.
|
| And once you're there, dictation can't hold a candle. I'll type
| a paragraph in the time it takes for some dictation assistant
| to transcribe a sentence, with fewer mistakes, more precision,
| and more linguistic creativity.
| sircastor wrote:
| > I always feel stifled by typing speed on a touch keyboard
|
| My typing speed on a laptop keyboard was the thing that finally
| made journaling work for me. I could never write fast enough by
| hand to capture my thoughts.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Have you tried swipe typing?
| sircastor wrote:
| I have. It's actually my primary input method for my phone.
| It's certainly fast, but I'm still better with a physical
| two-handed keyboard.
| tunatrout wrote:
| My spouse stopped journalling when we started dating. A partner
| can be the most effective way to work through emotions and ideas.
| codegangsta wrote:
| I've been journaling daily for the past few years and it's been
| really fun to tick through each day around a year previous to
| observe my current state. Most of it seems trite or meaningless,
| but collated it feels like a meaningful picture of who I was back
| then -- what my struggles were and how they split between the
| distant and close.
|
| TLDR; I highly recommend journaling daily. It forces you to slow
| down and plug into feelings which is automatically a better start
| to your day than usual
| narrator wrote:
| A practice I do that's related to this is a year end wrapup. I
| write it at the beginning of January where I take my whole year
| and write about what significant things happened each month and
| then the major themes of the year and a reflection on it at the
| end.
| graylien wrote:
| I started doing this, but for blogging
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