This blog has served as a journal of sorts for me...and I'm realizing that more and more as I've been going through the process of saving off old posts and finding past happenings that I had forgotten about.
A couple years ago I tried to start a written journal, after reading about the wonders of the Bullet Journal. You can google it if you're curious, but the Bullet Journal tends to be more focused on organizing tasks and to-do's than on recording memories - in other words it's more like a productivity tool (see picture in comments). I definitely do need help with procrastination (even on simple to-do's) but the bullet journal just didn't work for me. Too much handwriting, re-entering things are already in other places like my google calendar. Those with an artistic bent might find it entertaining to jazz up their bullet journal by using different colored inks and decorating it with washi tape, but it wasn't enough to keep me engaged.
Recently iPhone added a Journal app to its library of free apps; I've been playing around with it a bit. Especially nice, I can add photos to the journal entry for a day. Another nice thing is that my phone will prompt me to do an entry after it notices, for example, that I visited the Arboretum. I don't do an entry every day, and in fact after recording stuff for a couple of months I got out of the habit - I checked this morning and my last entry was mid-May. So I'll be doing a little bit of catch-up now.
The one downside that I can see is that the app is ONLY available on the iPhone - ideally it would also be available on my Mac and iPad and the three versions would sync up. It's not great to try to do a longer entry typing on your phone. I looked up in Apple support and didn't see any concrete plans to add it to those other two kinds of devices, although someone mentioned that they did notice the Journal icon on a Mac in one of the online Apple Events.
Someone else in that thread mentioned DayOne as a good alternative that DOES sync between devices, so I downloaded it to give it a look. The interface seems less friendly (on my Mac anyway) and it wouldn't let me add more than one photo to an entry...I just kept getting a pop-up encouraging me to try Premium. Premium is $35 a year - it's not like I can't afford that. But another obstacle is that there isn't any easy way to import entries from the iPhone journal app into DayOne. So I'd either have to re-enter everything I've put in over the past few months, or accept that I have a few months off in a different app. I'm guessing that I'll stick with iPhone Journal for now and hope that it gets added to Mac and iPad.
I think it will be a good adjunct to this blog, now that photos are no longer easy. And I'll be recording things that aren't necessarily blog worthy, but are still worth looking back on.
Do you keep any kind of a journal outside of your blog habit? How about productivity tools? (I still need help with that).
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I journal when traveling. Just for me, I do not post anything. I have a stack of them in my office. Yes, they are hard copy, not electronic. I just got back from the far east and actually did not write as much as I thought I would.
I keep thinking I should keep a travel journal but somehow it hasn't transpired. Maybe if I can get consistent about making entries in the Journal app, that habit will carry over to traveling.
@smartasswoman I have gotten to the place where I keep notes during the day to remind me. I usually write in the evenings when traveling. Many of the statements in my journal are about stupid things. I do make notes about people I find annoying. Do you think we get less tolerant as we get older?
@Notaname99 Hm, good question. I think I've always been kind of intolerant of annoying people. And unfortunately, they do seem to be the more memorable part of travel. I do group travel as you might recall, and it's the annoying travel mates that stick in my mind...
I've used ColorNote on my phone and accumulated over 2,000 files over five or six years. There's a lotta gold in there. Unfortunately, no one will ever find it — including me.😶
I've also tried Notes and Notepad. The issue has always been syncing them across all my devices; none are 100% effective. In my case, I'm fine with that. Electronic clutter is getting worse than paper clutter ever was, and it's rather time-consuming, even with things like auto-sync to cloud storage.
I'll say one thing. I should have labelled all my pictures with more thought.
I hear you on the pictures. I really wish Apple had the feature of being able to edit a picture to add notes to it. It would especially come in handy during travel - just sit down at the end of the day and jot a few notes on your photos.
Apple Notes has been pretty reliable for me, in terms of syncing between devices.
I've never heard of ColorNote, will have to check it out.
@smartasswoman
Don't bother; it doesn't support Apple.
I have that picture label feature. But with digital, I might have taken five similar shots. I didn't have the time to label all of them. I thought DATE was good enough. 😲
@smartasswoman
Skimming some of your comments made me realize that your procrastination skills rival those of my own. Hence, the lists I keep...
... neglecting to update faithfully.
I consider my day to have been highly productive if I get around to doing the laundry 😂
This blog is the only form of journal that I keep. I have successfully copied this blog to an archive I created on blogger. That took some time. Whew!
I keep track of important days in my calendar.
I put away folded laundry today, does that count? 😂
Oh yeah, I also weeded the garden a bit.
It's good that you copied off your content. I used to have a blog on my space and I lost all of my content there when I wasn't paying attention to the gradual demise of the site.
@smartasswoman
Any time you manage to do any housework counts as productive 😂
I like how I can create separate blogs under one account and set it to private. 🙂
Hm, not able to add the bullet journal picture. Maybe they've already blocked off the workaround of putting pictures in comments.
@YourSassyPussy looks like Hippiechick was able to do it, so maybe it was just a glitch. Or maybe she’s under the 500 limit…
@ULikeOral1971 I’m sure that if it were only up to him, things would loosen up. But my understanding is that there are outside factors that are the reason for the photo limitations. So I’m not holding my breath. It would be nice if the review process for posts and comments got fixed though!
@YourSassyPussy Great question! I'm going to have to try that sometime.
@hippiechick1967 I'm pretty sure it's for all time, BUT photos are missing from almost all of the posts that are more than four or five years old...
Just here to say a very quick hello Smarty. Hope you are well.
Hope you heard the good news that Andrew is back in charge of the site....and now I'm off to read your post that just showed up in my alerts.
@smartasswoman Ha ha, sorry there wasn't much to read! But yes, I had heard Andrew is back, and Spunky seems to think that will make things better. I will have to come by more often just to find out!
@hotdreamer1000 that would be great. 😊
I have attempted to do a personal journal several times in the past few decades but have never been able to maintain it for long. I do not use any productivity tools either. The closest I ever got to doing a journal was when I was having the affair with Leda ten plus years ago. The first year we wrote love letter emails for planning, conversation and included some scorching hot fantasies. I have them all saved on my mail site and I printed out all 457 we traded back and forth for the year and a half or so we were seeing each other. Have never been such a writer before or since.
A frequent correspondence can definitely be a form of diary! I emailed daily for several years with a past FWB (we've now reduced to once every week or two). And I have saved all of those emails; I'm sure I could mine them for memories...
I have done some journaling off and on over the years...mostly in really generic composition books (the kind you can buy for like a buck). I was doing some reflections last year as I struggled with the empty-ish nest stuff (still working on it, but found a podcast that had a daily challenge to reflect on different aspects of that). Once I completed that "challenge", I found some other prompts that were helpful at times for mental health...productivity, dream/goal setting, gratitude, reflection, etc. Very briefly I would describe a "win" (something positive from the previous 24 hours), a "task" (something I needed to absolutely complete in the next 24 hours), a "dream" (something for my bucket list), a "gratitude" (something specific in the moment I was grateful for - not just generic), a "toolbox item" (an idea for something to pull out of the toolbox when I am having a rough time and my brain isn't seeing options). Then I would usually write whatever was on my mind in general. Helps to bring some focus to my day when I do it. I need to restart doing it as I haven't felt so focused lately.
Wow, I think it would feel intimidating to me to come up with all four of those things every day. The dream, gratitude and toolbox ideas are all great prompts though, for times when you can't think what to write about.
@smartasswoman it helps me stay more present... looking for those things... and they can be really small... today's win: took care of getting new car licensed.... task: enter some expenses into my spreadsheet... gratitude: happy I work flexible enough to take part of a day off for haircut and errands and grateful for stylist I've been going to for two decades... dream: hubs and I were talking about a trip to upstate NY the other day...I should plan that.
@CL_Love You've got it down! I love it!
I don't keep a journal. I used to compile many lists of things to do but the lists always made me feel guilty because there's always things to do never mind doing some things. Since my retirement, I've largely weaned myself off lists. Freedom!
I hear you on the lists making one feel guilty. I should make a list and put on it "knit for at least an hour today" so I could have the pleasure of crossing something off!
@mufdiver69er2 Very little has been done. I need some money, maybe next year.
@mufdiver69er2 I don't do lists now. There's no point doing lists without money!
@spunkycumfun You need to get going on that swinging memoir - maybe that would pay for your renovations!
@smartasswoman I have made a start!
I don’t journal, don’t make ‘to do’ lists and don’t keep a diary. The only lists I make are grocery lists.
Birthdays, special occasions and appointments are noted on my pocket-sized calendar.
I use Notes on my Apple devices, as placeholders for articles or events I want to follow up on. Occasionally, I draft posts for my blog entries.
I'm guessing that you're the kind of person who can remember their "to-dos" in their head.
I kept a journal for years. Then I found my sister was reading it and burned them all in a fire.
I do make lists for projects and goals.
Oh my. I think I'd be pretty furious if I found out my sister was reading my journals...
I don't journal, no.
I do use the calendar feature heavily.
I use google calendar pretty heavily too - I even have a recurring reminder at 2 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays - that's when registration opens up for yoga class on the following week.
@smartasswoman I have gone as far as putting taking my meds on there. 😂
@EnigmaInitiative for sure! On my iPhone that happens to be a built-in feature in the Health app. Last summer I had a couple of occasions when I spaced out taking my meds and went into a-fib - after that I figured, OK, time to enable the meds reminders.
@smartasswoman Thank you for reminding me I need to set up my Health app.
Appointments/birthdays/events are hand written, on the paper calender, hanging on my refrigerator. Old school, but I look at my fridge waaay more often than I look at my phone. No productivity tool needed since I no longer need to be productive.
I keep photos on my laptop. A folder for each field trip. Which are then put in a folder for the month, which goes in a folder for the year. At the end of the year, I print pics (not all) and put them in a scrap book. When I'm too old to get out and about, I'll have books of memories I can page through.
Old school is fine as long as it works for you, and it sounds like it does!
When I still worked a kept a text editor log of items I needed to do and when. Of course things don't always go as planned. I joked this was my list so I knew what I wasn't getting done but nothing every got totally forgotten. Done items got moved to a Closed Items list.
I still do this though obviously it's a bit less critical if I miss something now. But the closed items list is quite handy if for example I want to know when the washing machine was fixed.
I've played around with adding "tasks" in google calendar - it lets you keep a list, mark things completed, and set due dates for critical things. But I never managed to really solidify the habit.
I think Journal will come in handy for keeping track of home maintenance items like that. I could always search google calendar for what date the sewer guy came out, but even better to summarize his findings in my journal and include the link to the video of the sewer line.
Don't do and hadn't thought about
If you haven't had to think about it I guess you have no need for it! 😊