My Journaling Journey
I journal in many ways, in my planner, in my notebook, in a reference notebook, I've tried to keep a separate writing journal and I've tried Day One. But there was always something missing.
Hence I landed on this blog.
Before starting this blog, I looked into several tools including:
- Revisited Day One
- Evernote
- OneNotes
- And I briefly looked other journaling apps that are out there like Penzu
Day One
Day One has a beautiful interface and I liked how it pulled weather and social media into your posts. However, I didn't want a big dump of information. I only wanted the journal to collect what was most important to me, or things that I want to reference and record. So this was just too much information.
It had tagging so I could tag for multiple categories, but it didn't have a view where I could click on a category and easily see the entries for that category.
There's an "excerpt" view but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. As you can see in this blog, I like to see the full post.
Also, you had to upgrade to a paid version to have multiple photos per entry, multiple journals and to sync across devices. I actually had the paid version when I tried it in the past, but I never utilized it which is why I'm now on a blog in this journaling journey.
Evernote
Evernote also has the except view which doesn't work for me. Also, it's a dumping ground for notes and reference info that I use frequently. I wanted my journaling to be memorialized and articulated thoughts and ideas.
OneNote
I created one note in One Note and decided it wasn't for me, for the same reasons Evernote didn't work for me.
Why I Chose a Blog
In general, journaling apps are date specific. This is not what I wanted. I wanted a place to write my thoughts where it is evergreen and can be easily referenced across multiple categories.
I wanted to have mixed media and share links. I wanted the customization where I can present writings and media in different formats.
Privacy is generally not too much of a concern because I want these things to be memorialized and to exist after I am gone so they can be read and shared with family. Maybe some of this information is helpful to others who have stumbled on this page too.