Journaling Writing
Journaling

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.

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