

On keeping a journal: 1091 days of life data collection - stevencorona
http://stevecorona.com/on-keeping-a-journal/

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ajlburke
\+ 1 on journal-keeping.

I've been keeping a diary for the last 8 years or so. The act of writing about
and reflecting on each day is useful - but it's also very helpful to be able
to look back on what your daily life was like in the past. It's easy to forget
what you were _really_ thinking about several years ago, and a diary is a
great way to give yourself some realistic perspective.

Brief pitch: A big problem I had in getting started with diary keeping was
that I'd get busy and not write anything for several days, and then I'd have
trouble remembering what I did, say, last Tuesday. Sometimes, to be honest, I
forget what I did _this morning_. I gather this is a common reason for losing
the diary-keeping habit.

A few years ago I scratched my own itch on this and built "Remembary": an iPad
diary app that collects photos, tweets, Facebook updates, and RSS feeds and
organizes them by day, giving you some context to help you remember what you
did each day. It's a bit like the iPhone app Momento, but iPad-native and
focused more on writing rather than just collecting feeds.

If you're just getting into diary writing or have tried before but have had
similar problems getting traction, you might want to check it out. I'm
wrapping up a major version 2.0 update that should (hopefully!) be out in a
few weeks. You can find out more at <http://remembary.com> (I'm about to
revamp the site too).

It's cheaper than a Moleskine (if you already have an iPad anyhow), is easily
searched, and can be backed up to DropBox or email, too.

/pitch

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stevencorona
Very impressive app. Love the "It's cheaper than a Moleskin" tagline, haha.
Once I get another iPad, I'll check it out. I use Evernote (which has a
terrible UI), but I have so much data it's next to impossible to import it
into any other system.

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ajlburke
Thanks! By the way, the upcoming version will also work on iPhone/iPod Touch.

I'm currently in that crazy-making pixel-perfect OCD design polish phase that
takes so long in iOS apps. If the design gods and the testing gods smile on
me, it should be out before the end of the month.

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keithpeter
I get a cheap page a day diary (A4/Letter) off the market each year. Lets keep
this thing low tech. Backups via phone camera and dropbox. The volume stays at
home.

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will_lam
I've been keeping a journal since 2007, however, my entries were not as
frequent as Steve. Lately, I've been obsessive with personal data collection a
la Daytum.com, iDoneThis.com, Fitocracy, MemoLane.com, RescueTime.com, and
Timehop.com that passively record things about my past, which is fascinating,
empowering or downright depressing when I see what I've done in the past.

It's interesting to use these services or manually (Moleskine and pen) to be
more cognizant and aware of where we're going in our lives, to be more
appreciative of what we've done or how we've spent our time in the most
"ideal" way we construct for ourselves.

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willidiots
Flagrant self-promotion: if you're interested in this sort of thing, check out
myscribr.com. We're all about preserving your life for future days.

We start by importing the information you're already posting to Facebook,
Twitter etc. We'll send you a nightly email asking how your day went - simply
reply and we'll save your response as a private entry. View your past on any
day of the year, or browse through an aggregate timeline. When it suits you,
you can click a few buttons and order your past in printed book form, suitable
for shelving.

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ajlburke
That looks very cool. The daily reminder email is a great touch.

These are very interesting times for diary-keeping - we're leaving so many
more traces of our lives around these days.

The book output option is nice. I'm thinking of this as an option for future
versions of Remembary, too. Aren't these books quite big and expensive though?
Or is that the point?

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ddw
I've been meaning to start a journal (will start now), but I've been using
Daytum obsessively for the last year and a half.

At this point I have over 24K+ data points about my life including what I've
done, consumed, people I've seen and the good and bad things that have
happened to me. It can be a pain to keep up sometimes, but I have a hunch that
the data becomes more valuable as time goes on.

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aw3c2
It creeps me out to no end that people would log such kind of data to a
remote, online service they have zero control over. I hope at least you keep
backups for you. But my concerns are the privacy.

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will_lam
You can keep the data private and there is no built in "social" with Daytum.
It doesn't look like the founders will be working on it anytime soon since
they were "acq-hired" by Facebook. I've been using it for the last 2 years to
measure and visualize my personal data.

But to each their own, I suppose.

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aw3c2
what if the site got hacked and exploited? do they store your data securely?

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will_lam
It may sound foolish, but I'm not too worried about that.

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c0balt279
A (moleskine) notebook is great for this. And so is a folder on google docs
(or an encrypted true-crypt vault if you're paranoid).

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schneby
I find it funny that his earlier posts say he is "giving up social media" when
he tweeted about this blog post. I question the validity of the 1091 days.

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stevencorona
:-)

It's true I have been tweeting my blog posts and posting them on facebook, as
well as replying to comments about my posts on Hacker News. I feel that this
falls within the guidelines I set for myself- which was to stop collecting
information and produce value in my life. I don't read my Twitter or Facebook
stream, and use it solely as tool for (seldomly) publishing my things I've
created.

You'll notice I have only tweeted about 6 times over the past 20 days, when I
was tweeting well over 50+ times a day previously.

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schneby
Fair point. And I'm going to try the same thing on my 30th Birthday in 6 days.
And I may run naked.

