
Always Be Journaling (2018) - axiomdata316
https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2018/12/14/always-be-journaling/
======
jackschultz
I did that for a good 3 years, writing every day. Started out as a few
sentences, and then turned in to bigger depending on how I was feeling that
day. I absolutely love(d) being able to look back and read what I wrote and
what happened on those days.

It did get difficult at times to force myself to write. Many times I hated
having to open up the computer and use that to type. On the other hand, typing
was much better than writing because of the amount of words I was able to get
down.

In the article, it says to write about work and side projects, and I get that
the article is career based, but really, skip that, don't write daily about
work and side projects. If you're journaling, write about personal life.
That's what's important to have logged.

Something happened that caused me to stop, which sucks because it almost feels
like I've lost the last 3 years of my life because I don't have anything
written.

~~~
OnACoffeeBreak
> I absolutely love(d) being able to look back and read what I wrote and what
> happened on those days.

Did you actually look back or just liked the idea that you could? If you did
what sorts of things prompted you to do so? I am asking because I have
journaled on an off but never had the impulse to go back and read what I
wrote.

~~~
jackschultz
I did read back and look more than a few times. One was what I wrote when a
person, wondering what I said then. Other times trying to see the first
mention of an experience.

I definitely didn't go back and read sequentially though, because mostly I
didn't do anything interesting day to day. But I've found that sometimes
things stick out that I didn't realize when I was writing it. By the end of
that stretch when I did write daily, I got very in depth because I was curious
what would be of interest later.

~~~
larrywright
I’ve used DayOne for journaling for 6+ years, with varying degrees of
consistency. One of the things I like about that is a) the ability to attach
photos, and b) when I open the app it shows me all of the entries from the
current day, over the years. Lots of little memories that I’d have forgotten
if I didn’t have that ongoing reminder.

------
inopinatus
The latter part of this article presents a much more structured regime than I
think is necessary. The crux is, write shit down. I carry a moleskine notebook
and scribble my thoughts. I don’t doubt that the more rigorous approach suits
the author.

On reading the title, I thought “oh jolly good this will be a solid discussion
of log structured filesystems, RDBMS transaction streaming, and double entry
book-keeping etc” so I am twice nonplussed.

~~~
hobbio
After evaluating tools and stuff, finally settled with Dropbox synced plain
markdown files. I have a generic file per week (making one per day was too
much hassle), also separate files for specific projects.

I also recommend G.M.Weinberg's the Fieldstone Method on Writing.

------
bfors
There's a nice command line tool for keeping a journal that some people might
find useful. [https://jrnl.sh/](https://jrnl.sh/)

You just type in jrnl followed by your entry, that's it.

~~~
ohduran
This is so helpful, thanks!

------
justinlloyd
I've been journaling to varying degrees for many years. My digital notebook
goes back to late 2002 with the launch of OneNote. Millions upon millinso of
words about side projects, work, life, career, things I am reading or
watching. My physical notebooks/sketchbooks go back decades, one a year,
crammed full of sketches, ideas and small notes about stuff that I couldn't
even tell you what I was thinking at the time.

My Wordpress blog which started as a plain text based website in 1993, and has
slowly accumulated, intermittently, written notes (the ones that make sense)
from my notebooks that go back all the way to the 1980s and earlier.

Journaling has helped think through projects, career trajectory, travel plans,
working through depression, personal loss and even what coffee I like.

Journaling (not a diary) isn't for everyone, but it is something that works
for me.

------
complianceowl
Has anyone here ever refrained from being _too_ honest in your journaling, out
of fear someone read it some day?

~~~
justinlloyd
I have two sections in my digital notebook that are off limits, encrypted and
password protected (with passwords I never share and 2FA) that contain "Dark
Thoughts" and "Bad Thoughts About People." Dark Thoughts section is where I
journal about some internalized toxic negativity, usually fabricated by some
mild background depression, running through my brain. Dark Thoughts section
lets me compartmentalize and objectively examine those thoughts. Bad Thoughts
About People are where I put all those notes I might think about a person in
my life that you don't necessarily want to voice, but you need to get the
thought out of your head so you aren't dwelling on it.

~~~
tuesday20
Is your journal on your laptop? What if you are asked to decrypt at the
airport?

~~~
justinlloyd
I can happily decrypt the laptop the airport. Doesn't mean all the data in the
laptop is decrypted. It's way too much data for a non-forensic team to sift
through without concerted effort. My house has multiple doors with multiple
locks. Just because you made it past the front gate ("please unlock your
laptop") doesn't mean you got in to the fire safe inside the locked office
inside the locked house. And so you opened the very obvious fire safe where we
keep a little cash and some spare keeys and you looked inside.
Congratulations, there's four other safes in the house that aren't in plain
sight with different combinations, not including all the other stuff that is
locked up securely. Just because I entered in an easily recalled and easily
typed password that gives you access to 4TB of data, it doesn't mean you can
easily access all of that 4TB with the same set of keys. It'd take you "quite
some time" to fish through to even find the encrypted data.

------
jsilence
On my I3 window manager I start emacs in a hidden floating window that I can
bring to front with a one handed hotkey (Super-< is very convenient in my
keyboard layout).

Then I use org-modes org-capture to either capture into journal.org multiple
times daily or notes.org when having interesting ideas.

I use org-rifle to search through the journal and notes.

The files are synced between devices via owncloud.

~~~
Naac
Can you explain more about your setup?

What if you're in a different workspace? Does the floating hidden emacs window
follow you across workspaces?

~~~
jsilence
Yes, the floating hidden window always pops up on whatever workspace I am
currently working on.

I thought about automatically hiding it, when switching to another workspace,
but have not yet come around doing this.

I use a simple script to start emacs in case I accidentally close it:

    
    
      i3-msg 'exec emacs -name emacs-server' 
      i3-msg  \[instance=\"emacs-server\"\] move scratchpad;
      i3-msg  \[instance=\"emacs-server\"\] floating enable;
      sleep 1
      i3-msg  \[instance=\"emacs-server\"\] scratchpad show;
      i3-msg  \[instance=\"emacs-server\"\] move position 450px 0px;
      i3-msg  \[instance=\"emacs-server\"\] resize set 950 100 ppt
      i3-msg  \[instance=\"emacs-server\"\] scratchpad show;
    

The i3 config portion additionally has the key binding:

    
    
      bindsym $mod+less [instance="emacs-server"] scratchpad show

------
toxicFork
I love writing. As I write a bit every day, it gets very easy to write, and to
express my thoughts, or what's in my mind. One great benefit is that when I am
emotional or tired it is not too difficult to write that down somewhere
because I already have the habit, and it does get easier with practice.
Afterwards when I'm at a better or more aware mood I come back to read what I
had written, this helps to see what sort of things affect me in different
states of mind. This has resulted in many revelations towards understanding
myself and also others. It also produced some interesting creative results
too.

~~~
oliv__
_> This has resulted in many revelations towards understanding myself and also
others_

Same here, and I find the perspective of "discovering yourself" fascinating; I
always thought I knew myself but it wasn't until I started journaling that I
realized how much I didn't know.

There's just so much going on behind the surface. I highly recommend taking up
journaling as a habit!

------
shoes_for_thee
I kept rigorous journals from 1999 until about 2017.

I stopped because I felt it was necessary to make a break with my past self. I
don't know if journaling was useful for my personal growth or not. I do know
that reading old entries resulted in a cringe more often than not, which I
took to be a good sign. If the old-you isn't a little embarrassing, are you
growing?

There are a few books left, but I destroyed about 95% of them. It's a habit
that is perhaps good for growth and reflection, but bad for revolution.

It's been three years since I last made an entry, and I miss it just like I
miss my old friends who I also no longer talk to. These days I just make
lengthy comments on websites but it's a poor substitute.

~~~
idoh
If you like journaling, but want to make a break from the past, then why not
journal but then periodically destroy the journals?

~~~
shoes_for_thee
It's a good idea. I get attached to the artifact, though. I think I'd need to
make it an annual or bi-annual _event_. Build a fire, smoke a cigar, burn the
past. Sounds nice.

~~~
idoh
I do it from time to time, it is cathartic. You live near SF? You can come
over and we can burn our things together.

~~~
shoes_for_thee
lol

nah, on the east coast for better & for worse

------
euske
As much as I love making this my habit, the biggest obstacle for me is
syncing. I want to jot something down in so many different places: not just in
front of a PC, but also in a train, car, shower room, restaurant, grocery, and
bed. I use a mixed environment (Unix, Mac and Windows). Some of the machines
are separated by firewalls. So I tend to scatter a journal-like file in many
places. It's hard to combine them all in one place. And no, I don't want to
give my journal to some third-party cloud solution. I wonder if anyone handles
cases like this.

~~~
jvanderbot
Simplenote, text files on Syncthing ...

Honestly just email yourself with an autotag... If your email is foo@bar.com,
try foo+journal@bar.com. It should still land in your inbox, but sorted under
that folder.

You can even text from your phone to email addresses nowadays. I do this all
the time to collect notes, and email clients are robust, emails have metadata
like dates, and everything is easily searchable, etc.

------
words_hurt
Yeah, gee! Great idea, if all your private thoughts are just _so_ squeaky
clean.

If you carry even the _slightest_ amount of negativity in your heart, do not
_ever_ put pen to paper in a way that seems to reveal your inner self.

Kind advice from a person who has experienced at least one horrendous debacle
from a regrettably misplaced notebook.

Also, my parent's 25+ year marriage was undone by a similarly stunning
incident. A dropped love note in the driveway, not a diary.

~~~
louwrentius
You can be sarcastic all you want about journaling. But your examples don't
warrant that sarcasm.

It should warrant humility, and self reflection. What is it that you could not
be bothered to protect other people from your private thoughts?

I do believe in extreme ownership.

------
hathawsh
I wonder if anyone has advice for someone like me who thinks writing a journal
is probably a good idea, but I rarely write because I can hardly bear to read
what I've written. I always want to edit it for clarity or just throw it out
because I don't like it. I've been able to overcome my perfectionism in a few
areas of life, but not this one. I like to read other people's words, but
rarely my own.

~~~
akkartik
Here's a Vim alias I used when I first started writing, to automatically start
me off on an empty page so I didn't have to read my stupid words from last
time (or trigger associations that drove out what I wanted to write this
time).

    
    
        alias j='vim -c 'normal G' -c 'r !date' -c 'normal zto' -c startinsert journal.txt'

~~~
jvanderbot
I link this all the time, but my system is almost the same!

[https://github.com/jodavaho/bashlog](https://github.com/jodavaho/bashlog)

One command `log`, keeps files with YYYY-MM-DD.md and helps sync to github. I
often edit my day's words, but don't much go back. When I do want to go back,
I can just use `log 3/4/19` or `log yesterday`

------
sh87
Some observations I'd like to share based on my experience journalling for the
last 5 years.

* Brevity is important. With journalling, it is very tempting to go off on a rant. Feels good at the time but its usefulness declines rapidly with time. Short notes that encompass your state of mind or emotions or feelings with some context and timestamps go up in personal value with passage of time. I keep details and rants in my separate running log files.

* Summarize regularly. Every once a few months when you have down time, summarize your notes and make observations. My favorite bit is to find an old note with a sidenote/annotation and see how I look at the same things differently or still have the same mindset.

* Use timestamps. I have settled for a yyyymmdd-topic-title.txt for filenames. Contents in each file are stamped [yyyy-mm-dd] with optional time of the day. I have under 50 such files and they seem to encompass all facets of my life that I journal.

* Use plain text. Everything else will go away. I now use notational velocity/nvAlt with simplenotes sync for my topic wise notes (I also check in these files into a separate git repo folder for backup). I keep Deep insights and running lists in that git repo's wiki. I've recently also started keeping and checking in monthly yyyy-MMM.md files for a running log of thoughts. Helps maintaining a timeline to find recurring patterns. If some topic becomes worthy enough for sharing via a blog post, it gets its own markdown file that I can edit and customize for publishing.

* Reduce friction. I think this was the big one to overcome. By the time I would get to writing, I'd lose perspective or details to write. I now use a throwaway app (google keep) to write down my reaction, emotions or interesting facts as close to encountering them as possible. Then I can expand on them or discard them when I get time.

~~~
arvinsim
> * Summarize regularly. Every once a few months when you have down time,
> summarize your notes and make observations. My favorite bit is to find an
> old note with a sidenote/annotation and see how I look at the same things
> differently or still have the same mindset.

I feel that this runs counter to what a journal is. Wouldn't the value of the
journal be to record what you felt at that moment of time?

~~~
sh87
Although its a preference, I don't seem to share your concern.

A half yearly summary of distilled main themes, decisions and learnings has
been crucial for me to continue my journalling process.

When I want to know what I was doing late 2017, I go through my summary. Any
detail I want to re-visit is available in my running log.

------
abnry
Here's a simple way to get into the journaling habit. Add to your bashrc the
alias:

alias today="vim $PATH/$(date +"%Y-%m-%d").txt"

Substitute vim with your editor of choice. Will automatically generate a new
text file for each day. Then just write. Anything.

------
UI_at_80x24
Dear diary,

why? I have nothing to say.

I've tried on & off to keep a diary (journalling sounds so hip) and never
found a thing to talk about.

I've found my great-grandfathers diary. As a farmer he noted things like
weather temperatures, precipitation, etc. How the crops were doing, and what
broke on the farm. It was interesting, but dry and factual.

So I tried and never found anything substantial to write. What was the weather
on the first day of school in 1992? I don't care. I have the internet for that
now.

Personal things? Feelings? I hate myself and hate my life. Yupp same entry for
the last 35 years.

~~~
akkartik
Journalling can be useful even if you never go back and read your journal. (In
which case it doesn't matter that entries are repetitive.)

"Journalling for mental health", URMC Health Encyclopedia:
[https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?Con...](https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentID=4552&ContentTypeID=1)

"How Writing in a Journal Helps Manage Depression"
[https://www.webmd.com/depression/features/writing-your-
way-o...](https://www.webmd.com/depression/features/writing-your-way-out-of-
depression)

------
jvanderbot
Ive been writing almost every day for many years. My secret was to use Bash
and write a few scripts to make it very easy to jot down thoughts.

I also added a vim command to push it to github while editing. These just
remove barriers to opening and syncing the file, but the concept is the same.

You can see the result here:
[https://github.com/jodavaho/bashlog](https://github.com/jodavaho/bashlog)

The result is a treasure trove of greppable data. Someday I was to apply some
sentiment analysis ...

------
haihaibye
I work as a scientist/programmer - my coworkers with a science background
write journals, and those from a programming background put the info into
issue trackers, git commit messages and wikis/communal documentation.

I think the programmer tools scale much better for larger, distributed teams.
Personal journals are ok, but if you ever think someone else might benefit
from knowing some information there, put it somewhere else.

------
orangefarm
To those of you who like the idea of themselves journaling but don’t do it
currently or consistently: What’s stopping you?

~~~
Ma8ee
Being too tired in the evenings and too little time in the mornings.

~~~
fokinsean
Same for me! The last thing I want to do after work is get back on the
computer and type more.

The last thing I want to do in the morning is get out of bed to get on the
computer!

------
kerrsclyde
I started journalling daily when I was 35. If I could change one thing about
my life I wish that I had started journalling 20 years earlier.

