A Reflection on One Year of Daily Journaling

Josh Ginter has journaled every single day for an entire year. He explains his process, along with some insights he's learned along the way:

What matters is that [journaling] has changed my life. Recording, recognizing, and signifying important events in the past year has improved my memory and my realism. Pushing the tidal waves of thought and emotion through the nib and onto paper has created a metaphorical bottleneck — my recorded thoughts now have structure, my daily doings now have amplified importance.

In typical Newsprint fashion, there are plenty of lovely photos to ogle while you read.

Publishing a Day One Journal as a Book

Donnie Ray Jones:

“My wife and I keep a journal of notes to our twin girls in Day One. After a year of journaling, I wanted to print the entries in a physical book for my wife as a Christmas present.”

Interesting idea, and would make a great gift to family members next time Christmas rolls around.

If you need more ideas for journaling in Day One check out my recent, in-depth review, which offers several ideas and a few tips and tricks for getting the most out of the app.

One Month with the Hobonichi Techo

Jenny Mason of The Finer Point writes of her experience journaling with the 2015 Hobonichi planner thus far:

“Every day when you turn over a new leaf of paper you get this great used look. The ink on the page almost creates this rippling effect and when you have gone through a few pages the Hobo takes on a worn feel. I really like this, it feels like I have recorded something worthwhile and interesting. At the end of the year this book is going to look amazing.”

Suggested Uses for Day One

In my recent review of Day One, I listed a few ways to put the journaling app to good use. Over at The Sweet Setup, Shawn Blanc's review of the same app contains a running list of other great ideas worth checking out.

This bit at the end is so true:

“Thanks to tagging and searching, Day One can serve as all of these things at once. That’s the beauty of a personal journaling app, it can be filled with all sorts of topics and media types, with no need to keep it “focused.” And I think that’s the road best traveled. Because a huge part of what makes a successful journal is constant use.”

"Like a Bubble Surfacing in Water"

While doing research for this Tools & Toys post about the 2015 Hobonichi Techo planner, I came across this quote from Shigesato Itoi, the guy who created it (emphasis mine):

“When people are alone, they have this hazy, blank period of time they can’t put a name to.

The nameless feelings experienced during those nameless times make up a major element of a person. And one day, like a bubble surfacing in water, something will emerge in the form of words. I hope the Hobonichi Techo can serve as a means to keep those words.

I’d like the Hobonichi Techo to be a fishing net to catch all the things you think and feel during your unnameable times. Of course you can use the techo as a scheduler, but there are already other tools you can use for that. I get the feeling there’s never been a container to keep things that surface during unnameable times, unimportant things that stick with you, or things that resonate with you when you don’t know why.”

This translates well to how I think about and use Day One.