The Journal App Making Journal
A project to grow technology product development skills
About the Journal App Making Journal
This journal shares a creative journey to make beautiful technology products and experiences that are also useful and empowering. And it also shares an entrepreneurial journey to become a tech founder.
Specifically, it looks at the area of technology to do with journaling.
The goal of this project is to survey the technologies and experiences in this landscape, and to discover opportunities for playing experiments, and creating something different, interesting, and impactful. I am leaving the timeline open within one year from its beginning on 1 July, 2020.
Why?
Both technology and entrepreneurial skills interest me a great deal. They are both so creative and impactful, and are highly relevant to humanity, our productivity and livelihoods into the future.
> About technology, design, and the opportunities to innovate
This is perhaps best summed up by the pioneering and leading thinker, Don Norman, on my favourite topic, human-centred design (HCD):
“In the past, innovation happened in the industrialized nations …
But with the rise of the small, with new, flexible, inexpensive technologies, the power is shifting. …
With the rise of global interconnection, … Design is a powerful equalizing tool: all that is needed is observation, creativity, and hard work — anyone can do it. … we can transform the world.” — Don Norman
> About journaling and its impact on behavioural change
As to why I choose to look at the product category of journaling?
Journaling is an “everyday thing” that lends itself well to the lens of HCD, because journals happen to possess two seemingly contradictory aspects, which makes them fascinating.
On the one hand, they are profoundly ideosyncratic, creative, enduring, and human. On the other, they work well and deliver on their potential and impact only when they are systematically designed and consistently processed. They harbour such potential for creating behavioural change, hardly any other method seems to match, especially in terms of consciously becoming aware of and rewiring our thought patterns / behaviours / brains.
This is summarised brilliantly in the Medium article, The Life-Changing Habit of Journaling (Why Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and Many More Great Minds Recommend it) by Thomas Oppong.
In addition to showing some very interesting page images from the journals of Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, and Leonardo da Vinci, it is pointed out,
“Journaling alone won’t boost your productivity. But when you combine action with reflection you’ll take better actions over time. …
Journaling is not a commonplace habit, it is a keystone habit. Keystone habits affect how you work, eat, play, live, spend, and communicate.”
And as quoted by Don Norman,
“Civilization advance by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.” — Alfred North Whitehead, Philosopher and Mathematician
“Continual practice automates the action cycle, minimizing the amount of conscious thinking and problem-solving required to act. Most expert, skilled behaviour works this way…”
While humans are great at “imagination, synthesis, and creativity”, according to Ray Dalio in his book, Principles: Life & Work, he also believes,
“human and artificial intelligence are far more likely to work together because that will produce the best results.”
And journaling to me is a fascinating area to see how human and technology can integrate to produce better results.
What am I doing?
To keep myself accountable through this journey, I keep a journal here on Medium, and explore 2 questions everyday to further this journey.
These questions are partially informed by what I have learned about product management from the popular Udemy course on “Become a Product Manager” by Cole Mercer from Soundcloud, and serial entrepreneur Evan Kimbrell.
They are,
- What have I learned about tech design and development today?
- What have I learned about journaling products / technologies / other journal users today?
Re Q1, how am I learning tech design and development skills?
The first journaling question is around gaining new skills in tech design and development.
This is currently focused on mobile app technology, and achieved via a consistent progress through the iOS App Development Course by Angela Yu and the London App Brewery on Udemy.
Re Q2, there are two parts. Part a, what are other journal users doing out there?
I have been intrigued by the Medium articles under the hashtag #journaling (5.3K articles), and what other journal users do. So I will select authors and articles from this hashtag or elsewhere to write a review.
So far, I have looked at the list below. It will evolve, expand, and get updated as I progress.
- Steph Rempe: The Growth Project Journal, on Medium;
- Michal Korzonek: Minimalist Journaling, on Medium.
Re Q2, part b, what interesting journaling products / technologies am I looking at?
The third journaling question is about making observations on interesting journaling products / technologies.
So far, I have looked at the list below. It will evolve, expand, and get updated as I progress.
- The Moleskine Journey App from the popular journaling brand Moleskine;
- Designing Your Life / Designing Your Work Life journals from bestselling books of the same names;
- The Clear Habit Journal from James Clear and his bestselling book, Atomic Habits.
Connect
If journaling is an interest of yours too, please feel welcome to share with me your feedback, a private note, and / or connect with me here.
About me
I previously had a professional background in financial services, in particular investment management for institutions. I am currently working part time in the area of personal financial planning, while learning technology and business skills to create technology products and a business.
In 2019, I attended a number of great technology conferences in the US and Australia, and shared my end of year reviews on LinkedIn, in the area of Data and AI, Software, Hardware, and Entrepreneurship. Recently in 2020 July, I completed the MIT xPro Data Science and Big Data Analytics course online, and started sharing and publishing my lessons and experiences here on Medium.
Outside of work, lifelong learning is a great love of mine. I enjoy reading widely, learning to write well, practice and teach yoga for a holistic wellbeing, and pursuing one of the most fun things in the world, West Coast Swing dance.
Look forward to continuing to update you on my project.
