The Case For Keeping A Daily Journal

It's amazing how little of your life you can actually remember. For me, it's just a small fraction. I always keep an "Idea Journal" with me, so that I can capture pretty much any idea that comes to me, no matter how stupid or crazy. But it hurts to think of all the other stuff, events, life experiences and lessons that are lost forever because I didn't take the time to write them down.

Even the memories I can conjure up from the past, now seem a bit hazy. I have no idea how accurate these memories are. How much I’ve modified or embellished them. I have no idea what I was feeling at the time, and what emotions were attached. As I write this, I’m finding it hard to even remember exactly what I did yesterday, or how I was feeling.

When I run across random journal pages that were written years ago, It’s shocking to realize that I have absolutely no memory of the events and feelings that were written by my younger self. How could I possibly forget some of these crazy life changing events?

The takeaway here, is that while it’s too late to record more of these past moments, it’s not too late to start recording them now. Hand writing in a journal is great, but a bit cumbersome to store and travel with. You can always scan them into Evernote or similar app. My new favorite tool for keeping a daily journal is the DayOne app.

I’ve been using this app for awhile now, and I love it. I use the Mac, iPad and iPhone versions. It also syncs with Dropbox for backup. My favorite feature is the little icon that sits on my Macbook ‘s menu bar. I can click it, and a popup box lets me write a journal entry instantly, without having to open an app or web browser. Zero friction in writing a journal entry.

My hope is that from today forward, I’ll fully document the highlights of my life. Even if I never read these entries in the future, just the act of putting my thoughts into words on a daily basis seems to make a huge difference in the quality of my life.