I Tried a Voice Journaling for 30 Days
Here’s what you need to know about iPhone voice journal apps
Reader: Hey, what’s an audio journal, Rory?
Rory: It’s a little like a written diary, but with voice notes.
Reader: Do you ever listen back to them?
Rory: Nope, maybe one day but for now I simply sound off each day.
Reader: Do I have a name, or do I need to be called Reader?
Rory: You can have a name mate, what name do you want?
Steve: Steve.
Rory: Sorted.
Here’s What I Found After 30 Days
It got less awkward.
I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t awkward at first. Talking out loud takes some getting used to. You also need to dodge that tiny urge to listen back. After a while, you actually look forward to sounding off. Throughout the day you build a list of items to process later on your audio journal.
I didn’t just talk about my day
To begin with, there was a lot of “Today I did this” and “Then I did this.” Towards the end, I barely detailed the day's events. I launched into bigger thoughts, feelings and relationships. There was a sense of freedom from thinking out loud as opposed to writing a diary. You can dart from one thing to the next without worrying about your paragraphs and sentences.
They got looooonger
My first sound off was less than three minutes. Over time the duration of each recording fluctuated. Some were one minute, others were ten minutes long. Oddly, I could never guess how long they were until I finished recording. This took the pressure off a little. I can’t say the same for writing a diary — when you always see how many words you’ve written.
I found patterns
I started finding simple patterns in my behaviour, my feelings, thoughts, interactions and coping mechanisms. Things I’d never really spotted before. I think making time to reflect on a daily basis made is so much easier to track repetitions I never knew existed.
I held myself accountable
It’s hard to get away with stuff when you’re the one you report to. You really feel the full force of putting things off when you’re admitting to it out loud on the daily. After spending an entire week saying “I didn’t get a chance to go for a run today,” eventually you do go for that run. Good luck convincing yourself of those made up excuses.
I thought about the future
I always think about the future. But this was different. One day, in many years I might listen back to these recordings. So I wasn’t really thinking about the future. I guess I was thinking about the present but through the eyes of my future self. How will I look back at this time in my life? How will I tell this story? Will I be proud of how I acted?
I stopped letting things bother me
After several days of venting about someone's terrible actions. Eventually, you get bored of hearing yourself vent about it. It’s a little like complaining about your boss to your mates, eventually, they just don’t want to hear about it. Getting all these inner frustrations out vocally is a brilliant way to let them all go. But you also can’t help but begin to realise some of these things aren’t worth getting so worked up about.
I realised I suck at emotions
If you asked me to name different emotions, I would very quickly run out. Honestly, I don’t even know if I could name ten emotions. I never realised this about myself. Here’s how badly I don’t know my emotions. I just tried to list ten emotions and my go-to strategy was to start with all the names of Snow White characters. Happy, Bashful, Grumpy, and Embarrassed that I’m so bad at listing emotions? So I’m not very in touch with my emotions, or emotions in general. I’m working on it.
Will you try keeping an audio journal?
Download the free iOS and Android app, here.
