Journaling Just Works

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A place to discuss anything related to keeping a journal, a diary, a planner, a bullet journal, art/junk journal. Productivity, self-help, mindfulness, memory-keeping, creativity, project management or any other purpose.

Paper and digital alike.

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[Weekly Thread] #9: Digital or/and analog? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Are you a beginner, or are you considering if you should start a journal? Ask all your questions here. Are you more experienced? Feel free to share tips, tricks, pictures of your journal, anecdotes. Anything related to keeping a journal is welcome in this weekly thread.

Why a WT?

We’ve a steadily growing community—we’re now 465 members! Welcome to all of you!—but we don’t have that much active members.

My idea is to encourage people in participating more by pushing a weekly theme. It’s an invitation, not an obligation. Feel free to comment about anything else related to journaling, or to start your own thread ;)

This week theme: Is your journal analog or digital? Both? Or something else entirely?

Are you more of an analog or a digital user? Do you use both without any hesitation? Do you use a dedicated app like, say, DayOne, or a word processor, or a text editor, something like MS Word, LibreOffice or TextEdit?

Do you have an app you love to use? That helps you journaling?

Disclaimer: don't you dare question my amazing illustrator skills. This is a perfectly fine illustration for the weekly thread, one many pro news outlets would envy us :p

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

I use a typewriter (a Triumph Gabriele-e), blank looseleaf (a particular kind of heavier printer paper), and a springback binder to hold it all. Sometimes I use a fountain pen, but my writing isn't particularly beautiful.

By "journaling" I do it as a kind of braindump on an as-needed basis. Pure stream-of-consciousness without any pressure to make it coherent, organized, or eloquent. I don't do this every day, but I end up writing once per week-to-10-days.

I have a separate (paper) planner and digital info-repository, Joplin: https://joplinapp.org/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

I use a typewriter (a Triumph Gabriele-e)

Nice one (I used to love my Olympia, probably more than any other writing tool I ever owned) :)

blank looseleaf (a particular kind of heavier printer paper), and a springback binder to hold it all. Sometimes I use a fountain pen,

I was heavy into Filofaxes in the 80s and 90s. It was/is so practical! I still have one but it has dropped out of favor when I switched to the Zettelkasten note taking system as I don't need a binder anymore (it uses index cards) and I would not want to use something else nowadays.

but my writing isn’t particularly beautiful.

Min is trash, that's fine I still can manage to read myself...most of the time.

By “journaling” I do it as a kind of braindump on an as-needed basis. Pure stream-of-consciousness without any pressure to make it coherent, organized, or eloquent. I don’t do this every day, but I end up writing once per week-to-10-days.

That's great. Even more so if you have found a rhythm that is suiting you!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I have a Leuchtturm1917 for a bullet journal, but I have a hard time keeping it a daily habit. I use nb on my PCs, but that's more for writing (recipes, etc.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Real nice brand of notebooks :)

but I have a hard time keeping it a daily habit.

Failing is ok, and part of the process. As long as you're fine with that idea, you're dramatically increasing your chances to keep going back at it. Otherwise, you will feel bad for not doing it, when there is no need to, and you won't want to reopen your notebook. At least, based on my (decades long) personal experience ;)

I use nb on my PCs

What is nb?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I've been journaling since the late 70s, I started as a child and I'm an analog journaler. That being said, I'm also curious and always willing to experiment with new tools and I've used many. Some I've been using them for many years because them and I we worked great together. Tools ranging from the typewriter to the computer, the smartphone and the tablet. I've also used tape recorders (be it standard cassettes or the mini ultra portable ones, the MP3 player or, here again, the phone). I still own a mini recorder I use from time to time, it's a cool device but the sound is so... meh, at best. In the end, I've always come back to good old pen and paper. It feels like home to me.

The longest affair I've had it's with DayOne (Mac/iOS/Web). I remember switching to it almost the day it was realized, I can’t recall the year but back then the iPhone was still more or less a new product and the app itself was a one time purchase (no subscription) and was made by a small independent company. It was wo great I purchased the Mac version when it was released. It was groundbreakingly refreshing, and great, and cool, and so effing nice to use. I'm smiling just thinking about it. It felt almost as intuitive as using pen and and paper. I loved DayOne. As a long time user, I never was asked to pay when they switched to the subscription model, which is really nice gesture (I would still be able to use it without paying to this day) but I also realized the company changing hands (it’s now owned by the same that own… WordPress) was not going in the direction I wanted. So I slowly, and hesitantly, quit using Day One. It took me a few years to finally decide I had enough of the app as it was and to decide to fully commit back to pen and paper. I’ve not had any other serious affair since then, just a few flirts ;)