4 ms·

Journaling is definitely one of the things where you have to figure your own way out. I tried a lot of things. Markdown based apps (Obsidian), Diary apps (Diar

by rg111 4y ago

Journaling is definitely one of the things where you have to figure your own way out. I tried a lot of things. Markdown based apps (Obsidian), Diary apps (Diarium), and so on. What worked finally was pen and paper. Not any pen. Bought a bunch of good fountain pens (Lamy, Pilot, Parker), and bought a nice refillable leatherbound journal. And I journal every night before my meditation session before going to bed. I do not plan to read them or store them. I just write my heart out. I use writing as a tool of thinking, and dumping my thoughts. The stuff that have some particular qualities, evolve into actions (anywhere from visiting a friend or a travel trip to learning something new), blogs, or projects. I do not plan to do OCR or any kind of special storage. I hated digital journaling because I had to pick up the phone or sit somewhere to use the laptop/desktop. Also a quick figure would require me to at least open a tool, and at most made me connect my graphics tablet. Pen and paper just removed the friction. Now I just journal in bed sitting or half-lying under a lamp with my wifi turned off. Pen and paper is my ideal workflow, and I reached here after months of trial-and-error.

kirso 4y ago
Love it. The only issue I had with this approach is aggregating notebooks but not enough storage (due to constant travel) to keep doing this without having a separate bag just for it. Its very contextual but I truly believe this is the best way!
bambax 4y ago
I built myself a system that sends me an email every day, and all I have to do is respond to that email; the answers get stored in an SQLite database, which is backed up on Dropbox. So, opposite to you, my system lets me revisit and read my previous thoughts, something I do enjoy. It's also a great tracking system that tells me when this or that event happened. But, like you, it's not dependent on any specific tool. I can lose my phone and all my devices, as long as I can receive and send email, it'll work.
rpastuszak 4y ago
>Pen and paper is my ideal workflow, and I reached here after months of trial-and-error. I finally stopped yak-shaving my writing workflow when I built a web app with a single text field and no editing capabilities, just pushing letters. It feels "dummer" than a piece of paper, but works for me. 2.5 years of almost daily writing (700 words on avg) so far. I practice calligraphy, but my regular hand writing is terrible. I used to hoard piles of paper with doodles and notes, and I'd always felt bad about throwing them out. I do like that the list of notes keeps getting longer every day although, but rarely re-read them. Otherwise I'd just use a pen.
codethief 4y ago
I know you said you > do not plan to read them or store them. and > do not plan to do OCR or any kind of special storage. but in case anyone else is struggling with the problem you described, > I hated digital journaling because I had to pick up the phone or sit somewhere to use the laptop/desktop. Also a quick figure would require me to at least open a tool, and at most made me connect my graphics tablet. Pen and paper just removed the friction. Now I just journal in bed sitting or half-lying under a lamp with my wifi turned off. my solution has been an e-ink tablet, specifically the Supernote A5X. The Supernote's handwriting is extremely fast and accurate and, as far as quality, to me there's no difference to writing on real paper, even though it might not feel exactly like writing on paper. (It feels different but very good!) All in all, it's basically like a paper notebook, just with more pages/storage and the ability to erase/edit and built-in digitization.

by rg111 4y ago

kirso 4y ago

Love it. The only issue I had with this approach is aggregating notebooks but not enough storage (due to constant travel) to keep doing this without having a separate bag just for it. Its very contextual but I truly believe this is the best way!

bambax 4y ago

I built myself a system that sends me an email every day, and all I have to do is respond to that email; the answers get stored in an SQLite database, which is backed up on Dropbox. So, opposite to you, my system lets me revisit and read my previous thoughts, something I do enjoy. It's also a great tracking system that tells me when this or that event happened. But, like you, it's not dependent on any specific tool. I can lose my phone and all my devices, as long as I can receive and send email, it'll work.

rpastuszak 4y ago

>Pen and paper is my ideal workflow, and I reached here after months of trial-and-error. I finally stopped yak-shaving my writing workflow when I built a web app with a single text field and no editing capabilities, just pushing letters. It feels "dummer" than a piece of paper, but works for me. 2.5 years of almost daily writing (700 words on avg) so far. I practice calligraphy, but my regular hand writing is terrible. I used to hoard piles of paper with doodles and notes, and I'd always felt bad about throwing them out. I do like that the list of notes keeps getting longer every day although, but rarely re-read them. Otherwise I'd just use a pen.

codethief 4y ago

I know you said you > do not plan to read them or store them. and > do not plan to do OCR or any kind of special storage. but in case anyone else is struggling with the problem you described, > I hated digital journaling because I had to pick up the phone or sit somewhere to use the laptop/desktop. Also a quick figure would require me to at least open a tool, and at most made me connect my graphics tablet. Pen and paper just removed the friction. Now I just journal in bed sitting or half-lying under a lamp with my wifi turned off. my solution has been an e-ink tablet, specifically the Supernote A5X. The Supernote's handwriting is extremely fast and accurate and, as far as quality, to me there's no difference to writing on real paper, even though it might not feel exactly like writing on paper. (It feels different but very good!) All in all, it's basically like a paper notebook, just with more pages/storage and the ability to erase/edit and built-in digitization.