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I started journaling 4 years ago. I have not missed one day in 4 years (except for a couple of days after a mild bicycle accident where I was sleeping in bed).

by bambax 4y ago

I started journaling 4 years ago. I have not missed one day in 4 years (except for a couple of days after a mild bicycle accident where I was sleeping in bed). I built myself a system that sends me an email every day, and the replies get stored in an sqlite db. The system accepts answers up to five days after the date (meaning, if the replies is sent more than five days after the initial email was sent, it's not filed). I did this to force myself to never reply too late. The funny thing is, five days is waaay too long a time to remember what you have done. When I describe my day at the end of it, or the morning after, I usually remember incredible little details and thoughts. But after a day, only a rough outline remains. After two days, I usually remember nothing (save for exceptional circumstances). That's why I started journaling: to be able to tell what happened in the past. Not just the big milestones, but all the little steps.

ozzydave 4y ago
> That's why I started journaling: to be able to tell what happened in the past. Not just the big milestones, but all the little steps. This tracks for me, especially with little kids. I feel more peaceful knowing that these days won’t just completely disappear into the past. Just knowing I can look back later gives me solace now.
em-bee 4y ago
i can support that. also journaling for the same reason. when i miss a day sometimes i can reconstruct it by examining the messages i sent for that day, but if it is more than a few days past, unless it was some special day, the memory is gone.
cruano 4y ago
That last line is probably the one thing I love about facebook, the "5 years ago today" posts that show you little snippets of your past activity. You probably wouldn't go and actively look for them, but seeing them is always a nice surprise! A while ago I built basically what you describe but via whatsapp instead of email [1] and I think those are the perfect interfaces for filling out a journal, so many people recommend writing "as if you were writing to a friend" and that makes it so much more natural than any app or website could. [1]https://github.com/caruano95/diarist https://github.com/caruano95/diarist
- bambax 4y ago
  Very nice! Does WhatsApp have an API that you can talk to, or is this all handled "magically" via Twilio? (Making a smart chat app on WhatsApp sounds like a kind of fun project...)

by bambax 4y ago

ozzydave 4y ago

> That's why I started journaling: to be able to tell what happened in the past. Not just the big milestones, but all the little steps. This tracks for me, especially with little kids. I feel more peaceful knowing that these days won’t just completely disappear into the past. Just knowing I can look back later gives me solace now.

em-bee 4y ago

i can support that. also journaling for the same reason. when i miss a day sometimes i can reconstruct it by examining the messages i sent for that day, but if it is more than a few days past, unless it was some special day, the memory is gone.

cruano 4y ago

That last line is probably the one thing I love about facebook, the "5 years ago today" posts that show you little snippets of your past activity. You probably wouldn't go and actively look for them, but seeing them is always a nice surprise! A while ago I built basically what you describe but via whatsapp instead of email [1] and I think those are the perfect interfaces for filling out a journal, so many people recommend writing "as if you were writing to a friend" and that makes it so much more natural than any app or website could. [1]https://github.com/caruano95/diarist https://github.com/caruano95/diarist

bambax 4y ago
Very nice! Does WhatsApp have an API that you can talk to, or is this all handled "magically" via Twilio? (Making a smart chat app on WhatsApp sounds like a kind of fun project...)