I keep a diary in 2025, and it's better than ever

How I Keep a Diary

Whether you call it keeping a diary or keeping a journal, I do both; having been a prolific diarist since March 15, 2005, I have honed some techniques; some new, some old, while the art of diary-keeping has advanced into the digital age. For those curious, let me explain how I do things for my own routine, though you might find different methods of doing things.

Day One

I’m sure that many of you reading this have heard of the famous Day One. My only regret with that tool? Not finding it sooner; as in, during my college days when I first began to use an iPhone; yes, unfortunately I didn’t begin carrying one of those till 2011. Had I found it then, I could have had a lot more to say and document about what is essentially four of the best years of my life. Fast-forward to November 2020, when I was browsing the app store, and that was when I discovered this wonderful gem of an application. Since then, Day One’s been where I keep all of my information and self-documentation; I make heavy use of the multiple journal functionality, and I have a journal for every aspect of my life:

• Life is where I keep a diary, documenting everything that happens during the day.
• Book of Shadows is where I document spiritual and metaphysical aspects of my life (we’ll get to that later)
• Workout Data is where I document information about my health; sleep and weight data from withings, and anything specific about a particular exercise I took.
• Progression is where I keep progress on things; Habitica data, Todoist tasks (yes, I use both), game progress (I have way too many RPG characters in my life), and git commits from GitHub
• Television is where I keep track of my Television show/movie progress via RSS feeds from trakt
• Quotes is where I write down, you guessed it, memorable quotations from various people.
• Books is for, you guessed it, highlights from books I’m reading, as well as progress from Goodreads

Enter Daylio

I also decided to eventually add Daylio into my journaling routine as well; (for those who think that Daylio replaces Day One, then it depends on what kind of diarist you are). Daylio is amazing at tracking moods, adding your most important health stats from Apple Health into each entry, and giving you a weekly and monthly report so that you can see what activities corelate most often with your various moods. oh, and don’t forget goals, achievements and streaks. Daylio is like Finch, but without the pet aspect of the app, and honestly? I don’t need any more pets; I play enough Tatsu on Discord for that. This is just a post to hopefully wet your appetite for the various things that you might want to journal about. How many others keep a diary? How is it organized. Feel free to speak up in the comments.

Kat