On keeping a journal: 1091 days of life data collection

+ 1 on journal-keeping.

I've been keeping a diary for the last 8 years or so. The act of writing about and reflecting on each day is useful - but it's also very helpful to be able to look back on what your daily life was like in the past. It's easy to forget what you were really thinking about several years ago, and a diary is a great way to give yourself some realistic perspective.

Brief pitch: A big problem I had in getting started with diary keeping was that I'd get busy and not write anything for several days, and then I'd have trouble remembering what I did, say, last Tuesday. Sometimes, to be honest, I forget what I did this morning. I gather this is a common reason for losing the diary-keeping habit.

A few years ago I scratched my own itch on this and built "Remembary": an iPad diary app that collects photos, tweets, Facebook updates, and RSS feeds and organizes them by day, giving you some context to help you remember what you did each day. It's a bit like the iPhone app Momento, but iPad-native and focused more on writing rather than just collecting feeds.

If you're just getting into diary writing or have tried before but have had similar problems getting traction, you might want to check it out. I'm wrapping up a major version 2.0 update that should (hopefully!) be out in a few weeks. You can find out more at http://remembary.com (I'm about to revamp the site too).

It's cheaper than a Moleskine (if you already have an iPad anyhow), is easily searched, and can be backed up to DropBox or email, too.

/pitch

I get a cheap page a day diary (A4/Letter) off the market each year. Lets keep this thing low tech. Backups via phone camera and dropbox. The volume stays at home.

I've been keeping a journal since 2007, however, my entries were not as frequent as Steve. Lately, I've been obsessive with personal data collection a la Daytum.com, iDoneThis.com, Fitocracy, MemoLane.com, RescueTime.com, and Timehop.com that passively record things about my past, which is fascinating, empowering or downright depressing when I see what I've done in the past.

It's interesting to use these services or manually (Moleskine and pen) to be more cognizant and aware of where we're going in our lives, to be more appreciative of what we've done or how we've spent our time in the most "ideal" way we construct for ourselves.

Flagrant self-promotion: if you're interested in this sort of thing, check out myscribr.com. We're all about preserving your life for future days.

We start by importing the information you're already posting to Facebook, Twitter etc. We'll send you a nightly email asking how your day went - simply reply and we'll save your response as a private entry. View your past on any day of the year, or browse through an aggregate timeline. When it suits you, you can click a few buttons and order your past in printed book form, suitable for shelving.

I've been meaning to start a journal (will start now), but I've been using Daytum obsessively for the last year and a half.

At this point I have over 24K+ data points about my life including what I've done, consumed, people I've seen and the good and bad things that have happened to me. It can be a pain to keep up sometimes, but I have a hunch that the data becomes more valuable as time goes on.

A (moleskine) notebook is great for this. And so is a folder on google docs (or an encrypted true-crypt vault if you're paranoid).

I find it funny that his earlier posts say he is "giving up social media" when he tweeted about this blog post. I question the validity of the 1091 days.