Day One
Day One has brought simple, intuitive, and feature-rich journalling to the Apple ecosystem. The only thing I can fault them for is getting rid of this beautiful icon.
“Starting ANOTHER new journal, this time in the 'Day One' application. It's a cutesy little app I picked up for my laptop last night and looks to have some promise. The plan is not to let this journal 'fizzle out' like all it's predecessors before it have, but given my deplorable track record, I'm hardly optimistic yet.” - March 15, 2011
That was written 3,587 entries ago! Since then, Day One has continued to be my most valuable app, and journalling the most important habit, that I have.
I'll share how I've used Day One over the years and what I've found most delightful about the app in this entry. And I will briefly share the benefits that journaling in Day One has had for me.
Then: VERSION 1.0
Day One was initially released back in early 2011 for the iPhone, iPad, & Mac. Lauded for its minimalist layout, Day One was a blank canvas with limited features but a lot of polish, to help make journalling unobtrusive & straightforward. At launch, it featured a scrolling calendar layout to view your entires, a menu bar for quick input, limited Markdown support, and reminders. Day One's humble origins gave you everything you needed to start journaling and not much else.
Maturing over ten years, Day One has added features to enrich your particular style of journalling while never straying from its original purpose of providing an app whose purpose was providing an easy and intuitive platform to record your thoughts. Whether that's through text, photos, audio, drawings, or videos, Day One offers tremendous flexibility to let you journal in a manner that fits best for you.
Now: Version 5.8
From the start, my fear with committing to a journalling application was whether the developer's pursuit of features would make the app overbearingly bulky and push aside the simplicity that attracted me to Day One. For me, my entries have become one of the most precious things I have, and I never wanted the record of those memories to feel like a second-class citizen in the pursuit of kitschy features. Fortunately, I've felt this aim has always been respected by the developers, who, when adding features, have never overshadowed or bogged down the experience of capturing or reliving a memory.
While new entries still retain their blank canvas, I now have the option of going as deep into each entry as I would like. This includes the option of adding metadata like tags, location, weather, the device I was using, step counts, the activity while writing, and even the music I was listening to during my entry. While not essential, these details attach powerful memories and nuances to each entry that I add to Day One. For example, I love to take a moment and write while flying, reflecting on the trip and my headspace at the time, & Day One lets me instantly filter into just those entries I made while on a flight. I also love their integration into Maps to help me see all the places I've written, whether at the Starbucks across the street, at 01:30 at the Nine Fine Irishmen Bar in Las Vegas back in 2011, or somewhere over the Gulf of St. Lawrence in a trip to the East coast of Canada.
How I Use Day One
My current journaling habit is to make one entry per day, typically at night. However, I may add multiple timestamps to the entry throughout the day to capture a specific occurrence or thought. This daily journal is currently on a 2,668-day streak, with 4,325 total entries, and 3,297 photos. More recently, I created a template for each new entry, which includes the particular format I am journalling in and is routinely updated as my writing habits change across time. This template consists of the date, a place to jot down the top 3 'highlights' of the day, a placeholder for 1-2 photos and space to describe them, the different sections I often want to make a note about, and some metrics I like to capture (mood, exercises/fitness, etc.). Again, all of this is very fluid, and as my writing habits change, so does my template. Sometimes I go for months writing more long-form reflections, whereas, in other times, I'll make a couple of quick bullet points about the day.
Beyond my main journal, I have seven other journals I write in less frequently. I won't pain you by going through all seven, but here's a summary of a few. In the "Topics" journal, I write more specific long-form entries. This includes entries like my year-in-review posts, reflecting and processing a relative's death, & the books I read in a particular year. Below that, I have my "Reviews" journal where I jot down my thoughts on a specific restaurant, brewery, coffee shop, or product, taking a photo and making a note or two about what struck me about the experience. And most recently, my "COVID-19" journal, where I jot down a few reflections and stories about what is happening around the world - locally and internationally - during this pandemic.
How Journalling Has Impacted Me
When I journal, I note what is happening, notable events or experiences, and struggles I may be experiencing. Journalling is a process of reflecting on my day, solidifying its memory, and then moving on from it. Writing each night has also been a reliable way of sorting out my thoughts on the day, and I believe it has helped decrease my rumination before I go to bed each night.
However, as an archive, my journal serves as a repository of themes, struggles, and achievements. I can look back to see my doubts about my career or the ending of a relationship and see the process through which I overcame both. I am alerted with areas I am still struggling with and begin to decide whether I want to do anything about them; it becomes harder to ignore something after you've written about it 30 times in a year.
SUMMED UP
Of course, how you use the app doesn't have to be anything like how I use it, and I think that's what I appreciate most. Day One doesn't have a dogma about how you should journal; it merely seeks to provides the best experience for whatever & however you want to remember, and on that, it delivers.
External Links
Website: Day One
