Ask HN: Do you keep a personal journal?

Yes, I use two things, no affiliation to either.

1) Five minute journal. Used to keep track of mental state and review day mostly.

https://www.amazon.ca/Five-Minute-Journal-Happier-Minutes/dp...

2) Way of Life app for iPhone

http://wayoflifeapp.com/

I track about 40 things from floss, to running, to meditation, etc. It's a very easy way to, in under a minute, run through and check off the things you did, or didn't do if the task is something like "eat fast food".

It's great for reviewing over time like a month or quarter to see how you are making out.

I really think these guys have nailed simple task tracking.

Ya! Love way of life! I look at the trends to make sure I am always improving.

I tried keeping a journal (to track what I did each day...otherwise it felt like the days were just blending together) but kept failing over and over because I just couldn't get into the habit.

For people who have the same issue, I came up with https://www.60secondseveryday.com

It's the fastest way of daily journaling - you make a 60 second phone call every night to answer the question "What do you want to remember about today?". From there, it gets transcribed, archived, and it's all searchable as well.

Disclaimer: I came up with the service after having a need for it myself

Thanks for the recommendation. They also have an Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wayoflife....

I'll answer these questions one by one:

> Do you keep a personal journal?

For the last two years I've written a journal entry almost every day. Some days I didn't write, like during travels, but I added information about these days afterwards. Sometimes those entries were pages long and contained conversations or dreams, sometimes it was just: "1. Dezember - 3. Dezember: much work, travelled to Budapest"

I stopped writing about three weeks ago.

> If yes, do you find it useful? > When journaling, do you try to track any specific aspects of your life or just write about anything that is currently occupying your mind?

My purpose of the journal was to keep track of my motivation and good mood, so I put mostly positively worded events in there, like "* Went to training, despite mismotivation of the last days". I also recorded things that I never / seldom do.

It served that purpose well. I don't need it anymore, that's why I stopped, but I'll probably pick it up again someday.

> What tools would you recommend?

Plaintext Files. Or MacOS Notes. It doesn't matter really. Finding the perfect journal is procrastination to prevent having to write a journal.

> Is there any specific methodology that you follow?

Write an entry for every single day, no matter when, no matter how short it is (but make it at least one grammatically correct sentence). If you forget, just write the entry for yesterday. Mark the entry with date and time.

> Any advice on how to get the most out of personal journaling?

After doing it for a while, you will develop a feeling about whether and how it benefits you. Follow that feeling.

Apart from that: Keeping a journal will always enable you to reconstruct and remember details of your life 10 years from now. One key sentence is often enough to help you remember the day.

That is why I'm going to pick it up again.