No that’s not a typo in the title, I plan to hammer down my thoughts about a daily journal app I use: Diaro. During the course, I will also try to narrate my diary writing experience so far.
Bummer! I just realize now that I have already written a similar post at: https://darpan.blog/productivity/logging-life-the-smartphone-way/. Anyway, my heart will go on.
Background
I have this habit of writing diary every night before I sleep. I have been writing my experiences since…maybe 4 years now? Yeah.
Yesterday was my 24th birthday. Before the clock turned to 12 AM, I thought, let’s check out what I had done on my previous birthday – 14th November, 2017.
I opened the app and started reading by entry of last year. It sent me down the memory lane. I remembered the time when I was in Hyderabad, was done with GRE and TOEFL exams and how I feared going to office because of birthday.
Why to Write Diary
Many times I wonder, why the hell do I need to spent 15 minutes each night to write about the day. It’s frustrating sometimes, but nevertheless I go on and write. Today, I will try to think about it from a more of analytical perspective and list down some whys:
- It helps reflect on the past. It’s like a time travel where I can see where I was a month, a year back and where I am now.
- It helps analyze the day. What went right and what went wrong. What could’ve improved. Sort of counseling.
- It helps build a habit. Building regular habits brings a positive rhythm to life.
- A searchable database of live events. With one search, I can get answers to any of the events happened with me. Examples include, when did I propose her? When did I buy Samsung S9? When did I hear back with the internship offer? It is fun to search past events and read about them.
How to Write
Personally, I believe that writing down in offline pen-paper format is a oldish idea. The risk is,
- Longevity – it’s hard to maintain paper based diary
- Scalability – one new diary every year?
- Security – what if someone sneaks into the pages? What if it gets lost?
- Search-ability – it’s near impossible to search for a specific event or term
I also used to write in old fashioned notebook format – once I changed to digital format, I never looked back.
The Digital Format – Diaro App
I started writing digitally using Microsoft Word document. Needless to say, it wasn’t a structured way to write and it sucked.
Then I shifted over to Evernote for a while – it was way more structured but it sucked too because lack of date-wise organization. I wouldn’t blame Evernote though – it’s a great app. I was being dumbass with my choice.
It was around 2013 when I had a decent Android phone and I started exploring mobile based options. I tried at least 10 different applications and finally decided to go ahead with Diaro app. It ticked all the requirements I needed –
- Date wise organization
- Location marking
- Categories
- Tags
- Dark theme
- Web version
- Built-in security
- Reminders
- Export functionality
- Photos attachment
- And most importantly – backup and sync function
It was a no-brainer for me to go ahead with Diaro and I have never looked back ever since.
Links: https://diaroapp.com/
Stats
I have written over 1500 entries so far over the span of 4 years.
This is how my categories stack.
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