I tried it multiple times and couldn't stick to it.
This project is how I finally fixed it for myself.
It works by eliminating my excuses.
There is only one question a day that I'll answer - no time spent on "finding the perfect topic".
I only need to go to the page - not find my notebook or create a new note/paragraph in another app.
I only left myself a relatively small input area, less than a page in a small notebook - that way the commitment doesn't feel too big.
I really enjoy the process and it has become something that I do early in the morning - a little bit of time for myself.
It's now public because I am sure it could work for you too.
Bonus: The data is all local, the input will be saved in the browser (IndexedDB) while I type, no login necessary - the full journal is accessible as a CSV (bottom right).
I'm working on Paper Website[1], which lets you turn a handwritten journal into a tiny daily blog. I've written nearly 150 posts[2] this way, and I think what's made me so consistent is having an "audience". It sounds weird, but there's ~200 email subscribers to my journal, and it's had nearly 200k page views. Knowing people are reading my stuff motivates me to keep going - I've tried regular journaling before and it just feels like I'm writing into the void.
I'm interested in your prompts because often people don't know what to write about - it's an awesome primer to start.
[1] https://paperwebsite.com [2] https://daily.tinyprojects.dev
My only question: is there an "open" feature that makes the prompt optional for folks who maybe have something more pressing to journal about than something that the prompt may suggest that day?
I saw that “1 Day” as suggested in another comment seems to be basically that.
I’ll play around with it later.
Also a random idea is that you allow people to save their entry directly into a git repo, which feels a bit safer than browser storage. I think there's a way to do that from the web.
My setup for the questions is the following - I have a questions file with one question per line and a cron job that takes the top one, builds the static page by including it in the template and then appends the question in the end.
That way I can always add more questions but if I run out of questions it would just start from the beginning.
Do you have an idea on how to save to a git repo from a static page? I don't want to make it any more complicated than it needs to be.
There's also isomorphic-git [1], which is git client implemented in Javascript.
[0]: https://github.blog/changelog/2021-09-13-a-simpler-api-for-a... [1]: https://isomorphic-git.org/
I shall admit I've spent too much time though building my own journalling apps too. What's the right tradeoff- I wonder - between writing your own journalling apps v/s time spent journalling.
Small suggestion/question (you would have probably thought about it and I wonder if you consciously decided against it) - why not provide a way to seamlessly store it in cloud storage - google drive, etc?
With the current setup you don't have any setup. You don't need an account, you can just start.
As I wrote above, trying to minimize all of the friction, this was easy to implement and made sense.
How would you imagine the cloud storage feature?
i understand journaling to be about today, not something eventful in the past. that prompt i'd be tempted to answer with a multi page essay.
the key for me for journaling is habit. the habit to do this every day, and not to skip. the prompt doesn't matter. i just write about anything noteworthy from that day.
with a plain text editor, into a file.
it's not ideal though. it's the last thing i do before going to sleep, and once in a while i miss an entry. and on some days, i feel there is nothing to write.
This is what I was trying to fix for myself.
And I found that creating a new text document is just an additional friction.
> i'd be tempted to answer with a multi page essay
This is what I visually restricted the input field for as I also feel like some questions would otherwise suggest a long answer. Trying to answer them in a brief way is a feature for myself.
what i am trying to say is that, for me at least, the prompt itself would have to limit the scope to today or maybe this week. (but then i would not be able to write anything for this particular prompt)
maybe prompts like: what made you happy this week? what made you sad? what was a challenge you faced this week?
if you come up with a dozen questions like that, and then randomly rotate through those, one each day, i think that might produce interesting results.
Personally, I tried it and still failed to maintain it.
A fixed prompt likely was why I couldn't maintain it. The prompt was generic and open ended, but I tired quickly of coming up with new stuff to the same questions.
But the likely real reason is that it just became a chore. I probably should have reduced it to once a week or something. I have kind of tried that as well and still failed.
Another reason is quality. The first draft of anything sucks really bad, but I don't want to write badly. It's a lot more effort to write something present or future me will be happy with.
Ultimately, I think it's a matter of perspective and priority. I like the idea of journaling, but it is somewhat labor intensive (especially if the "first draft" is not good enough for you). The reality is I often choose to do something else with that time.
