The impetus for this came from somebody I know who recovered from a significant dependency and set about making numerous changes in their lives and routines, including keeping a daily journal of gratitude, random acts of kindness, things they’d learned and more. I loved the idea, they shared their list of daily touch-points with me, and although it’s about 1 year now since they did so, i’m wanting to follow a similar practice.
I remember a time where, each December, I would get a brand new, blank, spiral-bound calendar/planner for the upcoming year. I had a fondness for the Sierra Club ones, with their dramatic photography, or Ansel Adams images. (I would also gravitate to the ‘daily’ desk calendar for the Far Side because that amounts to 513 more Larson cartoons per year.)
I have at least one of them still, as pictured, and when I look back at them, it’s a time-capsule through which I can reflect back on so many moments that were routine at the time and now treasured memories. I miss having them. Nothing on my cloud-based calendars ends up being referenced back to, and the online calendars are now more about alarms and appointments, and it’s only on a rare occasion do I stumble across a fun memory when searching for an upcoming itinerary item.
Journaling is something I never really got into the routine of, although I did try several times over the past 30 years, handwritten or via one or more dedicated apps. It just never stuck as a habit. With the dedicated apps, it felt like one more place to go, one more tool to use, and one more silo to fill with what’s otherwise unseen.
The desire to journal resurfaced again recently, in conjunction with resurrecting my old blog posts and with adopting some daily rituals, the act of reflecting each evening, however briefly it might be, on the things that went well, the areas I want to improve on, and what I’m looking forward to the next day, fits right into my focus and my needs.
I started looking again at apps but for the same reasons as before, I didn’t want to add to or complicated the routine. I can write and posts via email, why can’t I just do the same thing for my journal? Answer: I can. And it’s the perfect solution. Another blog instance, right alongside my private writings and public blog, my daily journal can be as easily authored and updated with a simple email. Hell, I can even dictate it. I can even create a simple iOS shortcut for my iPhone to generated the template based email and all I need do is summarize my day, capture three data points, and, in a year's time I’ll have more captured to reflect on than a decade of the printed calendars stored away in a bin in the garage where they’re never looked at more than once in the rarest of occasions.
So, here it is, already en route along the road, my effort to adopt this new simple daily habit. I’m ready to bring it out of the shadows and make it public. I said it at the outset and I’ll say it again, I don’t think anybody is really going to find it so fascinating that they return daily for updates. It’s just ‘there’ for my unabashed self-indulgence. But in the spirit of sharing and transparency, it’s also there for others to periodically visit, to eavesdrop on my efforts to make positive changes in my life, and perhaps to make an impact on their lives, too.
I remember a time where, each December, I would get a brand new, blank, spiral-bound calendar/planner for the upcoming year. I had a fondness for the Sierra Club ones, with their dramatic photography, or Ansel Adams images. (I would also gravitate to the ‘daily’ desk calendar for the Far Side because that amounts to 513 more Larson cartoons per year.)
I have at least one of them still, as pictured, and when I look back at them, it’s a time-capsule through which I can reflect back on so many moments that were routine at the time and now treasured memories. I miss having them. Nothing on my cloud-based calendars ends up being referenced back to, and the online calendars are now more about alarms and appointments, and it’s only on a rare occasion do I stumble across a fun memory when searching for an upcoming itinerary item.
Journaling is something I never really got into the routine of, although I did try several times over the past 30 years, handwritten or via one or more dedicated apps. It just never stuck as a habit. With the dedicated apps, it felt like one more place to go, one more tool to use, and one more silo to fill with what’s otherwise unseen.
The desire to journal resurfaced again recently, in conjunction with resurrecting my old blog posts and with adopting some daily rituals, the act of reflecting each evening, however briefly it might be, on the things that went well, the areas I want to improve on, and what I’m looking forward to the next day, fits right into my focus and my needs.
I started looking again at apps but for the same reasons as before, I didn’t want to add to or complicated the routine. I can write and posts via email, why can’t I just do the same thing for my journal? Answer: I can. And it’s the perfect solution. Another blog instance, right alongside my private writings and public blog, my daily journal can be as easily authored and updated with a simple email. Hell, I can even dictate it. I can even create a simple iOS shortcut for my iPhone to generated the template based email and all I need do is summarize my day, capture three data points, and, in a year's time I’ll have more captured to reflect on than a decade of the printed calendars stored away in a bin in the garage where they’re never looked at more than once in the rarest of occasions.
So, here it is, already en route along the road, my effort to adopt this new simple daily habit. I’m ready to bring it out of the shadows and make it public. I said it at the outset and I’ll say it again, I don’t think anybody is really going to find it so fascinating that they return daily for updates. It’s just ‘there’ for my unabashed self-indulgence. But in the spirit of sharing and transparency, it’s also there for others to periodically visit, to eavesdrop on my efforts to make positive changes in my life, and perhaps to make an impact on their lives, too.