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How To Correctly Copy and Paste Into Your Journal

Posted on May 18, 2013 | 2 comments

We write a lot more words than we typically give ourselves credit for. Not only am I constantly writing blog posts on this and other sites, but I frequently write detailed emails to close family and friends. Throw in social media, commenting on other websites and personal journaling and I average probably a four digit word count every day.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you do too.

When it comes to my digital journal word count, I cheat. I’m bad. I steal, plunder and plagerize.

But it’s all okay! I’m not stealing someone elses words and calling them mine, I am stealing my own words and calling them mine. With a quick ctrl+c and ctrl+v (command for you Mac folks) I grab text I have already written and slap it right into my personal journal entries.

Why You Should Consider Printing Your Digital Journal

Posted on May 14, 2013 | 0 comments

If you have done a diligent search for a quality journal app for your smartphone and tablet you may have been attacked by a flurry of features.

Emoticons!

Links!

Video!

…and so on.

As great as these sound and as wonderful as it is to capture your life in such a variety of ways, I argue against using most multimedia features that digital journals offer these days. The exception?

Journal App Review: Roller Journal for iPhone

Posted on May 2, 2013 | 0 comments

Keeping a journal is similar to exercise. Some people start it out strong; going to the gym every day, doing the necessary warm-ups and buying the required items but there will come a point where the thrill and excitement fizzles up. For people who want to keep a journal, the problem is not in the determination or the time. Sometimes, we just don’t know what to write about. We face an empty piece of paper with a pen at hand just letting precious time pass by. Then we give up.

If you are one of the many people who encounter such problems then you don’t have to worry anymore. With the iOS app named Roller Journal, you will never have to worry about not knowing what to write anymore.

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I Have Written 371,193 Words In My Journals In 14 Years

Posted on Apr 22, 2013 | 0 comments

I’m a stat nerd, so to be honest, I’m not sure why I haven’t done this before. It all started with a simple question I had the other day:

How much have I really written in my journals?

It wasn’t the sort of question that has no answer or is not quantifiable, it was a very clear and direct question that I knew I could find the answer to. I turned to the tool that I have become oh-so-familiar with as an aspiring engineer- a spreadsheet.

Improving Life vs Capturing Life- Why Do You Journal?

Posted on Apr 12, 2013 | 0 comments

The more I have gotten to know the journaling community the more I have realized how diverse it is, which is contrary to what I initially thought. When I first started Easy Journaling I was sure that most people who kept a journal where similar to each other. Call it stereotyping or call it demographics but I was sure I knew what types of people were most likely to journal.

Obviously I was wrong as I have come to the realization that there are journalers of every age and stage in life and from every country and nationality in the world. This diversity has given the EJ community a unique flavor and voice.

I’ve also noticed that everyone has their own reason to write a journal. There are many reasons, as I have recently documented in 101 Reasons to Write a Journal, but these can actually be boiled down into two broad categories. That’s right, there are only two main reasons to keep a journal, coming from the guy that wrote about 101.

So here it is, you either journal to improve your life or to capture your life.

A Letter From Me: You Are Using That Journal Or Diary App Wrong

Posted on Apr 10, 2013 | 7 comments

Let me be clear, this post isn’t necessarily for regular Easy Journaling readers. You understand the basics and many of you are consistently leveling up what you do with your digital journaling abilities.

No, I’m talking to everyone else. Not just everyone who comes to this site but everyone who has downloaded a journal or diary app.

Scratch that.

This is a letter to the entire world of anyone who has even thought about downloading a journal or diary app for their smartphone or tablet.

Ever.

5 Ways To Start A Digital Journal For Free

Posted on Apr 5, 2013 | 0 comments

Not only does keeping a journal on your favorite device have incredible benefits over the alternative, but it is usually very affordable as well. While I typically encourage the serious digital journaler to eventually pay for a premium service, free alternatives are a great choice if you are just getting started. To help you out I have compiled a list of the top 5 free ways you can get started on your digital journaling adventure for free.

Does Keeping a Digital Journal Mean No More Hand Written Entries?

Posted on Apr 4, 2013 | 0 comments

As I speak to you through email and social media, however, there is one aspect of hand-written journals that many of you aren’t willing to fully let go of- the hand-written part. For some reasons there is a perception out there that there are fewer benefits of journaling via your fingers on a keyboard than using your wrist with a pen. I’m not sure where this came from but I’m fairly confident that it is false. I am many times more distracted writing by hand than when I type because it flows so much better.

But do you know what? This concern is essentially irrelevant because of one important fact:

Journal App Review: Capture 365 for iPad/iPhone (Mac Version Also Available)

Posted on Mar 30, 2013 | 0 comments

Looking for that perfect journal app is just like shopping for any other item. Imagine wanting to buy a new desk and going to an IKEA store. That certain familiar feeling is there; you know what you want and you know you want it now. The only problem is that all of a sudden, all desks seem to look alike. That vision of the perfect desk is gone. What’s left is a room full of possible purchases that leave you catatonic at the very least.

Journal apps tend to be alike in some ways, especially if you have seen as many as I have. The general purpose of being able to help you create daily journals is there but with the number of choices available to you – you end up confused. Are all journal apps created equal?

Sockii’s Capture 365 begs to differ. In a sea of journal and diary apps, Capture 365 seems to go against the tide and forces us to believe that there is such a thing called the “chosen one” among the many.
Although first impressions are nice, it isn’t extremely intuitive and there is no tutorial or introduction video to help you grasp the basics. For example, adding a new entry on a specific date requires you do at least 2 things (including selecting dates and clicking a button). Two buttons might not be much but I bet this is much confusing than the usual + button.

Journal App Review: Saga Diary for Android

Posted on Mar 26, 2013 | 0 comments

When you want something done, the best option is probably the simplest option. If you want to nail something then use a hammer. If you want to cut paper then use a pair of scissors. Or if you want to get to the other side of the road then you have to start walking ASAP. Life is supposed to be easy. Complicating it with extra stuff doesn’t make it any better. To some people, simplicity is the most important of all features.

In the war of journal apps, some apps try to have something up their sleeves in an attempt to outdo the competition. Others have certain functions, while even others try to be aesthetically different from the others. Maybe, (just maybe) what we need is a journal app that lets you do what you want to do without distracting you with stuff you don’t need to do. Who wouldn’t want to have a journal app that won’t ask you if you want to publish your app on some social media platform or a journal app that will just silently take down your journal without prompting you with any extra and unnecessary trick?

If this is you, Saga Diary for Android is worth checking out.

The Benefits of Keeping a Video Diary

Posted on Mar 23, 2013 | 0 comments

Benefits of Video Diaries

-Eddie Yu of DiaryMemo.com

The benefits of keeping a diary has been widely researched, written and blogged about, and we all know that it’s a good thing to do. It’s a way to record your own personal history and heal yourself at the same time because as we all know, self healing in its highest form is being reflective and self aware of what’s going on inside our own heads.

Since we already know all the benefits of writing, what’s the difference between that and recording it on video?

Well, there are plenty of apps and websites where you can go to create a written diary, but as yet there are only a few which use video as the main format of recording.

Firstly there is a difference between ‘vlogging’ and creating a video diary, in the same way that blogging is different from writing a diary. The difference is that vlogging and blogging are predominantly public activities with the purpose of sharing, whereas diary and video diaries are private for personal storage and use.

It’s important to make that distinction since if you were looking to make a video diary for public sharing, for whatever reasons, then platforms like YouTube and Vimeo are perfect for the job, after all that’s their purpose!

One of the newer platforms for private video diary recording is DiaryMemo, but first let’s discuss what makes video different, perhaps even better than writing.

This Free Recommendation Website Is Probably The Best Thing Easy Journaling Has Ever Done

Posted on Mar 19, 2013 | 2 comments

What Is Your Best Journal App?

Visitors come to Easy Journaling for a variety of reasons but the most popular is to find the best journal app for their favorite device. Just type “best android diary” or “best iPhone journal” into any Google search bar and you will probably be directed to this website.

As nice as the ‘best journal app‘ posts are that you will find here, they aren’t really that helpful because each user has such different criteria. The top 5 apps for Jack won’t be the same for Jane. Everyone approaches digital journaling differently and a simple list cannot appropriately serve unique individuals.

I have tried as often as possible to give personal journal app recommendations to those who have bothered to ask. And as much as I enjoy the challenge of taking the differing criteria and using several years of app research to give the best journaling solution, the Easy Journaling community is getting to the point where it isn’t practical to serve everyone in this manner.

There was a solution to this problem all along but it took me over a year to finally pull the trigger and automate my journal recommendation process. Thanks to a paid developer, an online researcher and a skilled friend, we have built an entire journal app recommendation tool from scratch and I am excited to announce that it is now available… and it is free. It will always be free.

Warning: Don’t Use The Built-In Tagging Feature In Your Journal App

Posted on Mar 16, 2013 | 6 comments

Using a folder system for organizing is so, like, five years ago. Right? Kids nowadays are keeping things together using tags which are similar to folders… but oh, so different. Gmail is the most obvious example. I used to use Yahoo email (you probably did too, once upon a time) and I remember having some elaborate system of folders and sub-folders to keep track of my most important emails. Once I made the switch to Gmail I had withdraws for a while because my beloved folder system had been replaced with a foreign method of tagging. Fast forward a half-decade later and I’m pretty sure that I would never go back to folders.

Twitter has expanded on this idea by implementing #hashtags. These are just basically text in your tweet with a # (pound) sign to indicate that it is a keyword, not actually part of the sentence. This has spawned an entire subculture based on following the most popular #hashtags of the day with such stunning examples of #aintnobodygottimeforthat, #coolstorybro and #endoftheworldconfessions. Any user can simply type one of these terms (as is, with no spaces) into the search bar and instantly see the conversation on that topic.

If you use a journal/diary app on your smartphone or tablet, chances are that it will have a built-in tagging feature. This basically means that instead of adding tags as text inside your entries you can click on frequently used tags and that entry will be grouped with all other entries with the same tag. It’s kind of cool in theory and even in execution, but unfortunately this system has a flaw.

A List Of The Top 20 Android Journals

Posted on Mar 15, 2013 | 0 comments

If you aren’t using an Android device now, you likely will be very soon. This relatively new smartphone operating system has exploded in growth and has matured into a stable and smooth platform. I even recently switched from iPhone and am loving my Galaxy S3 (it’s the small screen, Apple!)

We are in the process of building an entire journal/diary database that covers all major platforms and will be releasing some cool information based on this data very soon. To get started I have created a list of the top 20 Android journals/diaries based on an ‘out of 100′ scoring system. Note that this is not an arbitrary scoring system. This isn’t based on anecdotal information or even on my own testing (I haven’t even tried all of these). Instead, this list is a mathematical representation of which apps scored the best based on 12 different criteria. Additionally, the features that are more important give the apps more points so this computer generated data still has the Easy Journaling recommendations built in.

An Introduction to the 5 Levels of Digital Journaling

Posted on Mar 8, 2013 | 6 comments

I’m not a terribly organized person, but I try to be. I like order and love to boil complicated processes into the most simple parts whenever possible. For this reasons I have separated all of the types of digital journalers into 5 different levels. Yes, this may be an over simplification of digital journalers the world wide, but I believe it will be very helpful to you so that you can know where you are and where you can go. It will also help me know how to get more of you into higher levels of journaling.

It has only been in the past few months when my personal experiences, conversations with app developers and communication with fellow digital journalers have combined to help me develop a near perfect process for keeping a journal electronically. It is a process that is application agnostic (it doesn’t really matter which app you use as long as it has the fundamental features), secure, optimized and fulfilling. It is a process based on simple principles that are flexible enough for nearly anyone from any background to use.