How will you journal in 2023?

Perfect!!! Thank you EVER so much!

Apple has a new stand-alone Diary app - has anyone played around with it yet?

I’m trying to see if I can export my Day One entries into this new Apple diary app

I think there was a lot of curiosity about it but here is a write up. The biggest non-starter for me is iPhone only.

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The same for me. I’ve not opened the Journal App. I’m not going to type my journal entries using my phone. If and when the Journal App becomes available on the iPad and Mac, then I’ll give it a try.

I guess it depends on how you journal. I simply want to track the main feeling of the day, almost like a bad haiku and the phone is perfect for that, but I would not commit to Journal App if it was iPhone only, iPadOS and macOS versions are coming, for sure.

I never track or log my feelings, only activities, special events, and thoughts. This will probably drive the psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors in this forum crazy, but I’ve never been one for navel-gazing. My apologies to them in advance. :grinning:

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Here’s a silly question. I’ve tried the “how you’re feeling” prompts for a while, but I never got any feedback from it. Where does one get any value out of entering data at these prompts a couple times per day?

I had imagined getting feedback periodically in a more automated fashion.

“Looks like you’re about to blow, you’ve been tapping on some borderline scary answers this week, bros. Take a breath, take a walk, and relax…psycho”.

Or

“It’s good to be happy but wow, you’re overdoing it a bit don’t you think? For someone that scrolls as much social media as you, something isn’t adding up – are you lying to me, Dave?”

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Where does one get any value out of entering data at these prompts a couple times per day?

I hope those aren’t actual responses! :rofl:

In answer to your question, I don’t think one does. To be candid, I think the whole thing is rather silly. A machine has no understanding, life experience, worldview, wisdom, or ethical system grounded in a coherent epistemology and teleology to guide its responses. I would never take action based on probabilistic-based suggestions.

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Those responses would not be great, I agree.

I figured it would identify trends. Something like "you’ve chosen more negative responses this week/this month than usual. Identify how you’re feeling in regards to X or Y and here are some options to help you out – exercise more, meditate etc etc

Just entering that into the phone for no apparent reason (there must be SOMETHING in the Health App) – but still, I’m not sure the point and agree with you @Bmosbacker

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But don’t we already know this? The problem is usually not lack of knowledge; it’s lack of discipline in doing or stopping what we know is good for us. We already know eating well, exercising, having friends, not doom scrolling, limiting negative “newstainment,” and more are good for us. We don’t need an ML-based response to tell us so. We need to do what we already know.

Admittedly, this is easier said than done! :slightly_smiling_face:

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We already know this – but I suspect many people don’t. A lot of my friends don’t ever think to seek out why they’re in a rut – they just know they’re in one and accept it. A simple prompt here and there might raise awareness.

That’s fair. I probably should be careful not to extrapolate to others what seems so obvious. If it helps others, that is a good thing.

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With Day One incorporating the Apple Journal prompts API, I am sticking with Day One, while also copy/pasting my Day One entry into my Obsidian Daily Note for posterity.

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It’s nice for troubleshooting psychosomatic illnesses and managing neurodivergence. (Can be a family member’s, not just your own.)

Agree, but I meant more like – where are the results of these entries. In the health app? I’ve not seen any feedback on them.

Oh, right, sorry. No, the Health app doesn’t help you with any of those statistics yet. I really wish it would (for me, correlations with insulin data.)

I’d love for a developer to create a “for entertainment purposes only” version of the Health app, connected to the same data, that was more free to make those leaps.

GitHub isn’t E2EE, so your privacy is at Microsoft’s mercy.

That was the point I hoped to make.

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I expect to keep storing my journal entries in plaintext files because they’re future-proof and interoperable. I use Obsidian for all of its conveniences, but I could use any markdown or text editor.

Though I sometimes interstitial journal in my daily notes to help me focus and stay on track during the day, I do my main journaling separately in a single file per year, with the entries running in reverse chronological order so I’m always working at the top of the page.

By using H1 for the title (2024 Journal), H2 for the month, and H3 for the ISO-8601 date, in the future I’ll be able to quickly jump to any month or day using any markdown editor that has a navigable outline view in a side panel, such as Obsidian, Zettlr, or (if you want a native Mac app) Typora, but not (for example) the Apple versions of iA Writer.

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When I saw this feature, I figured it wasn’t for data collection, but to help users cultivate mindfulness. I can’t seem to pull it up, but my understanding was that there is research showing that people with a higher ability to articulate emotions experience more positive emotions.