Perfectly Wonderful App You Don't Use

Day One Journal — Felt at home … liked the way it worked.

Tried it as a traditional journal but not for me.

MPU cast (not sure of the number) guest used it to store dated entries… That sounded like a splendid idea. But, as in the first case, use never became ingrained.

The app languishes in my rarely used stack — a perfectly wonderful app.

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I’d agree with Day One. I’ve even set up IFTTT actions to automatically add stuff. I just never actually look at anything in it. And I’ve never gotten journalling to stick (thoughts, anyone?)

My other regret is Omni Outliner. It’s a really good outliner. I’ve played with and like its functionality, ease of use, aesthetics, all of it. And then I go back to bullet points in OneNote or Bear. I don’t know why.

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Agree about OmniOutliner. I think it’s because it’s file-based, which is feels more and more anachronistic now. I wish it was a library/database system, rather than individual files. Sync on it feels so fragile as well.

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Yes! Agreed that OmniOutliner is a great app. The Omni Sync is reliable, but clunky. The beta iCloud syncing was unusable for me.

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Trello

I loved the way it looked, worked etc etc

I can’t put my finger on the exact reason, but I just couldn’t get it to feel comfortable using it for all my projects

Great app… sits in a folder on my phone …

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Not intending to divert this thread.

I wonder if Trello is more at home on the iPad or larger screen. I believe visual separation between the “boards” is critical.

That said I’ve never seen it on an iPhone. So… I may be way off base.

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+1 for OmniOutliner. I use outlines for almost everything at work and i still do it in OneNote…

+1 for OmniOutliner

but #1 has to be LiquidText. Love the idea but can’t get it in my workflow.

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Do you like to write? I certainly do. I find that once I start to write, I have a hard time stopping. Maybe you just need to remind yourself. My aunt asked me to write her every day to tell her something good that’s happened. We don’t necessarily write to each other every day but it’s there in the back of my mind.

I’ve tried to keep journals and found I’ve been better at the handwritten kind but a lot has changed. But keeping after myself to do so was counterproductive; it made it seem like a chore. Journaling is truly a terrific way to keep a record of what’s going on in your life. I’m amazed at how much I forget and how much writing a bit jogs my memory.

You could tell yourself you’re going to journal perhaps for five minutes and once you start you may really get into it.

You could copy and paste a letter you have written, maybe change it around. My dictation is not too hot but maybe yours is better!

You can just write words. You can write, thoughts, feelings, descriptions. You can be as eloquent or as cryptic or as varied as you desire. Remember this is for yourself and not for posteriority, right? Type a password in maybe. I really should! Sometimes I write in Spanish. Well, when I was growing up my sister did read my diary! Ha!

Keeping photos in there is a nice touch. It’s good to look back. Journaling is quiet time usually for yourself. Now if I could only take my own advice! I think I’ll cut and paste it into Day One. I’m retired now but can you guess my line of work?:wink:

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Sometimes I don’t have anything to type on for a journal entry. In that case, I’ll take a photo of something interesting and that might inspire to write something about it. It might inspire new ideas.

Years later, Day One will show what I wrote on this particular day and I might laugh about it. Time can change my perspective and o might be inspired to write more.

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I could never get into journal specific apps. I prefer simple general purpose writing apps like Bear especially if they have a great export feature to future proof the work. Combine it with TextExpander for dates and linking my thoughts together I find it to be the best route.

@theknick it just so happens that I posted an article on my blog yesterday about the value of journaling. This is not self promotion, merely a response to your question. Perhaps in some small way this may be of value to you. Here an excerpt and the link to the article.

Life has its peaks and valleys, but we live most of it on the plains of our daily journey. Unless we capture, savor, and learn from the countless monochrome moments that compose the majority of our lives, they will be absorbed into the gray mist of life and history—gone and forgotten and indistinguishable from all others.

It is easy to miss the small and insignificant events that continuously fill our lives over time. Because there are so many inconsequential moments that makeup our lives, it is easy to miss the arc of our life’s journey. These moments are precious not because they are colorful, unique and profound but because they are life—they are the warp and woof of our imprint upon our families, colleagues and the world and their mark upon us. They are worth remembering and savoring. Keeping and reviewing a journal reveals our life journey in all of its plainness and grandeur.

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Regrettably, mine is a combo of Workflow and IFTT. As a huge nerd I thought I would love these, but I find so little use cases in my day to day. Many times I find I don’t want to 100% replicate an exact action. Am I so unpredictable? I have little fun ones like logging water that can replace whole apps, but having to go into workflow is a barrier for me and I’ve found some of my IFTT workflows to be unpredictable or oddly slow.

I am pumped for shortcuts in iOS 12 however. Siri is a huge boost in productivity, as opposed to going into an app and tapping on an icon which doesn’t feel short. The first one I want already is “it’s bedtime” - set my goodnight scene, turn on my nest cams, and turn on my security system, so long as all of these apps want to play nice that is :slight_smile:

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OmniOutliner. It’s pleasant on the eyes, easy enough to use but I just can’t find a reason to use it over tools like Excel.

Agree, I use Ulysses.

I agree - I find Excel pretty useful and easy to use. I use it everyday for lists, plans, etc than for complicated spreadsheets.

I abandoned Omnioutliner and went back to excel.

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I’m in the same boat. Over on macOS, it’s far easier for me to design things around repetitive tasks - and so I end up using them frequently. Granted, there are actions/macro that I construct with great pride, only for them to fall into disuse - but in general, this happens less frequently.

Over on iOS, whereas I do use Workflow workflows, and some of them frequently, there are countless others that I have inside the app, imported from elsewhere, that I have hardly used again - and I’ve since forgotten what they do, or why I wanted to try them.

No doubt the new Siri integration will improve this - but yes, I’m far less ‘automated’ on iOS.

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I like it! I like it!

It really is cool to look back a year or two on the Day One app. I retired and moved to another country and find it interesting to see what I was thinking during the process.

Sometimes when I’m on a lunch date I will snap a photo of my friend. It always brings back that day to me when I view it.

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Totally agree, one of my favorite things about Hazel on Mac is its ability to perform workflows based on a set of criteria that is similar, but able to parse out small differences. The automation is useful to the nth degree provided you put the time in.

Contrast that to “I’m driving home” and iOS is going to text my wife, set the thermostat, and play a certain radio station which is a super useful set of criteria, but I may decide I want a different playlist, or maybe my wife is traveling and I don’t need to text her but I want the other pieces to work.

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