No I'm not showing up fashionably late to say happy new years.

In the Summer last year around my birthday, I had this idea of buying a journal upon the time I turned 19 and begin recording the highlights/lowlights of my day every night for the next year. That way, a year later I can see where I was then compared to the future, and the entire transformation in the process. Maybe even learn a thing or two about myself whenever I'm in the mood to review.

Sadly I found myself scrapping the idea for whatever reason. Maybe lack of enthusiasm. Whatever. Point is that now it's January 1st, 2015. Last night/this morning, I found myself discussing with friends and family about how different their life is compared to last New Year's and to figure out if they did enough to progress themselves to a new place in life. It didn't take long for me to realize that I was having difficulty remembering all the crazy experiences that made 2014 unique to my life, as well as explaining how exactly my life has drastically changed. I know many things are different now, but I can't quite exactly look at myself and say that I'm in a much different/better place than I was last time. Which gave me the sudden new urge to now revisit my day-by-day journal idea.

So for the entirety of 2015 I will be trying as hard as I can to record my entire year, and motivate myself to make every single day worth noting. Maybe at the end of it I can go back through my year and see how things have changed so that I can make the next year even better.

I have previous experience of having a journal, but I was never quite as dedicated as I am now. Have any of you ever had your own personal journal and found it helpful/unhelpful at all? What did you mostly write about? And finally is it something you read back through and have a sort of reaction to? Like understanding yourself better or irking at your annoying younger self?

I don't have any journals, but I do record any interesting ideas that pop up in my head spontaneously or something cool that I just learnt on my phone. I choose my phone because obviously it is something I will always have on me and therefore allows me to record the freshest and most accurate recollection. Even leaving the thought for an hour I feel may lead you to skip out on some of the finer details. Or if you want to stick to writing, use your phone to just vomit out your unorganized thoughts just so they act as cues for later when you put pen to paper. Even putting it in dot points will be enough to effectively help you recall. But the number one thing I keep in mind, is that I am not writing for me in that time, but for me in the future. Even though I may completely understand what I am writing in that moment, 10 months later when I read it again there is a good chance that I will have absolutely no idea what I was talking about. So I reckon a good tip is to imagine explaining it to another person who does not have complete access to your thoughts.

Nikki Sixx beat you to it. Yours will never be better than his.

I feel like it's a good idea, but isn't that what Facebook is for? Hell, it even makes the collage for you, publishes it, and distributes the son of a bitch.

Well see I've grown weary of making constant long and deep posts to friends and family, as well as strangers. Plus this is a journal not a diary. It's mostly what I did today and my take on it. I'm doing this for my own personal efficiency. Not for any sort of attention or public gain.

Quote from Sacred

Well see I've grown weary of making constant long and deep posts to friends and family, as well as strangers. Plus this is a journal not a diary. It's mostly what I did today and my take on it. I'm doing this for my own personal efficiency. Not for any sort of attention or public gain.

I feel you. Call it whatever you want, it's still a diary :)
I wish you the best with this and hope it can hold your interest long enough to keep it going.

Just pointing out that Nikki Sixx sounds like a bad teenage porn actress pseudonym

Quote from sss

Just pointing out that Nikki Sixx sounds like a bad teenage porn actress pseudonym

I mean he's from the 80's lol. You've never heard of Motley Crue?

She seems to know a thing or two about this. Might want to ask her, wherever she is now.

i like this idea and i think it would be good for me to do the same, especially considering my memory problems. does anybody know of a good journal application for windows?

idk man, notepad?

Quote from Smile

idk man, notepad?

yeah i was hoping for something a bit better than that

Notepad ++?

No that's not joke, that program is actually dope. Can use it for coding, writing stories.

no, no. i mean something actually geared towards being used as a journal. for example, something where i can add an entry and it would automatically record it with date etc and add it to a list of other entries. that sort of thing.

Scrivener is a program that could be used as a journal. You could make a different entry for each day quite easily, though its not specifically a diary/journal program.