Plain text journaling
I've been journalling for a long time now. It's something I don't even think about anymore; just a thing I do. Some people meditate, others pray. I write.
I've published a few essays about how journaling has impacted my life by providing the space for me to reflect on my day. One thing I have never done until this year, however, is read any of my old journals.
This may seem strange, since what is the point of writing if not to be read. But that isn't why I do it. I write as a practice. As a thing that I do. If all my journals were lost in a house fire, I'd be sad, yes. But the documentation of my life isn't what's valuable. That value has already been gleaned through the act itself.
That being said, I tried reading one of my old journals at the beginning of this year and it turns out I can't read my own handwriting... I could suss out some entries by holding the book at arm's length and squinting, but it wasn't an easy reading experience. This lead me down a rabbit hole of trying to find a better medium for my most intimate thoughts.
After considering some apps and services, I realised that I don't trust most of them with my data. On top of that they were all forcing me into journaling in a Specific Way™. There were also way too many features--from gamified systems to social networks--integrated with the journal, which was a big turn-off for me.
The most important thing, however, was that I don't expect any of these services to survive in the long run. And I plan to keep journaling for the rest of my life. Ink on paper is notoriously good at surviving for centuries, but online services come and go like the wind.
Enter journal.txt (no, this isn't another service).
I've since settled on a format that does everything I need to do, and does it very well. The humble txt file.
I have one giant text file as my universal journal (and once I can get a local vision model that can read my handwriting, I may go and transcribe all my old journals into it). Each entry starts with the date and contains a paragraph or two about my day. If I have more to say, I write more. I don't have to worry about running onto the next page, or finishing my journal prematurely, or running out of ink.
Here's an example from my journal:
Side-note: It took me a while to find an entry in my journal that I felt comfortable sharing online.
***
Mon 2024-04-15
Admin ate up my morning. I did have a good workout, but then had to go try on a suit in Claremont. It was fine. I then returned the ergonomic keyboard that wasn't working for me.
By the time I got home it was almost 1 o'clock. I hopped on a planning call with Jason and had a good chat, then Emma's mom arrived and we had lunch and caught up. I then spent the rest of the afternoon building a reactive state manager using JS proxies (proxies are awesome).
Whits, Robbie and I had dinner at Addis in Cape. It was a nice, chatty evening. We unfortunately ordered the set menu accidentally, and I couldn't eat that much food. I almost rolled home.
***
Tue 2024-04-16
A mosquito got into our room last night and bit me all over, to the extent that my tattoos on my arm were raised. Emma, sick of its shit, turned on the light and hunted it down. That lil' buzzy bitch had it coming. Unfortunately this meant that I was a bit sleepy in the morning.
etc...
There are a few benefits I've found to using a simple txt file:
It works on any device
Txt files have been around since the early days of computing, and they aren't going anywhere. I suspect the txt format will outlive us all. Any device can be loaded with a text editor, but most devices come with it pre-installed. If you're really hardcore you could ssh into your homelab and use vim to update your journal. But that may lead to Death by Snu Snu.
It's easily stored and transported
I currently have ~10 years of journals. These get heavy and bulky over time. When I'm 50 I'd have to dedicate a whole closet to just storing them. Any digital file solves this, txt files especially so.
It's easy to backup
I personally have my journal.txt file on a synced drive of which there are many options (Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud Drive, etc). To double up on ensuring its longevity I have a cron job running a weekly offsite backup.
It's searchable
Text editors have native search functionality, which when combined with the dated format makes finding information incredible easy and quick. Considering the low-weight of simple text, even a whole lifetime of journalling will return a search result in milliseconds.
It's secure (enough)
My journal.txt is as secure as my computer and synced drive, which is considerably more secure than a notebook. I've almost left my journal in restaurants before, and have even had an ex girlfriend browse through it without my permission (which is an incredible invasion of privacy and lead to me inadvertently self-censoring while I write).
It's extensible
My format isn't the holy grail. I have seen people write no more than a sentence a day. A quick summary for the man on the go. There is no correct way to do this, but I suspect everyone may find a way that is correct for them.
There are some downsides, but no serious ones. It feels less romantic to type out my journal entry rather than write it with pen on paper. I do miss that, but I also don't miss how slow I wrote (when compared to typing), as well as the hand cramps from a particularly lengthly entry.
There's also the matter of distraction. My computer is a place for work, and it took me a while to be able to journal while in my "work area". I get around this by making sure that when I finish work for the evening to close all emails and Slack. This way I can open my laptop in the morning, open textEdit, and write before getting distracted by the myriad of things wanting my attention.
Needless to say, this is working for me, and I'll continue to do it going forward. If trends hold true you can expect another essay on journaling in about 4 years time.