Day One 4+

I would skip journaling for months, because coming up with something to say everyday started to seem artificial. But creating Templates to prompt my thinking really helps me to keep my journaling habit solid. Everyday I have a prompt asking me what I woke up thinking about. When we wake up things are always on our mind.. some personal, some business, random stuff that bothered you during the night.. whatever. In the afternoon I have a template that prompts me to report how the day went, or what could have been better. I don't always do this everyday, but somedays this prompt catches me at just the right moment and I share a little something. Another best practice is just to share one picture of the day, and talk about it. And of course, the reason you might do all of this, go back and review your entries from past months/years.. etc. You discover so much about yourself. "Why did I think like that?" "Oh look, I still think like this.." "Should I change that thing about my life.. here it is years later and I'm still 'working' on it".. These are the questions that you encounter that really helps you analyze your life, gives you an outlet for gratitude, creates and opportunity for growth. Do it! Journal! It's healthy and wonderful. Thanks Day One for a great product. I tried to switch back to paper, but my electronic journaling is a part of my life. I accept it, learn from it, and can't imagine a life without it.

As someone a little too focused on productivity and self-realization tools, I’ve tried a lot of ways of journaling, blogging, publishing, and keeping it to myself. Day One is nice and clean - it’s pretty full-featured, but also lets you turn off, or even better, ignore, features that you don’t want. I’m appreciating being able to write in Markdown, but not having to, as that’s my mode in several wikis that I use for work.

Several years and several versions in, I’m really appreciating the line that Day One walks. It has a lot of features, but they don’t get in the way of my fairly simple use. And yet, every few months, I find some feature that helps me write more consistently, more quickly, or expand what I’m writing. The latest discovery was coming to understand the different views, and how satisfying it is to see a long streak in the calendar view. I’d only used timeline view before, but when I looked at the calendar - boom! Easy to use and it helps me write more.

I bought Day One (Classic) and wasn’t sure about the upgrade for a while. The new interface is a little more intuitive, and some of the new features are nice. I like multiple images, and I like having the “a year ago” feature without the data being in someone else’s—FB’s—control. I’m not keen on the switch to subscription, but as a developer I understand the tension between ongoing improvements and one-time purchases. The overall cost is still impressively low!

December 2023 update: This is my favorite app. I use it daily and multiple times each day. I sometimes start on my iPhone and then continue on my Mac. It’s been updated frequently and has an active roadmap. Encryption was indeed added. You can also export your entries as a PDF that includes a map of locations and a summary sheet for each month. One of these days I’m going to print one of my journals. I do wish they updated that part of the app to allow some customization of image size so text could wrap around smaller images. I backup my journals often, just in case, but haven’t had a need to restore anything in the years I’ve been using it. It’s worth the premium upgrade to support the development of the app. Great active online community (Facebook group). I’m very happy with Day One!

Original review (years ago): Sure, it’s missing encryption, a feature that is on their roadmap and from all of the comments here mentioning it, I bet is near the top of their list. It has good integration with lifelogging services like Swarm and Goodreads, via IFTTT. I saw from their Twitter feed that they’ve been demonstrating at tradeshows how the app can be used to print out a book of one’s life using journal entries from this app, so I suspect printing capabilities are coming soon as well. I love that you can already export to PDF. Sync between iPad, iPhone, and Mac apps so far work flawlessly.