My all time favourite app is Day One.
I stated before that ” it is not about social media, but about media being social”. We live in an era where we share (our) stories. An era where sharing looks like the only option : updates on Facebook, selfies on Instagram, statements on Twitter, business affairs on Linkedin, … whatever on Snapchat and TikTok. I wonder whether that is the right definition of social …
I am an extrovert. For my job I go on stage and talk. I take positions in reunions. I meet & greet plenty of people and write emails and (paper) notes to even more. No surprise that in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator I turn out to be ENTJ, with the E N and J being explicit. But I am also an introvert. I need time off to reconnect with myself and to make sense of the world around me and – by extension – the entire kosmos. In coaching they call this “space”. A private place in space and time, only for oneself. So maybe I am more of an ambivert : both extrovert and introvert, depending on the circumstances.
In that private introvert space Day One is my best friend. It is a basically a journal. One you don’t share with anybody, but just keep for yourself. I started six years ago, mainly taking pictures and writing captions to remember the event. Over time I started writing texts, longer and longer texts, giving sense to whatever needs sense making. Some would probably call it a mindful action – being in the here and now – but the good thing is that it also gives me time to put things in perspective. One of the main features is that after a year it throws you back to “on this day”. Listing what you noted a year ago, two years ago, longer ago.
Over the years I started organising them into themes :
- photo : pictures capturing the moment of the day
- personal : quick notes of the day
- beautiful words : paragraphs from books or poems that touched me
- seven x zen : mindful thoughts and reflections from my inner soul
- from the past : memories from the past that pop up and that I have to write down, before they get lost
Why don’t you start your journal ? May be a good intention for 2020. Less social media, but more inner self.
