Tip: Make sure you have a nice book and a nice pen.
If you want to write digitally, there are quite a few apps.
Personally, I use paper (Ciak) and a mind map program.
My Diary Experience
I am not someone who writes in a journal every day. Sometimes I start a new journal and then the inspiration ebbs away after a while. Eventually I pick it up again and write several pages full again.
Paper and/or Digital
I often write on paper. The annoying thing is, it’s much harder to retrieve text. Therefore, I now write digitally. Once in a while I print out the texts and put them in a folder. It feels nice to have it on paper.
I Journal Because:
- I can give my thoughts, feelings and emotions a place.
- I can put thoughts out of my head more easily.
- I can read back experiences that are important to me later.
It is valuable to read back in my journal. Emotions that once felt very intense, I can now experience very differently with more distance. I can learn from this and reflect on it.
A Diary…
Describes the experience of one soul.
‘I know from experience that daily notes are an indispensable contribution in the search for more truth and reality in the handling of the ‘self-I.’
'After what I experienced in Jakarta (as a young journalist) I would henceforth be guided solely by my own observation with an additional added mechanism of being wary of possible biases, which I might have brought back from elsewhere.'
‘Based on more truth about the past, reality becomes more manageable, so that our world of experience does not constantly lose itself in fantasy and unreality.’ p. 6
– Willem Oltmans, ‘Het dagboek als Camera Obscura’, ‘The Diary as Camera Obscura’