People who keep journals or diaries, do you hand write or type?

I am looking to start getting into this. But I have never enjoyed writing. I also feel a little iffy knowing that my diaries are sitting around somewhere in my room and my family can find it at any moment. If I were to type it would be faster, more secure as I can encrypt it, and it would not get lost as easily as I can upload the encrypted file to a cloud.

However, is typing any less effective at making you feel better than writing?

brandon,

Do whichever lets your thoughts flow more freely. I type because I don’t have to think about how to do it, whereas handwriting takes a lot of extra brainpower since I do it so infrequently. There’s no wrong answer though!

lorez,

I started very recently. I type.

AnalogyAddict,

I have both a handwritten and an online journal. Sometimes one or the other appeals more.

dixius99,
@dixius99@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve done both, though I have been typing mostly over the last couple of years.

There are those who feel that the act of writing by hand, while slower, can have benefits that typing doesn’t. Not sure I believe that, though I do believe that for some, hand writing is just the more enjoyable way to go.

For me, I write in Org Mode, which for this purpose is kind of like Markdown. I use Emacs on my computer, and an app called Plain Org on my phone.

hackris,

I always write by hand, it makes me less focused on formatting (even though little is required in this case) and lets the thoughts flow easily. I write with a mix of Demotic and Ancient Greek, English and Slovak, so this way I don’t have to bother with switching keyboard layouts. Make sure you buy a quality pen to make your diary writing experience that much better :)

I usually write at the park or on the beach, but once I come home, I open up a Markdown file in my favourite text editor, type out the previously written text and save. Then I encrypt it with GnuPG and burn the paper I was writing on.

Sounds cumbersome, but for some reason this approach makes me the most peaceful, I honestly have no idea why :)

hoodlem,

I type. I’m interested in Apple’s upcoming journal app—maybe it will be enough for me to switch from my current app.

dixius99,
@dixius99@lemmy.world avatar

Oh, I hadn’t heard of that.

BTW: what do you use now?

hoodlem,

Day One. It’s great.

frogfruit,

I have been typing my journals for over a decade. If you don’t have a fondness for handwriting, then it will not make you feel any better. I find it frustrating to write by hand. It’s significantly slower than my thoughts, it adds more clutter, it’s less convenient, it cramps my hand, and you lose out on the ability to search your notes to help you remember events or check your progress. You don’t have to use a fancy journaling app if you don’t want to. I just use Google docs.

writerlygal,

I’m a pen to paper gal, but also keep a Daylio journal as a health tracker.

CatPewpMeyhem,

I use a site called Penzu. My whole purpose for journaling is to get things out and to release my anxiety, not necessarily for documenting my life, although I do go back and reflect on some of the stuff I write. Most of the time I don’t re-read any of it.

fishcurry509,

That’s why I used to maintain a blog (a secret one, whose address no one knew). Till the day I realised there’s too much there which I don’t want to be able to go through, and deleted the blog in a snap.

mrpibb,
@mrpibb@lemmy.world avatar

Writing by hand with a pen you like on nice quality paper can be enjoyable. The best for me is when I journal on my typewriter.

soullioness,
@soullioness@lemmy.ca avatar

I can’t recommend Daylio enough! It’s an app that’s constantly getting new features. It’s very customizable! You can make goals and custom moods which both help me a lot. You can also set reminders to do goals or just to make a daily entry. And all your data is stored locally unless you want to backup up to drive. Which is pretty secure. I think I also read that the backup is encrypted but I could be wrong. You can also manually backup and encrypt it then.

Potatos_are_not_friends,

Id suggest staying away from apps. It might be fine if you can export it and read it in plain text.

I say that having been part of the early 2000s generation of blogging and when those sites (or apps) disappear, so will your stuff. I lost a chunk of my history.

soullioness,
@soullioness@lemmy.ca avatar

That makes sense too. I have a backup of the working APK and backups of my stuff that I can access with or without the app. But for now this app is being actively developed and I’ve been using it for years. I’ll probably keep using it until it stops getting updates if that happens.

venus,

I have the similar problem like you, So I keep my journal/note/diary on digitally. I’m faster with typing stuff and I have problem with organizing my items, so digital make thing a lot easier to find and organize (or do it later)

I don’t find any different in my own feeling when typing diary or writing them. They’re equally effective IMO.

gaydarless,

I don’t generally feel as connected to what I type as to what I write, probably because my entire job involves typing all day. Writing by hand takes longer and therefore requires me to slow down and think more.

jbrains,

I write when I want to remember something, otherwise I’m happy to type. I prefer to type when I merely want to get things out.

As to your last question, I imagine that’s quite a personal effect, so I suspect you’d need to try both.

Good luck.

lemuria,

A combination of both. I write paper entires sometimes, but most days I type them up in a local MediaWiki installation.

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