Private blog as a journal
I haven’t seen this idea discussed anywhere. I got it from The Wife.
Free blog software (WordPress.com, Blogger.com, et al.) can be used as a journal by simply making the blog private. Blog software offers quite a few benefits as a journal:
- Can access your journal from any computer, smartphone, iPad, etc.
- Can easily include photos, videos, etc.
- Can readily search the journal
- Can tag entries with tags and also put an entry into one or more categories
- Every entry automatically date- and time-stamped
- If TSA seizes your computer, your journal’s not on it
Journals can quite useful. Some possibilities:
- College-years journal
- Baby journal
- Project journal – could try a joint journal, just for project team members, but I think it could become a time sink; private journals probably better
- Work journal – always good to have a timely record kept outside the workplace, not on a work computer but kept where you can always access it from a home computer as well as from a work computer (not to mention iPad, iPhone, etc.)
This strikes me as an extremely useful idea. I personally prefer WordPress.com but The Wife is a big fan of Blogger.com. Give it a go.
The work journal is working really well for me. I take meeting notes, record what I’ve been working on, or thoughts about what I will be working on next, upload images, save URLs, etc. – whatever I tend to lose track of.
the wife
27 November 2010 at 10:23 am
I started blogging really as a personal journal. I had the rather narcissistic idea of leaving some written legacy of my life for my kids. But what I quickly discovered is that the public nature of a blog demands a certain intellectual and literary rigor…stuff has to be interesting for others to read it. And previous attempts at journaling had always produced a very whiny, self-indulgent record -.a byproduct, I suppose, of the fact that one feels a certain freedom to express just about any stupidity since the journal is “private”. But I would often go back to what I had written a few weeks later and feel rather embarrassed by it.
My main concerns with using the private function of a blog then would be access and confidentiality. On the other hand, if I applied the same rigor to it as to a public blog (never write anything you wouldn’t be proud to stand by), the issue would be moot.
Steve
28 November 2010 at 2:14 am
I would think that work journals would appeal to you: a journal per client that you use to capture conversations, agreements, deliverables, etc., as you discuss them, and to which you can later refer.
LeisureGuy
28 November 2010 at 6:43 am
I have often thought about keeping a private journal. So many things I could put in it. And it might be self-relavatory after a while.
scott
28 November 2010 at 5:38 pm
It does tend to reveal patterns in one’s behavior of which he may be unaware.
LeisureGuy
29 November 2010 at 6:02 am
I do use a work journal, but it’s just a Moleskin notebook on which I jot salient points at meetings and To do’s. Nothing literary or self-revelatory.
Steve
30 November 2010 at 6:22 am