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Digital Memories

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By marydalene

I’ve recently been introduced to a few journaling products, and I have enjoyed them so much that I wanted to share my experiences and why I have grown to love them.

First off, is Day One. It’s a journaling app that syncs to both my MacBook Pro and my iOS devices. It’s a simple app, but one that I have found works with my busy life. I can add photos to my entry, share it if I so desired, and write any where I want to. I use it for the details about my life that I don’t particularly want in a public blog (seriously, I do try to follow the rules of too much information), and have found it to be very therapeutic for writing down my thoughts. I stopped writing in my personal journal around when I started having kids. I would write now and then, but not often. It just took so much time to hand-write the entries, and I was always too tired to write at the end of a busy day.

I found an app that let me write blog posts and post them to my blog on Mac (yes, I love my Mac), and for a time would write my personal journal there. But the thing it lacked was being able to write on my phone or tablet, which I almost always have with me. When Day One had a sale to get the iOS app for free, I decided to give it a try. And I was hooked. Journaling at its simplest, and so portable too. I splurged and got the app for my laptop as well, so that I can now write anywhere. And now, in the past six months, I’ve written more than I had in the last year. The last two years, probably. And I think that has been a key to helping me be happy.

Secondly, there is an app that I was introduced to by Sara at Our Best Bites. It’s called Collect.

Don't Mind if I Do: Ryan helped himself to a tortilla before dinner. My punishment for leaving them in his reach.

It was built for photo-a-day and Project 365 enthusiasts, but for me is is a reminder to stop and take a moment remember the good things in my life. It reminds me to take a photo every day of ... something. You can create little cards with the notes on them, like above, or just use the photos for memories. Here are a few examples of memories that I captured because of this app.

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Just simple things, nothing fantastic or blog-worthy, but memories that make me smile. It has helped me stop and take a moment and appreciate what I have been given, the beauty in this world, and how much I really do love my kids. I’ve been using Collect since mid-January, and it really has been so fun for me. I can write little notes with each entry and then export the “cards” into a 4x6 size that I can then send to get printed. (I know others who export into the 3x4 size for Project Life, and have them printed by Persnickey Prints. I’m not a scrapbooker, so that’s not how I roll, but I do plan to print them and put them into an album along with my Instagram pictures.)

It’s amazing what technology can allow us to do. When I was growing up and later in college, if you wrote in a journal, it was a piece of paper and a pen. (And I have several full journals to show for my efforts.) Now I have a digital way of writing, and a new way of making memories day-to-day. So if you are looking at a new way to be inspired to journal, and if you have an iOS platform, I highly recommend these two apps.

And there’s my two cents.

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Comments

  1. BarbaraApril 17, 2014 at 9:51 PM

    Great ideas, Thanks for sharing. (not that I'm likely to get them and do them, but I applaud your efforts) :)

    ReplyDelete

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