While blogging is a form of journaling, it is really much more public than a journal. One feels a sense of obligation to make it interesting for the sake of the readers one hopes to attract. To post every detail of one’s production and every idea of what might might do in the future would be tedious for the blogger, and boring for the reader.
Yet, I think that it is a good idea to reflect back, evaluate the present, and project into the future on a continuing, perhaps even a daily basis. Therefore, I decided to keep a journal of my quilt production for my own personal use. Initially I decided to create a notebook in Evernote, but I wasn’t following through. I then found a universal app for iPhone and iPad called Day One. The screen capture above from my iPad shows the timeline view of Day One. I’ve selected an entry from February 13th titled “Homage To My First Act Series” This is a series of quilts I would like to create, but I’m not prepared to blog about this idea yet. Gee, I guess the cat’s out of the bag now 🙂
Day One allows you to include one photograph with each entry if you desire, although you are free to journal without adding photos. You can have more than one entry per day. I find this useful when I want to write about more than one idea and have a photo for each idea. You don’t need to journal every day, but you can get Day One to remind you to journal on a regular basis if you need encouragement. The upper most entry in the screen capture is about a ruler I found at the Fat Quarter Shop, which will be perfect for the first quilt I want to make in the “Homage” series.
I plan to use my journal to keep track of my progress, add to my bucket list, and to make note of things I would like to add to my collection of tools, such as the ruler I recently found, but have not yet purchased. Details like that will be interesting for me to look back on later, but are unlikely to be of interest to anyone else now or in the future.
Journaling is an excellent way to reflect on what you are doing. How do you journal?