I do. In my case it’s a text file on my MacBook. I use my text editor, emacs, to compose entries – most are fairly trivial, some record significant events. A typical entry:

2023/03/27 Mon
Dentist – Dr. McClanahan – Permanent crown, $1,507.

emacs has powerful search facilities too. Searches can be case sensitive or insensitive. Wildcards of various forms too.

When was the compressor for my HVAC replaced? I can easily find the date in my diary. A very useful tool. My diary goes back many years.

Sorta like that but called comcast email. It goes back quite a ways.

You see, I don't delete bills and such so 8 yrs. ago, that guy that painted/replaced the mailbox, I just search "mailbox" or "paint" and I get a hit from 2015. Guy's name is Calvin, ph. #xxxxxxx.
Just an example. It goes back further as comcast has a limit but I no longer see that limit listed.

quote:

Do you keep a diary?

Aren't all our diaries here on SIGforum?

I bought a 5 year journal from Levenger in 2022. I use it to make short notes of my daily activities.

I don't support self-incrimination.

I don't have time, I keep it in my head.

I do not and never have. Things happen too fast for me to write them down.

No diary per se, but I do put all of my appointments and things to do and have done in my calendar. So if I have say a doctors appointment it goes in there on the specified date, and if anything worth mentioning occurs, I'll go back to that date and put a short note in the listing.

c:\Users\me\Desktop>echo 2023/07/22 Add this to my diary. >>diary.txt

No, I don't really keep a diary using dos commands... but it could be done.

I actually do the same as NavyGuy using the calendar in Thunderbird. I used to use a different program, but it got axed and I had to learn how to export it to something Tbird could read.

I have useless info going back into the early 1990's.

I keep a weekly journal of thanks. I write in a nice leather bound notebook using a Montblanc fountain pen.

No, it a major regret

I put stuff I want to remember on my Phones Calendar. Fairly easy to scroll through or seach.

yep.

The first one on the shelf is 1962, each one until 2016 was a one year volume. Since '16 I've used a 8.5x11 wire bound with good paper and when it's full I get another. Trimesters are the usual the last two years & 7months. Emotions, events, observations, a few plans here and there. Successes, losses, definitions, quotes now and then. It's how I start each day at 6:15 and usually it's 3 pages.

If I sleep in, which is rare I don't usually write.

One thing I do that benefits me is when something arises that's controversial, most recently the war in Ukraine, I write what I think about it, where it's going and so forth. I do it so in six weeks or six months I can reacquire that mental presence and see how I'm doing. It's not to congratulate myself it's so I can't bullshit myself.

An interesting factoid, at least to me, was from my freshman year in college. At the time I was sort of irregular, writing sometimes just three or four entries a week and I didn't have a time regimen. Sort of ad hoc. I had an entry from Nov. 21 and the next one was a full week later. I didn't jot a word about the assassination.

Anyway. Yep, I keep a diary.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:

I use my text editor, emacs, to compose entries

I was told that real men use ed(1), but I prefer vi(1). Back in the early 1990's when I was teaching UNIX stuff, I taught a two-day course on advanced editing with vi. The course really went into depth with this editor. People were really surprised, finding some of the things that it could do.

I have made a comment on my iPad daily for the past 10 years. Not a lot of detail, just a dozen words or so.

I keep notes on Yahoo Calendar

I used to keep one in an online journal. I used it primarily for venting and didn't want a physical version around in case I got hit by a truck.

When I was pissed off about something (usually someone), I would vent my spleen in a journal entry; it was a great way to get things off my chest.

My wife and kids know most of my passwords, so one day I changed the password on the journal to something unique just to be on the safe side. I promptly forgot it and (for security purposes) the site would not let me recover the password. They'd issue a new one, but you would get a fresh journal and not be able to access entries from the original journal.

So, I dumped the online journal. Now, when I need to vent, I write it out by hand, read it once, and then put it in the shredder.

Tried a couple of times in my life, once as a teenager, then next time in my 20s, and both times I'd forget about it for days- so, into the trash, never to be remembered again.

Bob

Many journal programs or apps exist. Day One is a good app.