Paperless February: Journaling

I've been keeping a journal since about the third grade. I absolutely love reading through them and reminiscing. It's funny to see my life crisis evolving from "My brother is so mean because he wouldn't let me play on the swings," to "I have such a huge crush on Bobby," to "What is my next career move?" Writing is cathartic for me and always has been. However, I currently have about ten or so journals and I am (hopefully) only about 1/3 of the way through my life. Finding a private spot to keep them all gets trickier with each new addition.

Since developing Minimalist, I've found that it's much easier for me to type at the pace of my thoughts than to write by hand. I'm able to get a lot more out in a shorter period of time. I haven't translated this to an online journal yet, but I plan to. It's as simple as creating another blog and changing the settings so that I'm the only one who can see it. Journaling online has many benefits over writing by hand:

1. It doesn't take up any physical space.

2. It's easier to keep private (i.e., someone won't "accidentally" find your online diary).

3. All of your journaling can be kept in one location (online) versus broken up via multiple books.

4. You'll never have to purchase another journal! While they aren't very expensive in the first place, it's a small added bonus.

5. You can upload photos to go with your entries, creating a scrapbook of sorts.

6. This is my favorite reason - you can "tag" (or catalog) people, places and events using a blog. For instance, if I wanted to read all of my entries relating to a specific friend, I could click on the tag for "Emily Smith" and see everything I ever wrote about Emily Smith.

Kristen Ziegler