Saturday 30 November 2024


Org-journal with prompts
========================

Although I have made several attempts, I never got into the
habit of journaling.

Last summer I concluded the #100daystooffload challenge (on
Gopher). Writing daily in one's journal is not that different
and I think the time has come to start building this habit.

Tool selection
--------------
Of course it is not about the tool, but about the writing.

Any tool will do, as long as you feel happy with it, and it is
as friction-less as possible.

I prefer digital above pen and paper, mostly because of the
options for long term storage and privacy.

The following small list of requirements will hold no
surprises:

* plain text
* in Emacs
* strong encryption

Org-journal
-----------
Org-journal is made for this. It ticks all the boxes. With a
simple key binding (C-j in my setup) a buffer opens with a new
entry.

My configuration choices are simple:

* A file per day
* A sub directory per calendar year
* GnuPG encrypted

Using a different file for each day has several advantages.

* The journal starts with a level-one heading (and not three
  or four levels deep, like you get with an org date-tree)
* It allows to do some scripting like 'what happened on this
  day' in the last years

T think it is sufficient to have a sub directory for each
calendar year, and there is no need to add sub directories per
month below it. It only makes things complicated. Your journal
will not exceed 365 files per year, so I see no problems
there.

GnuPG encryption is easy to manage and provides strong
encryption. A great bonus is that org-journal comes with
search functionality that even works with encrypted entries.

I don't use the org capture method for org-journal, because I
tend to save my writing from time to time. Org capture closes
the buffer when you perform a save-action, and because of that
it gets in my way.

Easy, visual feedback
---------------------
Org-journal integrates with the Emacs calendar. The days for
which there exists a journal file are displayed with a
different color (in my setting in red).

Just opening the calendar (M-x calendar) makes it immediately
clear which days have a journal-file, and which days do not.

No doubts about accountability with org-journal :)

Using journaling prompts
------------------------
There are plenty books and tons of web pages about journaling,
apparently it is a popular subject. A recurring pattern is the
mentioning of the use of journaling prompts to lower the
threshold to start writing.

A prompt can inspire to dive into a subject. Also, it sets
some boundaries, making it easier to focus.

Org-journal with prompts
------------------------
Org-journal doesn't offer a feature to automagically insert a
prompt. However, org-journal has some hooks, so it wasn't
difficult to create this functionality [1].

My Elisp script inserts the prompt in the header of the new
journal entry, making a natural and unobtrusive solution.

The Elisp code keeps track of the last inserted prompt, and
when a new journal entry is started, it fetches the next
prompt, and so on, rotating over the list with prompts.

Flexible list of prompts
------------------------
I have never used journaling prompts before, and don't know
what works for me and what not. To make it easy adoptable, I
build the functionality around a simple plain text file. Just
create a file with prompts, each prompt on a different line.

A file with prompts is easily filled, there is an abundance of
example prompts floating around on the internet.

The functionality will keep working when prompts are added or
removed. In the worst case after deleting prompts it could
repeat the last insert prompt. Just killing the journal entry
and starting a new one will solve this.

Do I need it?
-------------
At the time I was thinking about doing the 100daystooffload
challenge on Gopher, I started compiling a list of subjects to
write about. It turned out that this was in vain, I hardly
looked at this list during the challenge.

So this brings the question, do I really need journaling
prompts?

Only time will tell. At least, with the addition of this
functionality, there are no excuses :)


[1]: https://codeberg.org/mattof/org-journal-prompts



Last edited: $Date: 2024/11/30 17:02:08 $