How Keeping an Online Daily Journal Will Change Your Life

Journaling is one of the most rewarding habits one can pursue in life. Keeping a personal record of your thoughts, emotions, daily happenings, and momentous occasions is something your future self will thank you for. It is incredible to look back on a log of your life and see how much you’ve grown and changed. It can be hilarious to see what you at a certain age cared about versus what you now know to be true. It will be rewarding for your family to be able to look back on one day as well. Imagine all the questions you can answer for yourself not just in the moment, but when going back to reflect. 

As great as journaling is, a lot of people find the act of putting pen to paper daunting. If you’re one of those people – then you’re in luck. Thankfully the world wide web has granted us access to thousands of online platforms where you can type away and pour your thoughts onto the page (or in this case, screen). You might find yourself more compelled to sit down and type when sites offer fun incentives to do so; most platforms now have the ability to add photos, outside links, or tag people in your writing. It’s up to you whether or not you’d like to make your daily journal private or public – but maybe someone out there needs to hear what you have to say. Carrie Bradshaw does come to mind; she certainly wasn’t shy about sharing her secrets with the metropolitan area. If you’re interested in this prospect, keep reading. Let’s get into the reasons an online daily journal will change your life. 

Handwriting – nothing else needs to be said.

Online journaling is perfect for people who don’t have great penmanship. Your writing might be legible one day and then look like chicken scratch when you try to revisit it. Handwriting can also change over the years and leave you clueless when you look back on old entries. This is also a popular excuse for people who simply don’t want to take the time to journal. Unfortunately for that population, that excuse is now null and void. 

Once you begin, you might actually feel how much easier it is for your fingers to crawl across a keyboard than to sit and grip a pen. Who knows – you could be an aspiring writer and not even know it because you’ve been holding on to this justification for so long.You have the opportunity to think freely and write instead of focus on the neatness (or lack of) your handwriting. If you aren’t excellent at grammar, it’s yet another reason to hop online. Most digital journaling platforms have built in bots installed to autocorrect your mistakes.

It lives there forever and you can’t lose it.

The internet is a crazy place, that is one thing we can all agree on. Scrolling back on old YouTube videos you’ve uploaded or Facebook pictures you decided to post (for some reason) can be nothing short of cringey — and they’re there forever. Digital journaling is no different but you might find yourself having less regrets. It is a decluttered, systematic place to record your thoughts.

I’m sure many of us have childhood or teenage diaries we wish we could go back on. Those little notebooks with locks where we spilled our deepest secrets and current crushes. Unless your mom was obsessed with you and held on to them, it’s more than likely those childhood records are gone for good. With digital journaling you don’t have to worry about losing your entries; most platforms keep an archive that can hold years of content. 

There’s more accountability (especially if you’re public).

A lot of people keep diaries for manifestations, resolutions, to-do lists, or future goals. This is a great concept – but only if you hold yourself to it. How many promises have you written down that you didn’t keep? How many pages long has your to-do list been, only to cross two things off the list? How many future goals just felt like pipe dreams? This happens to the best of us, but there is definitely a way around it by using a digital platform. Recording your goals digitally allows you to declutter them and make sense of them in a way you might not with pen and paper. If you’re sitting there staring at a screen of things you said you wanted to do, it’s much more in-your-face than a lost piece of paper.

If you keep your content public, it might motivate you to actually stick to what you say. No one can see the promises you make to yourself on the pages of a notebook tucked neatly into a drawer. Whether they’re friends or strangers, people have a tendency to remind you of the things you said (good and bad) and hold you to it. If you put ANYTHING on the internet, there’s going to be another set of eyes on it at some point. This tactic might not work for everyone, but for some it could prove to be the best motivator yet. 

Multimedia and motivation galore. 

If sitting down to journal feels “boring” to you – you’ll find writing online is a whole new world. With options to decorate/personalize your page, insert multimedia, tag friends, and add hyperlinks – digital journaling blows pen and paper out of the park. You can play with the overall aesthetic of your site and get into a creative flow. Think of this as the equivalent to decorating your old diary or notebook with stickers, doodles, and anything random that would adhere to it. Sometimes adding photos or videos can help you convey your message as well, especially if you have a hard time with expressing yourself through words.

Like anything else online, it’s easy to dive down a rabbit hole. But with digital journaling it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You might be writing about a certain topic and want to find out more. Before long, you’ll find yourself on someone else’s page who has written about the very same thing. You could be researching steps for a particular goal you’d like to accomplish and at the click of a button you can find exactly how to execute it – and then insert it into your journal!

New friends and connections are waiting.

Digital journaling platforms aren’t dissimilar from social media communities. You can find a following, connect with like-minded people, and consume content that resonates with you. It’s a really special thing to be able to share your deepest thoughts with complete strangers and somehow feel like you’ve made best friends through it. These kinds of interactions take out a lot of the pressure for people who have trouble socializing or expressing themselves. If you’re one of them – the options are endless.

Connecting with real-life opportunities is also possible by keeping a blog or online journal. Something you thought might be unachievable could be in reach. Many platforms use hashtags to group together content on the same topic, so searching through other posts on the same tag could bring you to an answer. Anything from moving to another country, how to get a certain job, how to start a specific hobby, where to find some niche item – there’s always an answer on the internet and usually someone is coming from experience. 

If you want to become a writer professionally, this could be your start.

There are so many aspiring writers that exist in our world – they’re just too shy to share their voice. Tons of people have a passion for writing but don’t have the confidence to pursue it. A digital journal or blog can help you face this fear, and you’ll realize it’s not scary whatsoever. Practicing getting your thoughts from your head to your hands is eye-opening; you learn a lot about yourself and more importantly- your ability. Some websites like ThoughtCatalog.com actually take essay submissions of this very sort. Your calling could be waiting for you.

Countless popular writers got their start posting online. Whether they were a poet, an essayist, a journalist, or a short story writer didn’t matter. If you get the right set of eyes on your piece you could become a sensation. Even if you aren’t trying to get “famous” you still have the opportunity to get your content shared by others. That’s an awesome feeling to have a piece of what you wrote resonate with someone so much they want others to see it as well. You have the opportunity to organically build a following that likes what you have to say and wants you to keep going. This is yet another motivation in itself – you can’t leave the fans waiting. Give it a try and find out. There’s nothing but good things that could come from it. 

It’s easier to search for a certain time in life – enter the search bar.

You probably remember writing something in your journal years ago but can’t find the entry anywhere. If you’re an avid diary-keeper, it’s possible that you have more than one notebook floating around. This can be frustrating and even sad; a memory you took the time to record is now gone forever. Or maybe you still have it and don’t have the time to waste flipping through pages. Either way, digital journaling saves the day once again. Platforms integrate a search bar tool so a user can write a prompt for what they’re looking for.

Most search functions are incredibly intelligent and will pull up a list of entries for you to browse through. Another benefit is using a certain keyword will bring up other posts you might have forgotten about. Now you’re going on a personal journey you never intended to, but let’s chalk it up to self-care. This is one of the most incredible parts of online journaling; you essentially get to unlock memories you probably never would have recalled again. Much more could be waiting for you based on a certain subject, hopefully it’s something juicy.

If you work from home, it’s a healthy distraction instead of a time-suck.

Working from home can prove challenging when you are sitting and staring at your screen from the comfort of your couch. In an office setting, you couldn’t get up and pet your cat 20 times, have two lunch breaks (or more), or binge a couple episodes of your favorite show. Even the most dedicated employees have trouble paying attention in a remote setting. It’s also way too easy to get away from your work and back to that game of Sims you’ve been investing in.

Everyone needs a break, and that’s understandable, but there are healthy alternatives to getting your mind away from work for a short time. Using an online journal is an excellent way to purge how you’re feeling in that very moment. It also could serve as a tool to refocus and get back to work with a fresh set of eyes. A “brain dump” is a technique many offices use in person – no matter the industry – to effectively rid your mind of anything that isn’t serving the current task at hand. Creativity is hard to call up out of nowhere, so taking some time to jot down your thoughts before getting back into employee-mode could be the key.