i’ve never kept a journal. i’ve always wanted to because i think it sounds cool and smart. unfortunately, my life has never been that exciting and i could never think of enough to write about. perhaps, my search for a journaling philosophy that works for me has ended. finally, a minimalist approach…
200 years ago, john quincy adams kept a journal during his travels to russia as a diplomat. each of his daily entries fit on one line of paper and averaged between 110-120 characters (they are being referred to as twitteresque…). for example, the entry for august 7th reads like this, “Fog. No Observation. Spoke a fishing Schooner from Grand Bank, bound to Plymouth. Read Chantreau’s travels.”
you can read the entire story here: John Quincy Adams, Twitterer?
or you can celebrate the 200th anniversary of the diary by following the daily twitter feed: twitter: JQAdams_MHS
and here is today’s entry for my journal: Hot and Sunny. Business Lunch at Panera. Pizza with family for dinner. Continued reading Wiseman.
not bad for a first entry if you ask me… what would your daily entry look like for today?
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John Quincy Adams’ tweets. I love it.
I’ve thought about starting a one sentence journal – an idea I got from Gretchen Rubin.
http://simplystated.realsimple.com/simplystated/2009/03/memories-why-i.html
Just started mine
Set up a new twitter account for it, I prefer to keep things digital than in a book.
Thanks, I like the one-liner journal idea very much. Just tried it today. Felt great.
You might find memiary.com interesting. It’s a very minimal journal/diary. Only allows five short items of the day. I can easily search for what I did on what day. And it helps me see that my life isn’t as pedestrian as I thought it once was.
Just wanted to thank “Alan” for the heads up re: “memiary.com”
Exactly what I’ve been wanting.
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