I’ll be the first to admit I am not well versed (or even well educated) in keeping a journal electronically.  Up until now I’ve been pretty much a book and pen kind of guy.  However, about a month ago I decided to split my journal keeping in two again.  Keeping a notebook for all the random thoughts and information and keeping a second book for simply recording the events of the day.  I found that I can keep the daily diary much better if I keep the book by my bed and jot things down before I go to sleep.  Its been working pretty well.

As usual one thing leads to another and I find myself thinking about keeping the daily diary in a digital form.  Since it is mainly just text I don’t have to worry about keeping up with any ephimera.  Why not keep the info in a form that makes it easy to search and reproduce?  I could even keep the diary for an entire year and then publish a volume at a print on demand site.  I found myself envisioning shelves books with the year of the diary neatly printed on the spines.

Looking into it further I found that there are a great many ways to keep a diary electronically. There are specialized software packages and websites made especially for keeping your journal in this fashion.  I intend to explore these further in the future, but right now I am not inclined to get involved with anything with only one use.  I also explored Google Docs.  I was almost sold on that option when I discovered Simplenote.  Google Docs work fine on any computer and that was the initial draw.  Unfortunately you can’t edit your documents on your smart phone.  That means you have to sit at a computer and work on your diary (or any other notes).  That’s not a bad thing unless you realize you don’t have to.  Simplenote has smart phone applications that let you edit the same notes you edit on any other computer.  Write something on your phone, it updates your computer.  Update something on your computer and it updates on your phone.  Its all wrapped up in a simple, straight forward interface.

Check out their video: