[asdfgeoff]

I have toyed with leaving journal-like blurbs of thought in my regular notes system, sort of like Architectural Decision Records (https://adr.github.io/) for my life, but the habit never stuck. The format never felt free and unconstrained enough to facilitate the sort of raw thinking-on-paper that tends to be useful a year later. I found myself self-censoring much more than I would in a regular journal.

A key benefit of using a date journal is that many tools (incl. Day One and Dabble.me) have a "remember this day" feature that surfaces entries from the past. While the simple act of writing does clarify one's thinking, I find further benefit from the regular review and opportunity for reflection this sort of feature provides. And while I do sometimes deliberately seek out a particular entry, 90%+ of my review comes automatically from this sort of feature.