so on and off for most of my adult life i've kept a journal and the reason this is
just because i really like to have a detailed record of my past plus i've found that it has
the benefits of helping to reduce my stress levels helps me to process my thoughts and emotions and
from time to time i find that it helps me to sleep better and so over the years of journaling i've
tried out a few different methods i've tried journaling in a regular notebook like this
i've tried gelling on my laptop with a keyboard in something like evernote but recently i got an
ipad air with an apple pencil and so i've been journaling more on my ipad and i've actually
found that this is probably the best journaling experience i've had yet so in today's video i'm
going to explain why so a big part of the reason why i like journaling is because i'm super logical
person and writing out my thoughts on paper really helped me to process what i'm thinking so when i
first started journaling i started journaling on notebooks just like this paper notebooks
and i really enjoyed it it was great but then i filled up one notebook so i had to go and
buy another notebook and then once i filled that one up i have to buy another notebook
and then eventually i had this huge pile of notebooks that was just getting a bit out of hand
they started to take up heaps of space they were heavy and hard to store and because i just moved
out of home i was moving around a bit and every time i moved i have to take this huge pile of
notebooks which was just really awkward and asides from the fact that they just take a lot of space
they're heavy and they're hard to move i started to realize that when i wanted to look back on
what i'd written in the past paper journals just aren't really that accessible like if i want to
find a specific journal entry from like i don't know 2016 i won't have to search through each
journal have a look see which one i've written in 2016 and then once i've found the right journal i
have to look through all the different pages and then eventually i might find the journal
entry that i was looking for so i realized keeping records on an analog medium like
paper meant all my information just wasn't as accessible because i was pretty used to accessing
all my information digitally which is when i started looking into journaling on my laptop
so i switched from analog journaling on a notebook to digital journaling on my laptop and obviously
the big benefit of doing it on my laptop means that i've got all my journals just in one place
i can also access them all from my phone which is great or my ipad which means i'm not taking
up huge amounts of space in my wardrobe or my cupboards with journals and when i started
journaling on my laptop i used evernote and i've done that for the last probably six or seven years
i'd say so the big advantage for me in using evernote over a paper journal is that you can
search through all your entries in evernote with tags as well as just keywords which made all of
my journal entries and information on my journal just so much more accessible i didn't need to go
and search through piles of notebooks i just had them all in one place and i can search through
them all with a keyword or a date this is how i've been journaling up until about nine months ago but
the thing is i really missed something about paper journaling and i realized that was just the act of
being able to hand write on my journal rather than type with keys there's just something not quite
the same when it comes to typing a journal on a keyboard versus when you write it with your hand
with a pen i can't quite put my finger on what the difference is but if you've ever journaled with a
laptop versus a pen for example you probably know what i'm talking about there's just something
about being able to hand write that gives you more of a connection to what you're writing about
i just find it helps me to express my thoughts more clearly when i'm handwriting versus what
i'm typing it's still good but i'm typing but it's just not quite the same and so when i decided to
get an ipad around nine months ago that was part of the reason why i was really keen to
try because i'd seen that you can get an apple pencil with it and you can write on your tablet
in digital form but have the same experience of writing on a analog paper notebook so i got my
ipad i've got my apple pencil and i downloaded a good notes five and i started journaling
and so as i began to journal on my ipad with my apple pencil i found that connection that i was
missing from paper journaling starting to return and the best part was that i could now write in
that analog form on a digital medium which means that number one all my information in my journal
is searchable within good notes 5 there's an awesome feature that allows you to search
through your notes digitally so even though you haven't entered the information with a keyboard
all your handwritten notes get converted to digital text you can also organize all your
notes into notebooks and folders which means it's all super organized and easy to access which is
the big thing that i was missing when i was doing paper journaling the other huge benefit obviously
is that it doesn't take up a lot of space it's just all kept on the ipad and you've always got
it with you the downside being that you can't actually access your notes from a laptop or a
phone you have to have your ipad with you to be able to access the notes but to me that's the
trade-off i'm willing to make to be able to hand write my notes instead of having to type them with
the keyboard and i'm hoping fingers crossed that in the future good notes will release an update
where you can access all your notes from a desktop computer or from your phone now lastly the one
thing that i was a bit concerned about when it came to writing on an ipad with a apple pencil
was just how it would feel compared to writing on paper i know there's a lot of people out there who
recommend using a screen protector that that has a texture like paper for example there's a
paper-like screen protector that i've seen around on youtube a lot and i thought maybe i'd have to
buy that to help me get used to the feeling of handwriting on a digital or like a glass screen
but to be honest i've actually found writing on an ipad screen a really nice feeling in some ways
i almost prefer the feeling of it to writing on paper it feels really smooth to me and really nice
i don't feel like i need a screen protector at all and yeah i kind of almost prefer it to writing on
physical paper so all that together pretty much is why i now pretty much exclusively journal on
my ipad i don't journal in a paper notebook anymore and i don't journal on my laptop
really much anymore for me i found that the ipad and apple pencil combination is the way to go
when it comes to digital journaling so i'm really keen to hear your thoughts do you journal do you
journal on an ipad or maybe you journal the old school way in a paper notebook i definitely think
that different mediums work for different people and i've just personally found that a digital and
analog mixed medium for me works the best but let me know what works for you in the comments
and don't forget i put out videos every friday on how tech can be used to improve your life so if
you're interested in more of that sort of content then be sure to hit the subscribe button and if
you like today's video then hit the like button and i will see you very soon in the next video
hmm