diaries, notebooks, blogs.

At the start of this year, I decided to keep a dated diary. Not for organizational purposes, I had my planner for that, but to keep as a day-to-day account of 2012. I figured it would be a good way to make myself commit to doing something every day without fail.

I don't think I will need to say it, but it failed. A year was too big of a goal. There'd been many blank pages and often I felt forced to write on the ones I did fill up.

While my motivation was sound, it left me no room for error. I feel so bad for the tree whose life was sacrificed to make this notebook! I thought it would be enough to guilt me into doing it everyday, but as it turns out, I don't like being guilted into doing things and am therefore likely to just forget about them altogether. Sorry tree/s.


I had two reasons for the diary, with which I felt justified spending a lot more on it that I normally would for a notebook:

1. The diary purpose. I wanted to have a record of every single day to track my progress in efficiency, work ethic, and because I knew this was going to be a great year because of reasons *cough*beardy*cough*
2. There was a vertical calendar thingy which served as my mense tracker.

Neither really worked to their full potential.

1. Even when I have a lot to write, I get turned off because, as the notebook made me realise, I'm not a fan of hand-writing bursts of thought. Add that with the compact size and it's not very comfortable. While Emmy was here I often found myself just writing the week's events in a notepad file except for that brief time where we lived in an island for eleven nights. 
2. I started using birth control this year, which means I didn't need it for a few months since the pills changed my cycles. Although I will be using it again for my next period until December since I'm off-BC again.

Next year, I just decided, I will just keep a notepad diary file that I will save online. More room for freedom in terms of write-erase-write haphazardness that tends to come when I write freely, and in terms of space elasticity. I can write as short or as long as I want and I won't feel bad. Also, I won't be limited to talking about a day. I can talk about events in say, a week, together in one entry, especially when my mind frames events that way anyway. According to meaning and significance, rather than chronologically. 

I will also write little details of my day on my planner as I've done in years past, and as for the mense tracker, it's really easy to make on my own. I didn't need to pay a big corporation for their layout. But well, the year was new and I was feeling splurgy.

Overall, I won't be doing it again but it was a good learning experience. Notebooks are only a safe investment for me when they are blank. I apparently don't like being told what to do. Even if it was my idea.