Does anyone keep a personal (non work) diary?

I got a page a day paper diary given to me by work. As I use outlook for all my work appointments I thought it was pretty useless.

Then I thought I'd try keeping a personal hand written journal of what I had for dinner and other useful information for the future writer of my hagiography.

I've kept it up since 1st Jan this year, writing just 5 to 12 lines a day about what I've been up to.

Is there anyone else who does this? Is it a habit best left to teenage girls? Can you become a 'great man' without a diary?

I know you can have private blogs on the net, but surely a real pen and ink record in your own hand is superior.

In my line of work, I've found that putting anything in writing can be very dangerous. I never put something in writing that I can say over the phone or in person.

Then again, I post on here all the time, which will surely come back to haunt me some day. Although, my online persona is a bit of a character and not necessarily what I am like in real life.

I do it when I'm doing something that seems unique, just in case it could be a book later. For example, when I travel to interesting places, I jot down thoughts and events, and since I always have a camera with me, I can kind of put words to photos too.

This is actually something I've been meaning to do, but I got caught up in life. I most definitely need to begin, as my memory is terrible at best.

I think I will commence to jotting at least a few words down in the evening. It should be therapeutic for me, as well as engrossing, and, more likely, unsettling to my (future) children. I'm not fond of the word "diary", though. I think I will call it the "Man Ledger" instead.

when my grandfather died, i found my great father's diary. it was more like a pocket calendar. every day he'd write a line or two about the weather, and something non-descript about the day's events. as he inched closer to death (or vice versa), his writing got feebler, his entries even shorter. and then nothing----signifying the end of his ability to write or his death, i don't know.

my father did the same thing. he kept an appointment book but used it to make very brief diary entries. i have maybe 10 or so of these things. my wife pores over them but i only occasionally look at them because they are kind of heavy... like emotionally charged. i was surprised that i was so central to his life, it didn't occur to me until i read his diaries---he was a very aloof kind of father. also learned about relationships he had that he never mentioned to me, and about how he'd spend his weekends, not things he really shared with me while he was around.

i keep a journal though very sporadically. the entries tend to be cryptic and i often wonder what i was going on about even after a short interval between the writing of the entry and my perusal of same.

I photoblog using my cameraphone. Just set up a flickr account, send photos to it. You can view them all later with the calendar view of what you did......I have a small pocket-sized moleskine agenda...week at a glance....enough room for a few setences and a notes page for each week on the right side....just for jotting notes though as well.

Yes, I keep one. It does two things for me:

1) A method of documenting my life. I have poor episodic memory and oftentimes forget stuff I did, even very amusing, memorable events. By writing it down, I not only relive it and so remember it, but if I ever forget, it is always fascinating to go back and read about how you saw the world years ago.

2) It is self-therapeutic. Writing about things that are weighing you down or on your mind can help you figure out the best course of action, or at least help you understand yourself better. It alleviates stress in this way. I consider my journal my personal shrink, in a way.

It is time-consuming sometimes, and when you are pressed the quality of writing suffers. But it's still better than nothing.

Originally Posted by odoreater

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In my line of work, I've found that putting anything in writing can be very dangerous. I never put something in writing that I can say over the phone or in person.

Then again, I post on here all the time, which will surely come back to haunt me some day. Although, my online persona is a bit of a character and not necessarily what I am like in real life.

This is probably true for all of us. How will it come back to haunt you?

BTW, if you keep a journal, and this I thought went without saying, do it in Microsoft Word and with a very good password to protect the document. A physical journal is waaaaaaay to dangerous.

Originally Posted by denimdestroyedmylife

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when my grandfather died, i found my great father's diary. it was more like a pocket calendar. every day he'd write a line or two about the weather, and something non-descript about the day's events. as he inched closer to death (or vice versa), his writing got feebler, his entries even shorter. and then nothing----signifying the end of his ability to write or his death, i don't know.

my father did the same thing. he kept an appointment book but used it to make very brief diary entries. i have maybe 10 or so of these things. my wife pores over them but i only occasionally look at them because they are kind of heavy... like emotionally charged. i was surprised that i was so central to his life, it didn't occur to me until i read his diaries---he was a very aloof kind of father. also learned about relationships he had that he never mentioned to me, and about how he'd spend his weekends, not things he really shared with me while he was around.

i keep a journal though very sporadically. the entries tend to be cryptic and i often wonder what i was going on about even after a short interval between the writing of the entry and my perusal of same.

Those kinds of things are fascinating, especially when you read about your parents as young people, at the same age that you are at the time.

Eric Foner wrote a rather interesting biography based mostly on the diary of a 19th century African American figure, Amos Webber. IIRC it's called We All Got History: The Memory Books of Amos Webber

Have made several attempts at keeping a diary, but whenever I go back to it. Even a short time after, I read it and I always sound like a tool. So I stop.

Considering I have a shocker of a memory I really should give it another attempt.

Alternatively I can just post every detail of my life on SF and just use this place as a diary

my grandmother had a geanologist trace our family (direct link to mayflower) and found a personal diary of one of the members from the 1800s. he was a slave owner

I would but I'm not a prepubescent girl.

Originally Posted by sonick

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I would but I'm not a prepubescent girl.

Famous inventor Thomas Edison is probably the most experienced note-taker in the world. His diary which is still maintained as an important part of the United States historical record contains five million (5,000,000) pages.

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http://www.lifehack.org/articles/com...as-edison.html