Keeping Track of Your Life With Day One for iPhone

Keeping a journal is something that everybody should do. It gives you something to read and go back in time, reminding you of people and events that you might have forgotten about. It’s a great way to record your experiences on paper (or computer) so that you can keep them for posteriority.

The thing is, with all the new technology that we have, who has time for keeping up with a physical journal? Well, today we’re presenting to you Day One, an app that can help you keep a journal while you are on the go and at your desk. Interested? Read on to find out more about it!

We’ve also posted a review of the Mac version of Day One in conjunction with this article. If you use a Mac, it’s definitely worth reading what we have to say about the desktop version!

Before the Beginning

Day One is a very simple journaling app that goes for $0.99 on the App Store. It even has a Mac companion and both versions work synchronized, so that you can have your journals anywhere you go. The app itself is very simple and has few features, just like its Mac companion.

You have the menus on the main page, which include “All Entries” and “Starred”. There’s also a “New” button on the right upper corner and a button to access the settings in the left upper corner. But that’s about it. Day One is as simple as they come.

Adding New Entries

As I mentioned, you have a little plus sign that you can use to post new things. Once you select this button, a new page will be displayed with a big text box, a keyboard, and a bar with a few details like the date, time and a few other buttons that allow you to modify the date of your entry and star it.

Once you get done writing an entry, you can click “Done” and the keyboard will disappear, showing a bar on the bottom that lets you trash, email and modify your current entry, as well as navigate the next and last entries. If you want to do nothing else with your entry, you can click the “Back” button and you’ll be taken back to the main menu, where you’ll be able to see your new note above the older ones.

Something I found very convenient in this app was that you always have access to the “New” button. It doesn’t matter what menu you are in, the “new” button will always be neatly displayed in its corner, in case you get inspired while your editing an entry or reading your old ones. Speaking of old entries…

Exploring Old Entries

You can read and navigate your old entries by going into either the “Starred” or the “All Entries” menus. The entries menu is neatly arranged into monthly categories, and each of your entries will be shown with a little preview of it and the date it was created on the corner. I found the date to be a very nice detail, since it makes navigating much more easy. If you want to check any of your entries, just select it and it will be shown in the same preview window as when you add a new entry.

The “Starred” menu shows you just that, the entries that you have marked as important. It is very similar to the entries menu, and you can go into any of the entries and remove their bookmark or edit them from the preview window.

Connectivity

The first time you start Day One on your Mac, you’ll get prompted with a message that will ask you if you want to keep your journals synchronized with Dropbox (that is, if you have Dropbox). If you set it up to work with it, you can then go to your iPhone version of Day One and activate your Dropbox account through the settings. You’ll have to provide your email and password, and then you’re done.

Now you will have both of your versions of Day One synchronized. But why do they use Dropbox for their synchronization? Well, I’d never seen this done before in an app, but it’s very smart from the developer as he doesn’t need to have any sort of server up, everything is handled by the Dropbox servers. While this connectivity is a bit hard to set up the first time, once it’s up it will work seamlessly.

So, What’s the Point?

I guess it’s kind of hard describing the functionality of this app as it sort of fits the space between note taking apps like Evernote, and journal apps –which are still a pretty new and unexploited category– that can take in all of your activity during the day and file it under its file system so that you can have a log of your activities and thoughts.

These apps also bring up a lot of comparisons to personal blogs, as much like them, they give you the ability to write whatever you feel at any given time, except privately. Sometimes there are things that we’d rather keep to ourselves instead of posting them all over social networks, and this is why I think these kind of apps are useful. They give you an outlet to keep a log of your thoughts without having to worry about other people hearing about them, so that you don’t have to wonder whether a tweet or post is appropriate for your family to see.

Conclusion

Day One is a very, very simple app. Under the “About” menu of the app, it says “Day One is committed to creating a simple way to document and remember your life”, and that is exactly what the app achieves. It doesn’t have any big features like attachments or social network integration, it’s just simply a great way to quickly document whatever is going on in your life.

Would you be willing to keep up with a journal? Would you use an app like this? Tell us why in the comments!

We’ve also posted a review of the Mac version of Day One in conjunction with this article. If you use a Mac, it’s definitely worth reading what we have to say about the desktop version!