Secure, private journaling

Ideation
1

I’ve decided to keep a private journal, so I can reference when things happened, or how often something happens, and also non-public stuff.

  • How often I buy shoes, or light bulbs, or laptops
  • How often did I repeat something I said, before I documented it
  • Thoughts on life and parenting that isn’t formed for public consumption yet

Those kinds of things.

I considered keeping an offline series of text files, but I want to mark stuff as it happens, and I don’t use my computer most of the day (I am in meetings), so accessible from my phone is important. And since metadata is important, tagging would be nice.

WordPress jumps out for this, for obvious reasons. I think I would like to create a site that is private and secure, and not for use by other folks. So of course this can scale, and I thought I’d run it as a service. Here are some benefits:

  • Fairly easy to maintain - no fancy plugins or features, since it is straightforward and single use
  • Easily exports - while the WordPress export file isn’t useful per se, because of ubiquity, it can be use to convert notes into other systems
  • Apps - WordPress has apps, so people can journal using those

Specific ideas:

  • Single theme, probably based on P2
  • Build out some other export options for simplicity
  • Custom admin, only showing the most basic options
  • Really running this as a web app, its own thing, but as WordPress because that is the basic functionality

Why it isn’t a product

  • There are a gazillion other options: LiveJournal, Tumblr, WordPress.com
  • I don’t really care, just want to make something for my use
  • I also want to experiment in ways that might not suit everyone, especially around the theme options

Thoughts? :slight_smile:

2

It sounds interesting, although I am not sure I’d use it. Currently this problem is solved via Evernote for me right now.

What keeps me from using the mobile Wordpress app more is the number of clicks it takes to get to creating a new post. If I could create a widget that took me instantly to a new post of a certain site with tags preset, that would be perfect for me.

3

So, maybe this was always there and I missed it, but there is a widget called Quickpress which does most of what I want. I never saw it before since I always went to see if there was a widget that started with ‘W’.

Consider me more interested. :slight_smile:

4

I was thinking less about taking notes, and more like what Doogie Howser does. :slight_smile:

I find myself having really interesting days, and wanting to take notes on when something happened, or how often something happens, with longer context than just a note.

5

Oh! Yeah I can definitely get behind that. I could also use it for writing things that I need to just “get out” that I never want anyone to see, then destroy those posts every couple months or so.