The only journal you'll need in your entire life, finally in Apple Notes. To download the automation for free, follow this link: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc3GbkCXeu7oze2oDglv4l-Ng38QiGWOHTAsrrw0ZlabZkXKA/viewform?usp=sf_link
I set up a version of this after watching your Forever diary video about four months back. However after seeing this video I started adding links. I did it a tad differently in that I have one main or Index note with links to 12 notes one for each month. Each month note has links to a note per day plus a link back to the index note. I put this at the top and bottom of the days of the month. It’s a long list. Each day has its own note with a link back to its month page and also the main index note. This is time consuming but I did three hours on two of my weekend days and it’s sorted now. I didn’t do links to the next and last days because I’m hopping in and out of this diary. So I find this tree structure better for my needs. But a big thank you for posting that original video which sparked in me the will to have a go.
thank you! Really appreciated everything about this video and the shortcut to roll it all out. Super star! Good luck with your channel, I know how much work you have to put in to get these upload, subscribed ✌🏻
Thank you! By the way there is now a second part to this video: Forever Diary Q&A, Ideas and Suggestions ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-y14z2hKT2F8.html
I like the idea of the "Forever Diary" you presented and I also adopted the idea of labeling each day with the line Year - Weekday - Location as a heading. However, I have changed the names of the notes so that the day is always displayed with two digits. This is how my shortcut for the homescreen works, which automatically opens the note entry for the current day based on the current date and I can then insert the heading directly from the clipboard with one click. I also added some weather Details from the weatherapp - think it would be nice after a few years. Many thanks for the great shortcut.
What an amazing concept. At the end of the video, I immediately started setting this up. I caught myself staring at the paused iPad screen, just imagining all the possibilities and uses of this practice. You have a unique, interesting channel.
I love this. I just set it up and made my first entry. I love how you focus on Apple Notes. This has been my go-to notes app for a couple years and I’m always looking to improve how I use it.
Love this. Wanted a shortcut on my desktop that referenced a formatted date to open today’s note so any time I can just pop open the correct note without having to check the date then open folders to get to it. I am new to shortcuts and just couldnt figure out how to send the formatted-today variable to open my note. Can you create such a thing for us?
I've never been able to keep a diary or journal going. But I often think back to where I was and what I was doing at this time a year ago or ten years ago or.... Needless to say, my recollections are fuzzy and inaccurate. You have given me the perfect system. I'm starting to set it up today. I plan to backfill it as much as I can. Thank you for this brilliant idea.
I have been doing this since 2022 and Apple notes nicely organizes them for me by year. I do lock the pages since it's my private journal. I don't create all the pages in advance...just start a new note every day that I choose to journal as I don't have time to do it every single day.
This is perfect! I made an Apple Shortcut that opens today’s date everyday. It was much simpler to do this with only the dd MMMM format. I love using this now!
I also have a shortcut that opens a list of all the days of the month, but it fails if I add the day of the month to go directly to that note, would your solution do this?
@@D33Arts I use the custom string on the Format Date so that it always opens today’s date. I left off the year of that custom string. Admittedly, the custom date format often breaks in iOS shortcuts and had to be repaired on Mac OS shortcuts. So, yes it fails when I switch between the OSs with this shortcut.
I really like this idea. I don’t use Apple Notes so much but use an app called UpNote (as it is iOS and Windows capable) and am now implementing this method of yours into my diary system. I currently have over 4, 000 diary notes and will be converting them to 366 notes - love this idea - Thanks!
I just add the tag: #journal to every entry, and make a Smart Folder that finds them all. Then I just sort according to Date Created, and done. I don't limit myself to 1 entry every day, since Date Created will still sort them nicely and I can add other tags to try to find entries with different themes.
@@Patrick-NP I also use Day One which allows me to back date, but in the past, I'd just type the date at the top of every entry. So in Apple Notes, which I also use as a parallel journal, I add a date in the Title as part of the title. Years ago my journal was just one giant long file in Microsoft Word, which became a very long single file in Apple Pages. I cut out the entries and put them into Apple Journal App, but it was much too limited so I stopped using it, and I backdate entries in Day One. Most of the old entries are now in Day One, but for the future, I use Day One in parallel with Apple Notes. Apple Journal app is very weak on search and even my system of writing it all in Apple Pages was superior to finding things. Apple Notes is exciting because in Sept 2024, I'm hoping that with AI that transcription will be stronger because now it's full too many mistakes. Ultimately what I write is more important than how it's organized, and even a single file in a word processor is very powerful as a journal, fast and easy to find things. But I like Day One and Apple Notes now as my tools for this.
You talk about adding things from prior years. How do you handle entries that are not date specific? Or important events that you can’t remember the date?
Excellent questions. Might deserve a follow up video! As a quick, on-the-spot suggestion: if you can't remember the date, you could either place those events into a generic note (eg. "undated events"), while you figure out where they should go; or (and that's my preferred solution) you can place them into whatever day/month/year makes sense, even if it's a wild guess, so that you can at least see those memories once a year. If in the meantime you have managed to figure out the correct date for them, you can move them. For events that are not date-specific (I guess you mean something that could span several weeks, like a long holiday, or a semester at school, or a Yoga course...did I get this right?) If so, I would probably put my note on the day the course started, and cover several days in a single entry. Hope this helps!
Unfortunately I am on iOS 18 beta and the shortcut won’t work. Too bad, I was excited to implement it! Guess I can recreate it manually. Not sure if anyone was able to get it to work on the beta.
It definitely looks like there are some issues with the iOS18 beta. (to be fair, it's common to have bugs in a beta - let's just hope they're resolved before launch!)...
Thanks! :) you should receive the email with the link almost immediately 🤔 if you haven't received by now let me know and I'll send it manually. Sorry!
Hi - the year is irrelevant in the folder structure, as it is based only on months and days, as shown below (MONTHS are in capitals, for clarity): Forever Diary - 01 JANUARY - 01 January - 02 January - 03 January - 04 January - ... (rest of the days in January) - 02 FEBRUARY - 03 MARCH - 04 APRIL - ... (rest of the months) The years are only mentioned inside the single notes.
@@Patrick-NP I installed the short cut on my iPad which is 17.5 and it worked great and I can now access it on both the phone and iPad perfectly. Thanks.
No, as it's mainly text based. If you start adding lots of photos it could be different, of course, depending on how much space you have left on you device.
Hi, of course. Sorry about that. The email should go out automatically, not sure why it didn't happen. Is it possible you inserted the email with a typo? To send it manually I need your email address, either here, or by registering again
@@Patrick-NP Hi Patrick, thank you! the mail came with a little delay 15 min ago, maybe there was a server overload or something - cant wait to use this amazing system!
good idea, but an iphone or ipad are way to distracting. I prefer a nice year long paper notebook and a decent pen. A pocket notebook takes up a lot less space and allows for 100% concentration on your writing.
The key difference is that you see everything you did on a specific day, in a single place. I wouldn't say it's "better", of course, as that depends on your needs/preferences. I'm only interested in providing a different perspective on things :)
