Is a Journal Worth The Effort?

Leuchtturm 1917 & Sony ICD SX712

Writing a journal does require a bit of effort but as time and technology moves on it is getting quicker and easier to do.

I still keep a few notes as things happen during the day but I’ve changed what I do at the end of the day to produce a better and more complete record. I now use a SONY voice recorder that I’ve had for years to dictate my daily journal using my notebook notes as a prompt, it takes just a few minutes to do this.

Once done I get the .mp3 file off the recorder and drag it into a transcription application called AIKO which is frankly unbelievably accurate. The AIKO app uses the Whisper large v2 model on macOS and the medium or small model on iOS depending on available memory. AIKO transcribes audio directly on your device, ensuring complete privacy it is perfect for sensitive recordings. Apart from writing journal entries AIKO easily converts speech to text from meetings, lectures, phone calls and more.

I’ve been surprised how often it is useful and enjoyable to be able to refer back to things in my journal. I used to post things to Twitter and Facebook but I no longer bother with these platfoms now that they are infected with untruths, scammers, misinformation and far worse.

Does it all matter in the grand scheme of things? Probably not, but for me at least a journal makes some sense of the passing time and stops memories and events just becoming an impenetrable fog. There is no doubt, based on my experience, that the value of a written and searchable record rises as time passes. Initially it can feel like a chore but after a while I’ve come to value these records more and more.

Ask yourself the question, what did you do on the 23rd October 2014? If you have no idea, which I wouldn’t have without my journal, maybe a brief written record would have made that day just a little more valued, we only have so many of them!