A place to discuss anything related to keeping a journal, a diary, a planner, a bullet journal, art/junk journal. Productivity, self-help, mindfulness, memory-keeping, creativity, project management or any other purpose.
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I have seperate systems for other thoughts. Like I have a notebook just for my takes on media, and a git repo for technical things I've learned. On top of that I'm a diarist, so my diary entries are often more like letters.
But I specifically try to avoid just listing out what I've been doing and instead try to pick out a couple events and how I feel about them. For me it's much more about documenting feelings.
I have seperate systems for other thoughts. Like I have a notebook just for my takes on media, and a git repo for technical things I’ve learned.
Is it publicly accessible? I would like to see what's in it as It's something I've been considering doing myself for all my 'Linux' tips and tweaks as I have no idea where to share them (they're in a markdown file for now).
On top of that I’m a diarist, so my diary entries are often more like letters.
Like in actual letters (written to yourself, maybe)? I like the idea.
When we were in our twenties, my best friend and I (we're still besties all those decades later) were studying far away one from the other and we wrote to each other a lot. Like, a lot, multiple times a week if not daily. A few people knowing the intensity of our exchanges compared us to lovers (we were not, we were just avid to share ideas and fun together). It was a rich (and real fun) period that ended with us moving to... email.
I miss that intensity (and the fun, too) and our absolutely un-censored exchange of ideas.
I mean, no matter how stupid, daring, unpopular, clumsy was whatever we wanted to try we would do it. We feared no judgment from one another (and certainly no hate or public shaming, like we can see happening way too often online) and we also feared not looking like amateurs (that we were), or to show that we mastered not what we were writing about. Imho, that freedom was essential to us growing because it allowed us to experiment and to explore things and ideas without self-censoring or caring about one's own image/reputation. Something not many people would dare to do nowadays online, alas.
Probably even more than that freedom, I miss that it was obvious (for some of us at least) that if we wanted to fuel a friendship (or even just really keep in touch) we would exchange snail mails with those persons we cared about. And that we would have to take the time to write letters (or cards) to them and more time to read theirs, carefully.
Back then, I received such letters almost every single day, and I wrote almost daily too. This year, I've received one letter, and I sent two... Which is double what I received and sent last year :(
It's as different as apples and oranges in my opinion.
However, journaling can be part of a PKMS, if you link it in a meaningful way.
There can also be different kinds of journaling as you mention. I write a personal journal (mostly everyday, going on two decades). However I also have a separate "domain knowledge" type journaling thats less feelings and such but discoveries and insights.
If you haven't heard of the concept of Zettlekasten, I'd suggest looking into that. As a neurodivergent it was a breakthrough that matches how my mind works when it comes to curating a PKMS in a relational manner.
Curious how specifically they are different, other than them just being different.
At least from the sidebar,
Productivity, self-help, mindfulness, memory-keeping, creativity, project management or any other purpose.
In my opinion most of this overlaps with PKMS. What things belong in a PKMS that don't go in a journal and vice versa?
Already looked into Zettelkasten awhile ago. Seems cool but I am getting by just fine, connecting different topics together without one. I am sure I've missed some potential connections, but I'm not an academic and feel I have a good enough understanding of the things in my PKMS that it's not so essential I maximize connections with a Zettelkasten—especially because there'd be a cost to redoing my PKMS that way, and I think my own neurodivergent brain just Doesn't Work That Way. Thanks for the suggestion though, hope an onlooker benefits
I think of what I have far more as a Personal Knowledge Management System than a journal. I spend far less time on personal feelings and thoughts and “what did I do today?” and a lot more on making it a knowledge repository for Future Me.
My journal is a mix of both but it’s still an untangled mess of entries, contrary to my pkms where everything is neatly separated and indexed. That said, I'll index whatever part of mu journal I consider potentially useful in my pkms.
And if what I do is actually pretty separate from journaling it would be cool to know so I don’t invade threads I shouldn’t be talking in.
Reading your question made me realize I never really considered the question myself. I mean I thought I had, but nope. I would say I consider journaling as way to capture part of my flow of thoughts and memories focusing on my daily live, and as a way to step back from it. Where the pkms is the place I would step in (while also stepping back ?!) to deal with ideas and thoughts that are not related to my daily live. That's not much clearer... I would like to get other's point of view.
I think the organization thing, indexed vs not, might be a tendency but it definitely would not define PKMS vs journal, as I can imagine some people have very neatly indexed journals with a table of contents page and every page gets tossed on the table of contents once it gains contents.
I do think intention has to do with it. Indexing knowledge for future you, or just getting out personal thoughts for now to help you deal with them? Although that does not feel good enough right now, because some people also put things they think they'll care about later in their journal, and some people review entries to try to figure out tendencies in their moods and habits, also known as they put down today's knowledge for review later which sounds like a PKMS thing…
but it definitely would not define PKMS vs journal
Not my intention either. To give you an idea I will index in my pkms entries from my journal where I wrote my thoughts about such or such book I'm reading, or a movie or some event, or whatever. But only as far as I think that entry may one day have interest outside of them being my (personal) thoughts on whatever. So, most journal entries, because of the way I write it, don't enter my pkms. I value them almost equally, though.
Sorry if I came off as aggressive or "you are WRONG," definitely meant this more as discussion. I was just spitballing thoughts. Thanks for sharing how you do it, and what differentiates your PKMS from your journal :)
Sorry if I came off as aggressive or “you are WRONG,”
You did not ;)