Learning Tool Review: Day One

Day One has been my journal of choice for over 10 years. 

I have 4,700+ entries and I’ve written every day for almost 2,000 days (nearly 5.5 years). 

I use Day One as a daily diary and for a learning journal. 

What I love about Day One: 

• Simple, Clean UX - it’s an intuitive application on both desktop (Mac only) and iPhone. 

• “On This Day” feature - shows me all my entries from the same calendar date for previous years. At this point I have entries going back 10+ years. It’s a meditate experience to review 

• Intuitive Organization - Entries are organized in different journals making it easy for me to have different spots I put different kind of notes. 

• Just Works - The software works how I’d expect. I rarely encounter a bug, I can upload multi media entries (video, audio, pictures) into my entries like you’d expect. Tagging works easily with hash tags. Search works great. It’s everything you want in a journal without trying to do more than that. 

How I use Day One as a Learning Journal

I have a single journal within Day One called “Learning Journal.” During the day, when I run into something I’d like to remember, I jot it down in my learning journal. On a good day, I’ll have a dozen of entries of lessons learned. I tag the entries with hash tags on the topic that’s covered. 

For example, I’m reading a blog about how to report on pipeline metrics better in a sales meeting. I copy and paste the information from the blog, cite the blog, and tag it with #SalesManagement. 

The tags make it easy to see all my entries on a given topic. 

I review my learning journal weekly during a weekly reflection process I run on Sundays. During the review I’ll often add additional notes. 

#HappyLearning