I started keeping a diary To be precise, I don't really like keeping a diary. In fact, if you take a little time each morning to write down what's going on in your brain, you'll find that your brain works better. This habit helped him get through a very difficult year in 2020, and he's continued to do so ever since.
My diary is not progressing. There are a few sections that were recommended to me by therapists from when I first started working. For example, I have a section where I write what I look forward to each day. Use a separate section to think through what you're going to eat or do that day. All of this is easy. I just use a template that includes those headers.
However, there is a bit of information that I would like to collect and include. For example, the daily weather. I've noticed that I'm often in a bad mood on rainy or gray days. So recording the weather along with your thoughts will give you useful context when reviewing your entries later. I also want to know when I wrote my entry and where I was when I wrote it. I would also like to include a quote from the day or other reflections if possible.
All of the above information can be collected manually by yourself every morning. However, I found it much faster to use Apple Shortcuts for this task. This application comes pre-installed on all his Macs, iPhones and iPads and allows him to automatically capture all kinds of information and format it properly for my diary. I run a custom automation every morning. This is how I built it.
date, weather, location
Apple via Justin Potts
Launch Apple Shortcuts on the selected device and create a new shortcut. This software may be a little confusing, but don't worry. I'll explain everything. In the right column you'll see a bunch of different little automations that you can run. Drag as many of these as you need into the main column on the left. I like to search for what I'm looking for, but you can also manually explore the options if you want to figure out what the shortcuts can do.
