I lost my journal. It was a gift from a friend. It had beautiful, high-quality paper and a lovely pink cover with gold embossed design. And I just couldn’t find it one day, and don’t even remember where I misplaced it. It was probably during one of my staycations.

It is, probably, currently being read by some stranger, and am mortified by what the person is thinking about what I wrot. But fortunately, I didn’t write much in it. It was mostly daily ramblings about what I’m supposed to do at work. And my really bad doodles.

My most private thoughts are in my Obsidian vault.

I’ve mostly stopped writing in physical journals because I transitioned to digital journaling last year. I keep my digital journal in Obsidian, and so far, I’m really enjoying the process. I use Ryder Caroll’s rapid logging system, logging what I do/discover/observe/am thinking almost every day in “Daily Notes”.

For a while, I toyed with the idea of using Day One, a popular journal app, because it was more user friendly, but the idea of letting some company have access to my private thoughts made me nervous. And yeah, I need it in a format that was easy to port out, and text files are as portable as they come.

I’ve also gotten into the habit of storing some of my social media posts in my digital journal. I do have a huge number of thoughts that I compulsively blurt out into social media, so why not keep a record of them in my digital journal too? After Twitter’s meltdown last year, I realised my words could be held hostage or eliminated by these platforms without warning, so I need to make sure I keep them safely somehow.

(These days I try to write them in my Obsidian journal first. It prevents me from blurting out thoughts that shouldn’t be on social media! Like, controversial political rants, for example.)

Sometimes, I even include interesting quotes or even posts in my Daily Note.

I also love including photos in my Obsidian journal. It was such a bother when I had a physical journal because I had to print them out and paste them in later, and it was often too much work so I often don’t do it. With my Obsidian journal, it was super easy.

As a result, I am journaling more than ever before, and my journal is growing fatter by the day.

Personally, I prefer journaling by hand but digital journaling, I discovered was just more practical for me because I keep misplacing or losing my journals.

One time, I actually thought I lost a precious journal in the commute home in Adelaide. It was a precious journal because it contained my thoughts about building a life in Australia, and losing that journal left me sad for weeks.

Until I found it in my room. Huh. I’m sure how that happened, but I’m convinced that God took pity on me and placed it in my room, because I remember bringing said journal to the city so that I can write in it in a cafe at Central Market, and looking for it frantically after that trip, unable to find it.

And even if I do keep them safely at home, I tend to stash them in secret places so that people won’t find them and read them. But then, comically, I forget where where I stashed them.

Physical journals are also very difficult to transport with you. When I moved to Australia in 2012, I couldn’t bring my journals with me and stored them in what I hope is a safe place in my family home. But I constantly worried that they’ll be discovered and read.

My ability to lose journals and worrying that it’ll be found or read by people – familiar and unfamiliar – has kept me on edge for years. And while I have no illusions that digital journaling is any safer, at least I’ll have backups of them and won’t lose them completely.

I also seem to journal more now. In the past, because my journal is never around when I need to journal I end up not journaling much. However, my smartphone or laptop is often nearby and I quickly pen a sentence or two every day.

Although I prefer the tactile sensation of handwriting my journals, I have to reluctantly admit that I am journaling more and feeling more secure with my journals now that I’m doing it digitally.

To compensate and satisfy that side of me than hungers for physical notebooks, I still keep a thin notebook which I scribble my thoughts all day, but that one’s more of a jotter pad than a diary. When you look inside and read the entries, it’s a tornado of disjointed thoughts. Not pretty or coherent in any way.

I think for people like me with this tendency to lose things, digital journaling is just the way to go 😅😬