(Archived) Daily Journal / Diary template or generation?

[ianspencer 0]

Hi, My mother has been using OneNote and "OneNote Daily Journal PowerToy" and is very addicted to it. I am attempting to move her over to Evernote but there are some usability issues and things she needs to learn but is having problems due to age. She used OneNote to just keep a Journal.

I have read as much as I can.

Here is what she had and she only used one notebook for Journal and nothing else.

The system tray PowerToy would right click it and it would open OneNote and create a new note with the current Date in this format Saturday 18 June 2011 as the note title. She could close OneNote but the icon would just open the correct date note without duplicating it. When there is a new date then it would create a new date. All this was Automatic. She want a very perfect formatted and browse-able journal like go to folder for a year and month and view days in it.

The structure was as follows

Journal

>Year

>Month

>Note Saturday 18 June 2011

Problems I found with Evernote trying to implement this or similar structure.

1. Folder structure can only be one deep as far as I can see - I believe tags can possibly be used to overcome this.

2. There is no Automatic generation of folders for Years and Months

3. There is no Automatic Generation of Subject which today would be Saturday 18 June 2011

4. When importing from OneNote there appears to be a bug where the create date from OneNote 2010 does not bring across the created date so all dates are import date in Evernote. I am not keen in editing the date in 5 years of notes and due to the date format she chose we can't sort on title.

So I think unless others have suggestions we can achieve some of this until someone writes what I thing is a badly needed plugin. There must be a lot of Oldies who like a bit of structure. Some of the below may be automated.

1. Create folders for years.

2. Manually enter the date as title

2. Tag with year, month, journal

3. Write Journal and edit during the day

A couple of issues arise here.

1. Slow typing so extra for her to do, it takes longer.

2. Learning tagging consistently

3. When closed open Evernote (OneNote Journal tool did this automatic) and find the folder for the year then do the process manually.

4. The default folder does not always open in default but the last folder used, this causes confusion for her.

Could the above be scripted or one click create new note with the current date like she is used to like "Saturday 18 June 2011" with tags populated already.

Any help appreciated even if small. Problem is parents are not too close and travel a lot.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Hi, My mother has been using OneNote and "OneNote Daily Journal PowerToy" and is very addicted to it. I am attempting to move her over to Evernote but there are some usability issues and things she needs to learn but is having problems due to age. She used OneNote to just keep a Journal.

I have read as much as I can.

Here is what she had and she only used one notebook for Journal and nothing else.

The system tray PowerToy would right click it and it would open OneNote and create a new note with the current Date in this format Saturday 18 June 2011 as the note title. She could close OneNote but the icon would just open the correct date note without duplicating it. When there is a new date then it would create a new date. All this was Automatic. She want a very perfect formatted and browse-able journal like go to folder for a year and month and view days in it. .

Evernote is a great tool and can be effectively used for a wide variety of "note-taking" / "information gathering" uses. While one the ways I use EN is for a daily journal, it does not offer any of the automation and ease of use that it seems that your mother may need, and I can manually work-around the automation EN lacks (like setting the Title to the current date). Evernote does not support any type of automation at the end-user level, nor does it have real templates.

While you might be able to setup a workflow for daily journals in Evernote, you would be constantly fighting an uphill battle to get it to do what you want/need. You would probably be getting a lot of "support calls" from your mother. Or, it may just be too difficult for her to use, and she avoids creating the journals.

So I'm not sure that Evernote would be the best choice if the sole purpose is creating a daily journal. You might do a Google on "journal software for windows" to see what your choice might be.

Good luck and let us know if you have further questions.

It would also be nice to know what your final decision is.

[daker 7]

A simple journal application with advanced features you might want to a look at is called The Journal. For Windows only. Discounts for Seniors. Has all the calendaring built in.

Great for writing, journals and gathering family memories.

http://www.davidrm.com/

[qot 23]

A simple journal application with advanced features you might want to a look at is called The Journal. For Windows only. Discounts for Seniors. Has all the calendaring built in.

Great for writing, journals and gathering family memories.

http://www.davidrm.com/

I'll throw in a vote for this, it's fantastic. I used it for years before moving to a private Wordpress blog as I needed my journal to be much more mobile.

And there is a program called AutoHotkey that can be used to add some fantastic automation to Evernote. It is a great bit of software in general, highly recommended.

[unitseven 9]

I can whip up a batch file which will do this for you pretty easily using enscript. One questions is she on a 32 or 64 bit version of windows?

[ianspencer 0]

Hi Unit 7 thanks for getting back

Running Windows 7 32bit starter on a new netbook.

I missed your reply the forum does not seem to notify when reply posted even though selected.

If you could do this it would be great.

I read a bit on EN Script but it was a bit too confusing to me but I am not well at the moment that does not help.

I have found the stack system a bit limiting but thinking the best way is to tag each day as year, month, journal

and add long format of date including day of week in the subject but I am open to suggestions.

I apreaciate everyones advice. The reason for perusing evernote is less software to learn and being able to access everywhere and no backup worries. It's great to get a new computer and be able to use evernote to search for stuff as soon as you have a browser running. There are other good reasons including easier to support family and friends if they all use the same applications.

[kushal_fpost 0]

Thanks daker for link given by you, I m sure it will helpful to me.

[amirmasoudabdol 14]

Hi, I use these three template to implement my dairy and track my personal goals and habit weekly, monthly, and yearly. You can build a notebook or tags to gather all of them together. It's too simple:

At the first step. I create a note and fill it with my daily journal. I use this template for name "Mon 22 Aug 2011: Journal" or "Mon 22 Aug 2011: Photos" and so on ...

By this method I will have too many journals in each week, so I need a method to organize these notes/journals.

I use this template below to organize my week by this name template "Weekly Report: Aug 19 - Aug 26 [2011]" or "[2011]: Weekly Report: Aug 19 - Aug 26"]. I write a note about a week at the first day of that which represent my idea about the week will come. At the second section I define my weekly goals. Both of these sections must be fill at the start of the week. By creating journal notes during this week you will have too many journal note which must be organize. I use report section to organize my week at the end of it. I link my journals note into the weekly report at the Events:Journals section. So I have a method to organize my weekly journals note. Other sections are optional and you can fill them or change them by everything that you want such as: "Exercises Log" or ...

Weekly Report Template:

Notes:
	*
Goals:

	1. 

Report:

	* Events
		* Journals
			1. 

	* Rituals:
		* 

	* Time Log:
	* Most Important Tasks

		1. 

	* Remember The Milk Completed Tasks

		1. 

	* Evernote Completed Notes:

		1. 

After creating weekly report, it's time to organize my monthly report by creating a note by this template. I name it like this "[2011] Monthly Report: August" or "Monthly Report: August 2011". How can I fill this? Just like weekly report I create this note at the first day of month and define my goals and add some notes. You can review your monthly or weekly goals weekly or monthly to focus on your goals during the week or month by this method. At the report section. I link my weekly report to this monthly report. So I'm going to create a tree structure journals application with Evernote. And just like the weekly report you can summarize your month at the end of it by processing monthly time log or anything you want.

Monthly Report Template:

Notes:
	*
Goals:
	1. 

Report:

	* Events:
	* 
		* Journals
			1. 

	* Weeks:
		* Week 1
		* Week 2
		* Week 3
		* Week 4
		* Week 5

	* Most Important Tasks:
		1. 

	* Time Log:
	        * 

And finally, I create a yearly note to organize my monthly report and the whole year. I name it like this "Yearly Report: 2011" or "[2011]: Yearly Report". And as you know I define my yearly goals such as: "Getting TOEFL certificate" or ... and at the report section I link monthly report into it. You can add some most important journal notes into the yearly report to find them easily like "My brother wedding" or something like that.

Yearly report template:

Notes:

	* 
Goals:
	1. 

Report:

	* Events:
		* Journals
			1. 
	* Months:
		* January
		* February
	* Time Log

Consequently, I implement a method in which I can organize all my yearly journals By this method if you click on your yearly report you can select a month that you want and in the monthyl repot note you have all information about all weeks of it, and some important journals of that month. Moreover, you can select a specific week of that and go to more details about it. and finally you can find a specific journal note.

[Md. Imrul Hassan 0]

Thanks Alliance Lackey, I was exactly looking something similar where can keep track of short term, mid term and long term tasks, goals, achievements. I will try your template.