I started writing a diary in 2019. It’s not that I like journaling, exactly. What’s more, I find that my brain works better if I spend a little time pouring its contents onto paper every morning. This practice helped me get through 2020, an extremely difficult year, and I’ve kept it up ever since.
My diary is not advanced. I have a few sections recommended by my therapist from the time I started; There’s a section I fill out every day with things I’m looking forward to, for example. I use another section to think about what I’m going to eat and other things I’m going to do that day. All this is simple; I just use a template that includes headers for those things.
But there is a bit of information that I like to collect and include. The weather of each day, for example. I’ve noticed that I’m often in a bad mood on gray, rainy days, so recording the weather along with my thoughts gives me useful context when I review entries later. I also like to know what time I wrote my entry, where I was when I wrote it, and if possible, include a quote from the day or something else to reflect on.
I could collect all the above information manually myself, every morning. But I found that it’s much faster to use Apple shortcuts for work. This app, which comes pre-installed on all Macs, iPhones, and iPads, can automatically extract all kinds of information and format it nicely for my journal. I run a custom automation every morning. This is how I built it.
The date, weather and location
Apple via Justin Pot
Launch Apple Shortcuts on your device of choice and create a new shortcut. This software can be a little confusing, but don’t worry, I will explain everything to you. In the right column you will see several different small automations that you can run. Drag as many as you want to the main column, which is on the left. I like to search for what I’m looking for, but if you prefer, you can manually browse through the options to get an idea of what the shortcuts can do.