Journalize

I read about the benefits of journalling:

• Stress ↓
• Mood/well-being ↑
• Depressive symptoms ↓
• Working memory ↑
• Test performance ↑
• Sleep onset faster
• Physical symptoms ↓
• Optimism ↑
• Health-care visits ↓
• Amygdala response ↓

They're most likely overexagerated, but there does seem to be some science behind them. Either way, if only 25% of the beneifts are real that's still great. So I wanted to try it out. But carrying around a paper journal is cumbersome and the search function is horrible. So I wanted something digital, but every app I found was lacking features or was way too slow to use. Why does Obsidian take 14seconds to open!?

Journlize was my attempt at solving this issue. I would say it was succusful because I've been using the app for over a year now. The design philosophy of Journalize is about being fast to quickly write down thoughts, unlike seemingly every other app which is (I assume) about being nicely organized, intuitive and pretty. But I find organization of notes/thoughts to be mostly a waste of time because searching is so fast. Intuitive app design is important, but not when making a personal app. And I know most ppl think Journalize is ugly, but I love how it looks! Colors are overrated, don't get me wrong, rainbow is my fav color, but colors in a journalling app would mostly just be distracting.

Since I liked the app, I thought others might too, so I added personalization options and published it on F-droid. This was about 4× as much work as just making the app for myself. And also there's pressure from people wanting features/bug fixes.

I still haven't determined if this was a mistake. Because I liked having helped (I would estimate 150) people. But I spend a lot of time making the app work for others.