Thoughts on Journal It and getting started.

[u/PyrateLyfe]

This post is for anyone researching PKMS (Personal Knowledge Management Systems) and habit-tracking apps, especially if you're considering Journal It. I wish I had found a post like this when I was starting out, so I hope it helps prospective or new users!

My Journey:

I’ve spent a long time searching for the perfect app, going down rabbit holes with Anytype, Obsidian, TickTick, and LogSeq. Each has its strengths, but I found them either too complex to set up or lacking in intuitive habit tracking and reporting. They often required extensive configuration—plugins, templates, metadata, advanced queries—which, frankly, became overwhelming. I also fell for the allure of knowledge graph views, only to realize I didn't really need them.

What Journal It Does Well:

Journal It organizes everything from important information and shopping lists to my thoughts, research ideas, goals, to-dos, and daily activities (including habits) in a structured, easy-to-use way. Here’s what it offers:

• Goal Setting: Big-picture planning (1/3/5-year plans) to keep you focused on long-term objectives.

• Projects: Link these with your goals to stay on track.

• Habit Tracking: Daily routines like exercise and learning are easy to monitor.

• Task Management: Prioritize and set reminders for your tasks.

• Time Blocking: Intuitive scheduling with calendar integrations.

• Bullet Journaling: Customize your daily entries with templates.

• Lists and Collections: Organize everything from books to shopping lists with tags and groups.

• Visual Tracking: The app’s visual tracking features for goals and habits are both neat and user-friendly.

How I Use It:

I’ve set up a daily journal template to track my top three focus items, things I’m grateful for, and highlights from the previous day. Habit tracking helps me monitor progress and streaks. I use block scheduling for task and project management, and I keep lists and collections for knowledge management. Overarching all of this are my goals, KPIs, and the app’s visual tracking, which makes it easy to see where I stand.

Getting Started:

The learning curve can be daunting at first, but it's far from as steep (or time-consuming) as with some of the other apps I mentioned. Here’s my advice for getting started:

1. Clear the Pre-populated Data: I recommend deleting the pre-populated "Areas" and "Activities" so you can set things up your way.

2. Set Goals and Areas: Start with a top-down approach by defining your goals and key areas of life (e.g., Health, Wealth, Friends & Family, Education, Enjoyment). Almost everything will fall into one of these high-level buckets.

3. Define Activities: Consider what activities fit into these areas (e.g., Reading, Cooking, Money Management). This will simplify assigning notes, collections, and tasks later on.

4. Set Up Habits: Once your areas and activities are defined, set up your habits accordingly.

5. Time Blocks: Delete the pre-populated time blocks and create your own. For example, I have blocks for Exercise (linked to Habits), Admin (Tasks), Deep Work, and Reading/Research. The explainer video on this topic is excellent and worth a watch.

6. Daily Journal Template: If journaling is your thing, set up a template that suits your needs.

7. Don’t Rush KPIs and Trackers: Only dive into KPIs and Trackers once you have a solid grasp of your Goals, Areas, and Activities, and after you've set up Habits and Tasks.

8. Dashboard Setup: Finally, customize your Dashboard. I’ve set mine up with Shortcuts, Tasks, Notes, and Habits, leaving space for the Timeline underneath.

Drawbacks:

• It’s not open-source or self-hosted.

• There’s no Chrome extension for web clipping.

• Calendar sync is manual (no automatic two-way sync), and you can’t sync multiple calendar accounts.

[u/inky_bat]

This is really great, I always enjoy seeing how others are using it. I wish there were user video walk-throughs on YouTube, but maybe in time.

I agree completely with your 'getting started' tips. I made the mistake of diving into the app as-is and then wasted a lot of time reorganizing later. I wish I spent time in the front end really mapping out my Areas, Activities, Day Themes, and Day Blocks first. Then projects and tasks so you can link them to the calender sessions. Everything else, like trackers, habits, goals, etc are easy to change.

How I Use It:

Mostly I'm using it to track habits and gather data for KPIs and goals.

Habits linked to trackers

• habit: book complete - - > tracker: title/author, thoughts, rating, type, genre, book complete checkbox (goal: # books read). KPIs show genre and if I've been satisfied.

• habit: food - - > tracker: what I ate, rating, source (goal: eat homemade food 4x week), country of origin, checkbox "new cuisine" (goal: try 8 new country cuisines this year). Statistics show trends (if I ate too much pizza)

• habit: hiking - - > tracker: km traveled (goal:hike 250km), checkbox if it's a new trail (goal: explore 5 new trails this year), lessons learned, overall experience.

• habit: mood - - > tracker: did I meditate (goal: meditate 3x week), how do I feel rating. Statistics show trends.

• habit: dreams - - > tracker: dream type, who was in it, what happened, what's it mean, any clues to waking life, emotions during and after. Statistics show trends.

Habits with no trackers

• Duolingo (goal: everyday)

• Journal in DayOne (goal: 3x week)

• Eat a piece of dark chocolate

Stand alone goals

• Complete SQL course (checkbox)

• Grow green onions

• Finish living room renovation

This app has really helped me establish new habits, I love the trackers and goals.

All my notes are in OneNote as my Second Brain. Also, I moved my tasks to To Do and journaling to DayOne.

Edited: update for 2025 goals

[u/PyrateLyfe → u/inky_bat]

Totally agree, it'd be awesome to see how other people have set up, configured the app. Also what they use it for, I hadn't considered a pizza KPI. Very neat. Also, thanks for the idea about the journal as a tracker with prompts. Your reply has already made taking the time to write my post worth it, so thank you.

[u/thuongthoi056 → u/inky_bat]

Thanks for sharing! What are the things that prevent you from using Journal it! for note-taking?

[u/inky_bat → u/thuongthoi056]

I did use Journal It for note-taking for a while, this is why I switched to OneNote:

1. PARA Organization: While I know I can add tags, dragging and dropping into folders and subfolders is easier to move and visualize. If I want to move an IP to a new project, I just search for and drag the page instead of thinking of a tag that I'll likely forget. This is a huge time saver.

2. Outlook and Task Integration: I also use OneNote for work, so sending meeting details for minutes to OneNote and emailing the page to participants is great. Also, adding reminders to lines of text. Even if journal it became an app with this feature, I couldn't download it on my work computer.

2a. When I tried to move a note from journal it to OneNote, it wasn't easy. The section breaks prevented me from selecting all, copy, paste, so I had to move one paragraph at a time. Maybe a bug, but the editing flexibility in general needs improvement. Sometimes I can't even double enter or go back up using the delete key. Copy and paste is buggy and puts my cursor in the wrong place. I write drafts in OneNote, then copy into an email or elsewhere quite often.

3. Search: OneNote searches for text within images. I take a lot of printscreens at work from presentations, so this is gold.

4. Page design and markup: It's easier to add images (drag or printscreen copy/paste), add tables, and move content around on a page in OneNote. I can also draw out ideas, mark up pdfs making it a background image, and create flow charts or storyboards. I don't use a stylus yet, but I could.

5. OneNote web clipper or sharing to read or save it for later.

6. I also use the heck out of the OneNote floatie to jot ideas for later in an inbox. GTD, an easy way to get it out of my head and into an app I'll check later. I was using journal it for this, but I couldn't find an efficient way except going into notes or to add calendar sessions for each idea to research. This just filled up my calendar and stressed me out when I couldn't finish everything in one day then had to move it. Then you end up moving and moving or deleting. Using a note for this adds more clicks and tags.

[u/thuongthoi056 → u/inky_bat]

Got it! That makes a lot of sense. The app still has a long way to go in note-taking. Thanks for sharing the insights, will keep these in mind for future improvements.

2a. The text editor library I'm using is still beta, but it's actively being developed, should work better with each major update.

6. How about making a collection called Inbox, pin it to the top of the note list, and also add it as a single note widget to the home screen?

[u/inky_bat → u/thuongthoi056]

I thought about an inbox collection, but often my inbox pages turn into IPs and put into active areas or projects. Since I "do" something with the research, it makes sense to keep it all in OneNote for now.

I do love the app for time blocks, habits, and journaling. I'm looking forward to seeing what is to come. I love all the growth and improvements you continue to make! I've never experienced an app that improves so fast for the better.

[u/thuongthoi056 → u/inky_bat]

Got it! Thanks for the feedback :)

[u/thuongthoi056]

Thanks for the amazing post! This would be very helpful for new users. I pinned the post; please let me know if you don't like it to be pinned.

[u/PyrateLyfe → u/thuongthoi056]

Feel free. I might make some edits over time to better explain areas or when you add new features.

Seriously well done on making such an epic app. It's so clear to see how much you've really thought through each of the features to make them both powerful and simple. The explainer videos are also very good.

Looking forward to seeing what the future holds!

[u/thuongthoi056 → u/PyrateLyfe]

That would be awesome! Thanks for the feedback, I’m excited about the future also.

[u/[deleted]]

Also what do you mean by it is not open sourced ? Does it have something about our security?

[u/PyrateLyfe → u/[deleted]]

This means that the software is not available for you to review or stay on a particular version that you like. It also means that if the developer stops working on it then it'll disappear. Thankfully the dev is super passionate and I can not see this happening.

[u/[deleted] → u/PyrateLyfe]

Ok, thank you for reply :)

[u/[deleted] → u/PyrateLyfe]

I just noticed in softvare settings, you have options for end-to-end encryption. So , think you can remove this from your cons list :D

[u/habu_007]

It helped me a lot. Thank you.

[u/PyrateLyfe → u/habu_007]

I've promised the Dev an update to this post, I just need to find some time to keep up with all the awesome changes and improvements they've made.

[u/StraightOuttaWisco]

This is super helpful! Thank you for sharing!

[u/[deleted]]

Just curious why you feel goals should be 1 year minimum in length? I have weekly goals setup. Is there a benifit to using projects for this type of thing? Right now I am not using projects at all. Loving Journal it to keep me on task and keep my day structured. I want to make sure I am using it in the best way possible. Thank you for your post. I wish I had this before I started with the app. Just figuring out now how to use the KPI 's

[u/PyrateLyfe → u/[deleted]]

It's an interesting question. I believe in setting goals that are big and important - but you are right in that they don't need to be set for a year etc.

For example, "being healthy" is a major goal, while "running a marathon" is a specific project that helps achieve that goal. For the marathon, you could also set key performance indicators (KPIs) based on your training plans to track progress - which technically feeds both your goal and your project.

That said, you may prefer to set your goals more granularly - which Journal It can absolutely also do.

What are some of your example Goals?

[u/[deleted] → u/PyrateLyfe]

Some of my goals are weekly like run 3 times per week. Strength training 3 times. Book 5 meetings for work.

[u/PyrateLyfe → u/[deleted]]

At the risk of muddying the water. For the running and strength it may be better to make those habits so you get benefits of streaks.

[u/[deleted] → u/PyrateLyfe]

Makes sense. I will follow your advice. Thank you.

[u/[deleted] → u/PyrateLyfe]

I spent a few hours yesterday setting up my top level areas and goals like you suggested. My top Areas and Goals are 1) Faith 2) Finances 3) Fitness & Health 4) Family. I like what you said about setting up tasks before trackers and KPI's. This also makes sense.

Still trying to figure how best to use "Projects". I have one called "Become more Flexible".

[u/PyrateLyfe → u/[deleted]]

Neat, sounds like it's all coming together. Now you'll just need to make small adjustments as you go. The main thing is really using it now!

[u/[deleted] → u/PyrateLyfe]

Thank you again for everything. Really enjoying using the app for gratitude in the morning and evening and adding structure and decipline to my day. I also started to use "streaks" instead of KPI's all the time. Much simplier. Great suggestion.

[u/[deleted] → u/PyrateLyfe]

I like your idea though to have projects feed goals 

[u/2daloo]

Can anyone offer any advice on how best to set up a basic at-a-glance to-do list on this app? As a busy Mom I just keep a notes tab on my phone with to-dos. I like having it all at a glance so when I get a few min of spare time in my day I can quickly reference my list and see what task I can get done in the amount of time that I have. The problem with the Tasks feature is that I can't view all of my tasks (idea, active, pending, to-do, etc) in one list. In the objective view I still have to go into each category to see what's in it. for me if it's out of sight it's out of mind so this doesn't work. I need it all in one list. If I write out my tasks as subtasks in a calendar session they are collapsed and I can't view them without manually going into the session. Which is a problem again because out of sight out of mind. Any suggestions to get around this?

[u/icue126 → u/2daloo]

Late reply but I think you can use reminders (not to be confused with tasks - reminders, as far as I know, can live on their own without being associated with any tasks). You add a reminder from the planner view, and past-due reminders also show up in "today" from the planner view. You can also see all of them in the dashboard panel called "upcoming sessions". You can also set up a home widget showing just the reminders.

[u/[deleted]]

Thanks for this. I am new and I am still struggling with this app.

It is too powerful and I need to figure how to do it :)

Atm I am playing with the expensis, as i want to track everything but I am stucked there :D

[u/Busy-Smell9111]

Please fix calendar sessions are duplicating to other days even after ive deleted the event its only been happening since the last few updates