Welcome to the ultimate guide to digital journaling for men. If you’re new to journaling, you might not be aware that maintaining a regular journal practice is an excellent tool for self-improvement, productivity and mental clarity. By spending time purposefully and mindfully writing about a topic, we allow our mind the space to find new angles and solutions, solve complex problems and develop long-term plans and strategies to achieve our goals.

Traditionally journaling involved a notepad and pen, and there are purists who may argue that the physical aspect of journaling, and dedicating a space to it, is part of the mindful practice. Whether you subscribe to that point-of-view or not however, there is no denying the rising popularity of digital journaling, particularly among men. Convenience and ever-evolving digital tools have made the digital journaling landscape a great place to begin your own journaling habit.

In this guide, we will look at the benefits of digital journaling, the tools and techniques that are available and some tips to getting started and developing a consistent habit.

Why digital journaling?  

So, why would you choose digital journaling over traditional pen and paper journaling? After all, pen and paper has worked for lots of people for a long time, it’s cheap and easy to get started and there’s very little risk of you suddenly losing access to your journaling platform and all your historic journal entries. Well, bar that catastrophic occurrence, there are actually a lot of reasons people choose to go digital for their journaling hobby.

Convenience: Let’s face it, almost all of us have our phones on our person (if not, in our hand) for the majority of our waking hours, and most of us will have access to the internet throughout the day as well. This means you can access your journal anytime, anywhere, removing the stumbling block many people have of setting aside time to journal. With an analogue journal, if you don’t have a dedicated time and space for journaling, it can often be a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. With digital journaling, you can dip in and out of your journal throughout the day and write anywhere.

Security: It might not be a huge concern, but your journal is private and personal to you, and at the very least it would be an invasion of privacy if someone was to pick up and read through your notebook. With a digital journal, you have the added peace of mind of password protection, two-factor authentication and cloud backup options.

Searchability: Digital journaling makes it easier than ever to find past entries or group similar entries via tags. This removes a huge manual aspect of analogue journaling, where you would need to create an indexing system, date journals and store journals in an easy to navigate, organised manner (not to mention physically requiring the space for all your notebooks!). With search on page, easy folder creation and tagging, digital journaling makes it easy to locate and review past entries.

Integration: Integrations make life simpler when it comes to journaling. If you’re using productivity apps like Notion, Evernote or Google Keep, you can often highlight text or images and send it to your preferred app at the push of a button, making it easy to capture and store quotes, important thoughts and ideas without having to physically bring your notepad with you everywhere you go. We’ve all had those, ‘I’ll have to remember that for later’ moments, only to forget what ‘that’ was moments later. With digital journaling, it’s much easier to keep hold of those fleeting ideas.  

Multimedia: Digital journaling allows the use of multimedia that in some cases would be difficult and in others, flat-out impossible, with a traditional journal. Digital journaling allows you to easily add images, voice notes, videos and links to your journal entries that can enrich entries and enhance the usefulness of your journal as a tool. It can even enable completely different forms of journaling such as video journaling or spoken-word diarising. 

Wearable trackers: Another benefit of digital journaling is that you can link data from any wearable trackers, allowing you to habit track in a more modern, less manual way. You can track things like excercise, steps, stress levels, sleep and many more.

Best digital journaling tools and apps

If you decide to give digital journaling a go, you’re going to need to settle on a platform. There are lots of options out there and all of them have features and benefits that may appeal depending on your goal and preferred style of journaling. Some that are worth exploring would be:

Best for simplicity: Apple Notes, Google Keep. Phone notepad app 

If you’re looking for distraction free, no-frills writing then a simple notepad style app could be the way to go. You may not get the best organisational tools with these apps, but the barrier to entry is low, making it easy to get started. This naturally lends itself to unguided journaling, but you could use good online prompts if you wanted to add some structure to your journal entries.  

Best for structured journaling: Journey, Day One  

Journey and Day One are just two of many dedicated journaling apps. For a small monthly fee you get access to a whole host of digital features, such as AI journaling agents and journal summaries, additional data like your step count and the days weather added to your posts and reminders to keep you on track with your habit. You also get a whole load of digital journal templates to help you structure your writing. This is a great option if you live on your phone and want to make extensive use of multimedia entries. 

Best for customisation and productivity: Notion, Evernote  

I’ve actually used both Notion and Evernote in the past and I’m a huge fan of the flexibility and premade templates from Notion. I find it really easy to use and the fact you can link between pages really easily makes it great for organisation. I like to make a ‘home’ page which then links to various different sections such as my daily journal, habit trackers or saved prompts. Again, there are free versions of both Evernote and Notion, but if you’re planning to use them long-term you might want to look into the paid versions. Both these apps are great if you want to access and use your journal across multiple devices too.

Best for privacy: Standard Notes, Obsidian  

If privacy is a major concern for you, then look into apps like Standard Notes or Obsidian. Standard Notes uses audited, end-to-end encryption to keep any entries extremely secure, whereas Obsidian saves entries locally to your device, meaning they’re not out there for someone to potentially access. Beyond security, they are also highly flexible note taking apps, with Obsidian boasting thousands of plugins you can use to make your journal really work for you. 

Best for voice and video entries: Penzu, Daylio  

If you’re keen to take advantage of some of the more unique features that digital journaling can offer, then apps such as Penzu and Daylio could be of interest. They allow you to write in your journal as usual, but also allow you to make voice and video entries so you can journal in the way that best suits you. If the app route isn’t for you, you could always locally store video and voice clips in folders as a cheaper alternative to subscription apps.

How to use AI for digital journaling

Of course, this wouldn’t be much of a guide to digital journaling if I didn’t at least mention AI. AI is currently changing the way we do almost everything, and journaling is no different. If you’re looking to start digital journaling, then it is worth considering some of the ways in which Artificial Intelligence can enhance the hobby for you.

AI-powered journal prompts: A great example usage is asking AI chatbots or apps for journal prompts. You can be very specific about the type of prompt you want and tailor them to your goals which can really help when it comes to finding good quality prompts.  

Therapeutic journaling with AI: Another potential option is to start having reflective conversations with AI. Essentially, this is like writing your journal entry into ChatGPT and having the AI respond and ask you questions that help you better process emotions, workshop through solutions or gain valuable insights. It might seem a little strange at first but having a two-way conversation can help you open up and consider new points-of-view.  

AI-driven summaries: One of the best ways to use your journal is to regularly review past entries and look to identify patterns in your thoughts and feelings, as well as monitoring progress towards your goals. With AI, you can now use have that analysis done for you, helping you get to the insights faster. Many online journaling apps now have this built in as a feature so as you add entries, AI can quickly analyse and share insights with you.

Voice-to-text and AI transcription: If you struggle with the writing side of journaling, then using AI to automatically convert your spoken journal entries to written entries could be a great option for you. It also makes journaling easier if you’re pressed for time as you can simply speak into your phone.

Automated goal tracking: If you predominantly use your journal for goal tracking, then it’s worth considering how AI can assist you. Whether that’s setting reminders, suggesting new habits or ways to break through plateaus or even analysing progress and changes over time, there are hundreds of ways AI can support you in achieving your goals. 

How to start digital journaling

The first step to getting started with digital journaling is to decide what kind of journal you want. Is it a diary style journal? A goals and habits journal? A creativity journal? Deciding this early on will help you understand what features you require to make your journal useful to you.

With your journal type decided, you can then start to look at the available platforms and weigh up which is the best one for you. You can also make decisions about whether You want to opt for free note taking or paid app subscriptions and whether you want built-in AI features. 

After that, the steps become similar to traditional journaling. Although a benefit of digital journaling is being able to do it anywhere and at any time, I would recommend setting a dedicated time to do your entries. When you’re building the habit, the flexibility that digital journaling offers can all too quickly make it easy to miss entries and then that effect can snowball until you find you’ve stopped altogether, so don’t let flexibility turn into an excuse!

With the type of journal and journaling platform decided, and a dedicated time set aside to write your journal entries, the next thing to do is to look for templates and layouts to use for your goal-setting, reflections and daily logs. If you just plan to write paragraphs of diarised entries, that’s absolutely fine, and maybe a simplistic notepad app is perfect for your needs, or you may want to look at distraction-free writing apps that block you from looking at other apps or using the internet whilst you’re supposed to be writing. If you want some more structure to your writing, then you can look for apps that include sections, pre-made layouts and templates.

Finally, you should make sure you sync your journaling app across all your devices to make it easy to access and create new entries. This removes any excuses that you don’t have your journal to hand, and gets rid of a roadblock that often gets in the way of creating a consistent traditional journaling habit. 

Digital journaling vs. traditional journaling  

Common challenges and how to overcome them

I’ve extolled the virtues of digital journaling so far, but it’s definitely worth being aware of the common challenges and pitfalls of this form of journal writing and how best to avoid them. The challenges most people face with digital journaling are: 

Distraction: This is the big one. If you’re writing on your device (phone, tablet or laptop) then there is a good chance that you’re connected to the internet, and if you’re connected to the internet that means you’re facing an endless tirade of distractions. The internet, notifications, emails, instant messaging. And unlike with traditional journaling, you can’t just lock your phone in a drawer whilst you write your entry, especially if it’s your phone you use to write on. Digital journaling requires a level of self control and restraint that can be difficult to achieve. If you can write locally, without the internet, then try switching on airplane mode, or turning off your WiFi router when it comes time to write your entry. Or failing that, there are apps you can use which prevent you from using certain applications on your phone for a set amount of time, to help you focus without distraction.  

Privacy concerns: It can be quite understandably off-putting to think about putting your journal entries online where anyone could theoretically be accessing them. You like to think that what you post is private, but who knows how companies are using your data or who has access to your journal behind-the-scenes. These are natural concerns, and if it’s a particular worry for you then there are a couple of steps you can take to try and increase privacy and security. Firstly, your platform of choice will make an impact. Try and research the apps you want to use, and look for those that specifically focus on security and privacy. There are lots of these, but Standard Notes and Obsidian are two that I’ve previously mentioned. If you can save locally and password protect entries, then more is the better, and where possible, you should use encryption and secure backups.  

Lack of motivation: This challenge isn’t specific to digital journaling, but when you can access your notepad anywhere and at any time, it counterintuitively becomes easy to never access it. It’s easy to get distracted as soon as you go on your device and lose a significant amount of time scrolling and searching, and convincing yourself that you’ll get to journaling shortly. If you want to commit to a journaling habit, then you should set yourself a dedicated time to focus and make your entries, set yourself reminders to make your entry and find and use good guided templates to add a sense of structure to your journaling. For tips on how to build a consistent journaling habit, check out my post ‘How do you journal every day?‘

Tips for making digital journaling a habit

To really benefit from journaling, you should be looking to make it a long-term, consistent habit. It is a skill that can be developed and the more entries you have to look back on, the more insights you can draw on to help you succeed in the future. A consistent journaling habit really is a super-power. So if you are looking to make digital journaling a consistent habit, there are some simple tips that you can follow to help you achieve this.  

Start with short, simple entries.  

Don’t overcommit to writing hundreds of pages with complex trackers and ways to organise multiple aspects of your life. It’s too easy to become overwhelmed or to cause yourself too much anxiety about ‘having’ to journal, undoing all the potential good work of journaling. Keep it simple, and allow the habit to grow, rather than trying to do everything all at once.

Use prompts for inspiration.  

Prompts can be extremely useful, whatever stage of your journaling journey you’re at. As long as you’re finding good quality prompts that align with your goals and push you towards the insights you are seeking then they can be a great thing to use to guide your journaling and help you avoid that difficult ‘blank-page’ syndrome. Many digital journaling tools and apps come with pre-installed prompts that you can take advantage of which can be a useful starting point.

Review past entries to track growth.

Nothing makes the hobby of journal writing more addictive than being able to look back over your previous entries and see how far you have come. Reviewing past journal entries uncovers insights and trends into your habits and patterns of thinking and behaviour that can guide us into making better choices going forward. 

Combine journaling with daily planning.

When you’re building a new habit, it can often help to ‘tag it on’ to an existing habit. If there is something you are already doing consistently, then finding a way to integrate your new habit into that existing habit can make it easier to make it stick. This is what James Clear calls ‘Habit Stacking’ in his book ‘Atomic Habits’. If you already write a to-do list or even just spend some time in the morning planning out your day in your head, it’s the perfect opportunity to translate that into the written word and make your daily journaling part of your pre-existing habit.

Try voice journaling for quick reflections.  

With digital tools, the door is opened for unique styles of journaling. If a written journal doesn’t appeal then voice journaling or video journaling could be a useful option and still gives you the benefit of having a store of historical entries that you can review and draw insights of. Don’t feel like the ‘traditional’ way of journaling restricts you in any way. Journaling is a tool, and the best way to do it is the way that works for you.

Digital journaling is here to stay and it’s only going to get more powerful and more intuitive. There will always be people who claim that you need to physically write to journal, to experience the benefits of being present in the moment and truly connected to the purpose. This might be true for some, but not for everyone. If using digital tools and apps helps you maintain a consistent habit then that is more important than the medium you are using. Plus, you are opening yourself up to a whole heap of unique benefits like productivity tools, layouts and AI-assisted journaling. 

If digital journaling sounds like it could be the right thing for you, there are lots of free trials and even free versions of apps and tools that you can use. I would encourage you to pick one that appeals to you the most and give it a go. It could be the thing that unlocks consistent journaling for you!