There are many benefits to journaling, but trying to keep physical copies of your thoughts can become difficult and cumbersome. What happens if you forget your journal, or worse yet, lose it? What can you do if you don’t have a pen?
Online journaling suffers from none of these problems, and even has some benefits unique to its medium. The only concern left, then, is how to find the right place to write your thoughts online.
Hopefully, this list will help you do just that. Here are five of the best websites to keep an online journal.
1. Journey
The first entry on this list is Journey, a self-care journal and planner which is available across just about every platform you might think of. If you’re looking for something you can easily access, regardless of where you are, then Journey might be right for you.
Journey lets you record just about any aspect of your life. You can track photos from your day, or even make a travel journal out of locations you’ve visited.
You can also keep track of your fitness and mood levels to help recognize personal patterns over the course of days and even months.
Plus, if you’re new to journaling, Journey supports guided journaling coach programs. These programs will provide you with a variety of self-care topics in order to guide your journaling.
Composing your journal entries is quick and easy as well, and Journey even supports the ability to compose entries via email, which you can then later send to your unique Journey email address.
If you’re worried about your journal being accessed by others, then Journey has you covered there as well. You can set up a passcode to prevent anyone else from viewing your journal and to keep your innermost thoughts private.
You can access everything Journey has to offer online via their web app, or you can download it on just about any platform you might wish.
2. Penzu
Next on the list comes Penzu. Penzu is a clean and easy-to-use service which makes journaling quicker and easier than it’s ever been.
You need to sign up before you can use this service, but once you have, you’ll be able to set your journal up in just the way that you want it. The colors of the cover, the title, fonts, and backgrounds are all adjustable to your liking.
Once you have your journal set up, all that’s left to do is to write. There are a variety of fonts that you can use, as well as a word counter and various tools such as the ability to insert images, tags, and more. There’s even the option to load a variety of prompts if you need inspiration on what to write about.
All of the above features are available for free, but Penzu also supports a series of premium plans. If you wanted to have more than one journal or a wider variety of options for backgrounds, covers, and pads, then these premium plans are probably what you’re looking for.
There are also additional options such as custom writing reminders which you can set up so that you don’t forget to write every day or as often as you like, as well as better recovery options and journal encryption.
3. Evernote
Evernote has been around for quite some time, and though it’s designed and known as a note-taking service, it functions impressively well as a journaling service as well.
If you already use Evernote, then setting up a journal is just as easy as creating a new notebook. You can even set up a series of tags to organize your posts and arrange any notes.
If you know nothing about Evernote, don’t fret. Evernote is a web service that can be synchronized with several devices such as online, desktop, and mobile. Within it, you can easily take notes in a number of forms.
You can organize your home page into whatever arrangement works best for you, and easily tag and include PDFs, receipts, files, photos, images, and more. Annotating what you’ve written is easy as well, and you can even include sketches or calendar dates if you need as well.
4. Dabble Me
If you’re looking for something a little more straightforward, however, then why not give Dabble Me a shot? Dabble Me is an online journaling service which emails you every day asking you how your day went.
All you have to do is reply with whatever is on your mind. You can even attach a photo to remind you of your day if you so wish.
Dabble Me also includes a previous entry every time it sends you a reminder, which you can then use as inspiration for your journal entry.
The service is relatively limited if you’re not paying, however. Dabble Me will only send email prompts every other Sunday, and you’ll have no access to more advanced features such a rich text formatting or the ability to search through past entries.
5. 750 Words
Finally, we have 750 Words. 750 Words is a relatively simple web service which follows a simple principle. Every day you write 750 words. It doesn’t matter what about, as long as you write them out in full.
The website itself can be accessed from anywhere as long as you have access to the internet, and tracks an impressive amount of information about what you’ve written every day.
Stats such as just how many words you wrote, how quickly it took you to get there, how many breaks you took and more are all included.
If you’re looking for something introspective, then 750 Words might be able to help with that as well. The web service also analyzes your feelings, themes, and the mindset of what you’re saying to help you see what you’re thinking about as you write.
But Journaling Can Be Difficult
Hopefully, in this list, you’ve found something that you can use to finally replace that old journal and pen. If not, maybe you’ve managed to find a way in which you can supplement it.
Regardless of how you journal, being consistent with your journaling can be difficult even at the best of times.