Tony Wolski

Mini journal with Twitter, IFTTT and Evernote

2014-11-04

I’ve often wished I had kept a diary throughout the years. Friends and family will recollect things that have completely vanished from my memory, and I’ll think to myself “If only I had jotted something down about that I could go back to and trigger some of those memories.” But alas, I never manage to maintain a regular journal schedule; only in fits and starts.

IFTTT-Twitter-Evernote

One of my biggest problems is that it often feels like a chore to sit down and write a big post about my whole day, especially at the end of the day. And now there are two kids in the mix, time and energy are as scarce as ever.

So I recently came up with a process that allows me to collect private tweets in a single document that acts like a journal.

  1. First, I created a Twitter handle with protected tweets (I don’t want my journal published to the world).
  2. Second I set up this IFTTT recipe that, when there is a new tweet from my private handle, appends the tweet in the format Date - Tweet Content - Tweet URL to note in Evernote.

Now whenever my kids say or do something funny, or I find myself reflecting on the great things in my life, or I have a thought or idea I think would be handy to keep hold of, I simply swipe (or talk) out a tweet or two on my mobile. And now that I’ve simplified the process and don’t feel like I have to write long updates, I find myself writing a lot more often.


Your thoughts? I'd love to hear them. Please get in contact.