1 August - the start of the year

I've used a mid-year diary for my journal since 1973, when my cousins started sending me a school year diary that they published. Theirs is no longer available, but I've kept up the mid-year tradition, even in years when I use a Paperchase notebook that somehow always lasts me exactly a year too.

My current preferred books are both A5 page-a-day diaries - a WH Smith one in silver for my journal and a Collins one for my desk diary.


Both actually last more than a year, but I use them from 1 August to 31 July. The Smiths one will be the fifth of the same design and the Collins one will be the seventh, so I am quite set in my ways. I like them both for their own purposes - the Collins one has times down the side of the page so wouldn't work for a journal but is great for work timings, while the Smiths one has narrow lines so you can write a lot on a page (it also has a little quotation in tiny writing at the bottom of every other page, eg yesterday's was Jayne Mansfield's 'Men are those creatures with two legs and eight hands.')

Every year I wonder whether the time has come to keep my diary on the computer, but every year I put off the decision on the basis that I already spend enough time in front of the screen. Yes, it would be quicker to look things up - though yesterday it only took me about 20 minutes using a combination of photo albums and my diary to track down something from 1998 (without being sure beforehand what year it happened). Of course a spreadsheet of key events would have been much quicker still.

The written journal in particular contains a lot of information. I rule columns to make a page for each month to record where we each were on each day and keep lists of books read, movies seen, presents given and much more. These are arguably all things that would be better in a spreadsheet or at least in my Palm handheld, so perhaps I should start compromising and listing these electronically while continuing to use the diary itself for the not-very-exciting records of my days.

There will be two small changes this year. Every year, I try to keep a list for a single month of something that wouldn't necessarily be mentioned in my diary but that might be interesting to look back on one day. One time I listed a month's worth of non-food/supermarket shopping with prices. Circumstances last year led to a horribly long list of things that broke (several bits of both cars, the washing machine, laptop power supply, two separate leaks, a mp3 player etc etc etc). Another time, we totted up how many gigabytes of videos, mp3s etc we had as of that date. I think this year's list will be a month's worth of evening meals.

The other 'innovation' is to add photos. I'm terrible at getting round to printing out pictures, but bought a new toy last week - a secondhand Polaroid Pogo printer. Its not much bigger than my compact camera and prints out 2" by 3" stickers - you just bluetooth them to it, or connect a usb cable from the camera.



Brilliant - and it will be a great help in skimming through old diaries looking for particular events, as well as reminding me of good pictures worthy of proper prints.