Diaries, like personal growth, are forever a work in progress

Documenting the great and small moments in your every day life serves many purposes, even — perhaps especially — when it’s not for publication, writes Karl Whitney

I come across a note I took in early January, just after I had been walking late at night on a thin layer of snow that crunched beneath my feet. 

I’VE COME to believe that one of the most valuable aspects of writing is that you can record what was it like to be alive at a certain time and in a certain place. If it all ends tomorrow, at least there’ll be notes.

The first draft of my observations I keep in a notetaking app on my phone, alongside other assorted jottings that most often include my grocery list: There, accounts of half-remembered dreams mingle with personal exhortations to buy coffee beans and toilet roll.