I had just heard of these yesterday when I stumbled across Gratitude Journal (iTunes, Twitter) and was curious about it.
In a gratitude journal you list five things you are grateful for each day. The overall effect after doing this for a bit is that you become more aware of your life and what makes you happy… I can dig that. The Simple Dollar has a good overview, if you need more info.
I’d like to try it out, not really sure in what medium though. Gratitude Journal is all cute and zen, and I’m generally a sucker for that. I really like my fountain pen/journal setup but for that past couple weeks I’ve been more iPhone–centric. I think the (usually mistaken) assumption that digital is more handy and easier to reference later has taken hold again.
But in that vein I am going to try Memiary (news tumblelog). Memiary is one of those “made over the weekend” web apps that focus on a simple user experience. The author seems to not like regular journals but wanted a way to keep track of things that happened. Strangely enough the app focuses on only being able to post 5 things a day, just like a gratitude journal.
As with most web apps these days there are great little features that I could see making it useful in the long term: an RSS feed (share with your friends!), an iCal feed (instant calendar interface!), Twitter integration, and an iPhone app for quick and/or offline entries. The tradeoff — if you consider it one — is that you are limited to the amount of characters that can make up your entry.
