“Only dull girls keep diaries.” I think I heard some character on TV say that, but I can’t remember who. Anyway, it’s not a view I’m putting forward as my own, but it does bring me neatly to my question, namely how do you write good diary entries that elevate themselves above the adolescent “Dear diary, today I got up at 7am and had breakfast comprising.... ZZzzzz” Diaries are a funny one because they’re not written for the benefit of others, and to that end it could be argued it matters not one jot how badly they’re written or how mundane the entries are. And yet years down the line we may want to revisit that period of our lives and (hopefully) enjoy the writing. I’ve tried to keep diaries in the past, but like most ventures I set out on, I quit after a very brief period. With the diaries I either found I had nothing to say on a given day, or the whole process began to bore me. In the same way this ramble is starting to bore me. I can’t even remember what I wanted to say now.
I keep a work diary of everything I've done for the day - things raised at meetings, site visits, etc. Reason being that a couple of years ago an incident arose at work and I never kept a record of it. It rose its ugly head later and I had nothing to back me up in my defence. I vowed never to be caught out again, ever! For daily life experiences I would say record what is important to you.
Yes, work diaries are easy. I keep one myself but the entries barely go beyond a few bullet points of the jobs carried out for that day. I think I make the mistake of insisting I make an entry every day, which pressures me to write shit stuff. The flip side is that if I didn’t, the whole diary would consist of about 15 entries, spaced over 12 months.
