Steve Cicco has been keeping a journal since July 4, 2014, and recently crossed a journaling milestone of over 3,000 consecutive days.
Steve lives in Flower Mound, Texas (a suburb of Dallas), and works as an IT manager. We sat down with Steve to explore what it took to reach a 3000-day journaling streak and any lessons learned along the way.
How long have you been keeping a journal?
I’ve been keeping a journal since July 4th, 2014. My wife has always kept a hand-written journal. Being in IT, I thought it would be useful to have that information in an electronic format with the ability to quickly search entries given the number of times we would flip though her notebooks to recall something we did in the past
What makes journaling important to you?
There is the mindfulness aspect that helps you reflect on what’s important in life. Equally important however is its practicality. It has answered so many “what did we do when…” questions for me and my wife!
What do you usually journal about?
My journal generally begins with the mundane: what I dreamt about, what I ate, my tasks for the day and my work life. In between those thoughts, I write my impressions. What are the hidden meanings of those dreams? How do I go about planning for my day and how did it go? What questions do I still have about my life in and outside of work? My relationship with my family and friends and how it’s going.
What is your journaling habit or routine like?
“Journaling gives you such an appreciation for the good things in your life while also helping you improve on the not-so-good things in your life.”
While my streak is currently at 3,064 days, I typically do not journal every single day. A reason I started journaling is when I realized I was forgetting mundane things from the previous day. So part of the mental exercise I get from journaling is having to recall events from 2, 3, or 4 days ago and will do those entries all at once.
Vacations are the exception to this. My wife and I just got back from a cabin getaway and I made sure I did my entries at the end of each day so I wouldn’t leave anything out.
What tips or advice would you give others who want to build a journaling habit/streak?
In the Day One app, I have push notifications journaling reminders enabled and will not dismiss them until I have caught up. It’s my constant reminder to ensure my streak stays alive!
What have you learned from keeping a journal for 3000 days?
That I have led and am leading a very fortunate life. I think this could go in the “tips or advice” question to let people know that journaling gives you such an appreciation for the good things in your life while also helping you improve on the not-so-good things in your life.
What is your favorite thing about the Day One app?
Wow—it would be hard to pick just one. The search function is great because it will search the text in your entries, as well as locations, so I can type “Pittsburgh” and instantly see any entries where I typed “Pittsburgh,” as well as any entries that were made while visiting family in Pittsburgh.
The tags are helpful too. I use them to separately track business and pleasure travel.
The map view feature is nice, given the travel I’ve done both domestically and internationally.
Lastly, the On This Day feature is like my daily time machine. Along with the map feature, it’s also fun to see dots all over the globe for a given day. Being able to relive every Christmas or birthday is probably my favorite thing though.
How has Day One helped you journal consistently for 3000 days?
By making things easy. The layout, cloud backup and sync, adding pictures and tags, etc. are all pretty intuitive. Also being able to use the cloud backup and sync to do entries on either my iPhone or iPad helps too.
What else you would like to share about your journaling streak?
Journaling is such a rewarding habit and I would highly encourage everyone to at least give it a try.
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The Day One journaling app makes it easy to build and maintain a daily journaling habit. Daily journaling reminders, daily writing prompts, and journal streaks are designed to help keep you motivated and consistently journaling.
