Shortcuts for Apple Journal
Wake up naked, drinking coffee, making plans to change the world. - Unknown
For the last six years, I’ve kept a journal, mostly using Apple Notes. There were a few forays into OneNote and Evernote, but mostly Apple Notes. When Apple introduced the Journal app, I gave it a try. I liked some parts of it, but it felt simplistic. Over the years I’ve built shortcuts to make note creation and layout simpler. It’s been a mixed bag. There have been some bugs introduced in shortcuts so parts of my notes setup would randomly break. Those got fixed and it’s been working well for the last year.
With iOS 18 I noticed connections into Journal available in Shortcuts. I took a few minutes to play and rebuilt the layout I used in Notes into Journal. I think I’m going to keep it. There’s less management in that with my notes shortcut I had to manage a folder for a given month to keep the notes under control. Also, the ability to add how I’m feeling and tie that into Apple Health is pretty nice.
Apple added the ability to create an entry, create an audio entry, and search entries. I use “create an entry” to start a daily template.
I wish there was an option to edit a journal entry. It would also be nice if the Journal app was available on the Mac. I can fake it with iPhone mirroring, but it’s not the same. Still, Journal is good enough for me at this point.