Do you keep a diary?

I have just burned 12 years of my diaries which I kept for ‘interest’! Reading through them brought back so many unhappy memories that I decided to clear my cupboard and my soul. Watching them all burn was quite a release and now I feel ready to move on.

My father always kept a diary from a young child ... he died age 94 yrs. He worked in London during WW2 so perhaps someone might be interested in day to day life. There is an organisation that accepts old diaries and you can put limits on who can access same.
I kept a diary until the day I moved out of home, strange to suddenly stop. Now I rely on kitchen fridge calendar to keep note of events and at end of year, I can usually fill out a couple of pages in hardback notebook of things of interest that year. I keep that notebook and also the calendar pages are stashed somewhere. I also have a filofax that I love to keep details of birthdays, dental/optician, addresses and other various notes from year to year. For each member of family I have a small notebook with medical details.

I keep a diary when travelling or away on holiday.

I have done so since I was 18.

Never kept a diary wouldn't have wanted any one to find it but kept a few personal letter's until recently when I stood, in tears , watching them reduced to ashes amongst some garden waste I was disposing of.

If you are wondering whether to get rid of your old diaries, you might consider sending them to the Great Diary Project. This is a sort of national archive and accepts transcripts, copies and engagement diaries. I have many decades' worth of diaries and don't want them to be destroyed after I've gone. The website is: thegreatdiaryproject.co.uk
Chronicles of everyday events might seem dull to us but could be a rich harvest to future historians.

vintage1950 thanks. I will definitely take a look at that.

I kept diaries when I was a teenager and my first husband found them and read them. Well the end result was he was so jealous that he ripped them to shreds and binned the lot! I have never kept a diary since but I wish I had after I got divorced from him. They would have made interesting reading. Fortunately I do have a good memory for date, especially anniversaries and birthday.

I have an appointments/events diary. At the end of each year, when I'm replacing, I flick through and record any specific dates or events in a log book and then dispose of the defunct diary. Often say, if anyone grabs my bag, keep the cash but please give me my diary. Totally scuppered without it on a day to day basis.

Thanks for that reference Vintagegirl1950, it is the same one I was talking about. ... too lazy to look it up! Bishopsgate Institute in London.

I also keep a separate 'diary' for garden ... it has 5 yr for each page. Nice to look back over and check when something was planted or when first in flower.

I like to have a diary to carry in my handbag, and I use it purely for bring stuff relating to my diabetes (blood pressure readings etc) these days. As a younger person, I used to write in a diary all the time, and when alone or worried (I'm twice widowed) I did find that writing my thoughts down helped to sort them out, and worry less. It was a way of getting things "out of my head" by putting them on to paper. It is useful if you don't have someone close, in whom you can confide. When working, my diary was essential for appointments. These days, everything is written on to a wall calendar, kept in the hall, by the telephone table (and yes, there is still a telephone on it, even though hubby and I have personal mobile phones).

I’ve always kept a diary and couldn’t manage without it ! 5 GC to look after at various times, weekends away at my 2 sons places, appointments for 90 year old Mum, shows and nights out with friends etc I’d be totally lost without it and don’t even like the on line calendar either !

Ok Grammaretto, you win. I will let you know when I get my Damehood for services tomundane musings.?

I don't keep a daily diary but over a period of a few years I wrote down conversations with my mother as she was gaslighting me and I had trouble with doubting my own memory and perception x

I have kept a diary since I was 16 which was 1963 and keep them in shoe boxes for each decade at the bottom of the wardrobe.. Just a few lines on each day but handy to look up events and holidays etc. Its also fascinating to compare early days with my babies and children compared to how my daughter and DIL behaves with theirs Very different! I also love to see what I was doing this time last year so keep last 3 years to hand.

There is good research evidence that writing even a couple of lines a day help stave off depression and anxiety. I have kept a diary before in difficult circumstances, and it did help. However, I started a nightly journal since commencement of chemo in Sept 2017. Initially, it was to record medications and symptoms, but I added brief details of food, exercise, weather, significant news and a few lines about daily events. Since I finished treatment, I have kept up my nightly writings and, as the medical aspect has shrunk, I have increased the daily jottings. I use the Day One app which works across my devices, and to which you can easily add photos etc. I would say that it is immensely useful. It helps to keep one objective and records the context in which one writes.

I have been keeping a 5 word a day diary since the beginning of the year. It's working well - eg Sudden Visual Dust Revelation (on the day I had a cataract op!)

Do I keep a diary? I'm on my 3rd five-year diary and have over 30 filled A5 spiral notebooks (journals). I feel much better for writing things down. Not sure if I want them read after I pass on, but I can't bring myself to throw all that hard work away!

I tend to keep file notes of the important stuff; if I have to phone tax office for example, I date and time my notes, record who I spoke to, what main points were raised and the outcome. I then file that in the relevant folder. Appointments are in my personal diary, on my phone with a reminder alert set and on the house calendar.

I started keeping a diary before I was 16 but gave up a few years later. Resumed again, probably in my early 20s, gave up, but have been keeping one every day for probably about 40 years plus. Not sure where they all are. Still write one up every night. I buy an A4 page a day and it lasts me for about 5 years. I started a new one in Jan 2019 so tonight I shall write up today on 14 February 2019 but changing the day to Friday and the year to 2020. So every night I can look back and see what I was doing on 14 Feb last year. Was interesting when I got to the end of the one I'd bought in 2013 and that lasted until end of 2018. I could see what I'd been doing on that day for the last 5 years. Always written with a fountain pen.

At the back is a list of the books I've read with the date I finished them. When I finished the 2013-2018 diary I photocopied the books page and pasted it into the new diary.

Also - the diaries came from W H Smith. The 2013 cost £12.99 - and so did the 2019 diary.

I record each day’s musings in A5 hardback notebooks, so might write two pages or two lines. I couldn’t be constrained by a page a day or a five year diary. Each book lasts between six months and a year.
Does anyone else remember Arietty’s diary and giant pencil in The Borrowers? Most days she wrote, “Mother cross”.

Since the mid 80s I’ve kept a regular diary; for the last 15 years or so it’s been a five year diary. I write in it every night when I go to bed and look back at what I was doing in other years. I enjoy reading funny things that family and friends have said and done,for example, but some events are heart breaking to recall.
My diaries are useful for checking when things happened too. DD1 and I were reminiscing about a spa day we spent together. She thought it was 3 years ago but was actually 5. It’s so easy to lose track.

My Dh and I have joint online diary for appointments but I do not write down my musings.

My dad used to write down places on holiday, where they ate and what they ate. He also wrote what he spent each year and what on. I have these diaries from 72 years of marriage.

My dad wrote a diary which was more like a journa. It was in a hardback book. His writing was minute and almost in code. He underlined initials of people he met. He met many people. He kept it from the age of 23 until he died 18 years later. All the years were condensed into about 6 books. Now it has been transcribed by my DB it is fascinating. to me His university years, friends and girlfriends, meeting my mother, introducing her to his parents, the war years, job, family, travel. I wish I had done something similar.

I don’t keep a diary. I try to remember all appointments and birthdays and have only ever been caught out once. I really do it to keep my memory ticking over lol.

My family think I am mad and maybe they are right

Kiwigramz you must be very young. My memory is deteriorating rapidly. My DC send us a calendar each year which has all the birthdays plotted (and photos of the DGC on each month) so all I have to do is remember to look at it. We have a very large family - at least that's my excuse.