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Diary
Diary writing, as an introspection, has been a common practice since the 10th century and it continues to evolve as more than just a personal entry through paper but also through digital writing. From eventful personal records, funny memories, and juicy secrets, down to daily experiences, a diary can house an overflow of entries that you can always look back to as a document for leisure reading.
Diary Definition & Meaning
A diary is any type of book or booklet, whether digital or print, in that users write about any event or anything that happened throughout the day.
Diaries are personal entries where you describe what happened, how you felt, and other details about specific periods in your life.
What Is a Diary?
A diary is any form of notebook used to record eventful aspects and beautiful memories of your life. Diaries are personal and you are free to utilize them however you like such as incorporating pictures, drawings, scrapbook motifs, quotes, and other notes. No matter what your purpose is for preparing a diary, the common practice is that it is usually kept privately; accessing it often comes with a lock or password.
10 Types of Diary
Education Diary
If you want your diary to focus more on your journey in school, design an education diary. Education diaries are where you log what interesting activities you encountered at school such as what you felt while making a study guide, meeting your classmates, joining a club, etc. Besides students, teachers may keep their own education diary to document their teaching experience.
Wellbeing Diary
Everyone has a unique voyage toward their fitness and health goals, and you can always write about your experience with a wellbeing diary. Not only will you document what food you take or what exercises you go through to achieve your fitness goals but also how you were doing throughout the whole experience. Some people also include their gym plans and health-driven strategies in their diaries for inspiration.
Medical Diary
Practice notetaking concerning your medical health by constructing a personal medical diary. Medical diaries could be where you jot down what drugs you took, what side effects you experienced, how long you recovered, how many medical transactions you made, etc. You may even embellish the diary with a medical seal, hospital logo, or any other design.
Travel Diary
A pocket diary that you can always carry with you while traveling is certainly a fun experience. Certain travels even feel too fast and diaries help you remember everything that occurred. Hence, prepare a travel diary where you can describe your funny encounters on the road, which places you visited, and other daily travel experiences.
Kids Diary
Dealing with children as a parent, babysitter, or sibling has ups and downs but you’ll know that kids will eventually grow at some point. Hence, document your experience with such kids through a personal kids diary as you might miss those memories when they grow. You can insert child-friendly aesthetics into this type of diary to match the theme such as baby animated stickers, doodle art, cartoon drawings, and colorful clipart.
Work Diary
Besides the repetitive jobs to go through, there are many moments in the workplace that are worth remembering. You can write about your work experience in a riveting work diary perhaps. No matter what your job title is, you can always make memories when you hang out with your coworkers, book appointments, get a promotion, and acknowledge your achievements. Or, you transform your work diary into a professional planner too.
Gym Diary
Don’t forget to highlight all sessions you spent at the gym in a well-made gym diary. You can use the diary as a reminder of the many workout sessions you had, the overall duration, and your overall progress. Also, you can keep it personal by writing how happy you are spending time with your coach or what nice memories you had there with other workout goers.
Project Diary
From task lists, and project plans, to project schedules, there are many types of documents you can fit into one project diary. Of course, your thoughts and daily experiences towards a project would still be there but at least a project diary is more functional with other types of project documents inserted there. Whether you opt to use the project diary for personal or professional writing, it will pay off.
Journal Diary
Are you looking for a hybrid between a diary and a journal? Use a journal diary instead. This type of document is a smart option if you want to both write your day-to-day experience (like a diary) and go for an in-depth analysis and brainstorm (like a journal) at the same time.
Digital Diary
A digital diary can mean two things. First, you have a blank diary that you can write online or on a digital platform rather than writing on a piece of paper. Or, your diary is focused on writing about your experience in the digital world, your digital business, or any other digital-driven aspect.
Diary Uses, Purpose, Importance
You might be asking why there is a need to keep a diary and write on it 24/7 when most people nowadays take photos and videos for memorabilia. Rest assured, there are plenty of interesting reasons for just how valuable diaries are, such as the following:
Freedom of Expression
Even with incomplete sentences or grammatically incorrect contents, a diary can be anyone’s best friend where you can write your thoughts without being judged. Consider a diary as your leeway to express whatever comes into your mind, especially what happened or what you felt during a certain period of time. You can be creative by designing the diary with a leather binder cover, bedazzled cover page, handmade sticker, cartoon aesthetic layout, etc.
Storytelling behind the Lens of a Camera
Indeed, using videos and images to preserve memories is easy to capture moments graphically but when it comes to diary writing, creative writing through storytelling is at play. You do more than just rewatch what was present from a memory but actually delve deeper such as rereading your feelings, thoughts, and observations from a special moment. Like writing any storybook, set your own narrative into a diary.
Written Memories for Safekeeping
Everything written inside a diary is your own business, meaning it is kept private and won’t have to be shared with anybody. That said, it is a safe space to be honest with your thoughts or share secrets you don’t want to forget. Whether you have a print or electronic version of a diary, just make sure you know where to keep the diary safe so others won’t be able to read it.
Writing Skills Development
Besides the freedom of expression, you can always write a diary to practice and improve your skills in writing. Some aspects you can develop are your vocabulary, grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and clarity. Practice certainly makes perfect that constantly writing in your diary would boost your writing skills at some point.
A Journey to Look Back to
What is special about a diary is how you can always look back on it after many years from now. You might realize you have made your own novel about your whole life from your childhood years, student life, corporate years, and basically the ups and downs of your lifetime. And there may be some thoughts you might forget when you get older but at least they are documented in a diary so you would surely remember them as you read back.
What’s in a Diary? Parts?
Date
Diaries are known to mention the date when every entry was written. The dates are important so you can easily track diary entries according to specific dates and you could also remember when certain entries in the diary were jotted down.
Salutation
A salutation like in writing a letter is optional but it is standard for most writers to start an entry with “Dear diary.” However, you can address your diary however you like such as “Dear friend.”
Diary Entry
The very meat of your diary would be the set of thoughts, feelings, or ideas written there and each piece of writing is called a diary entry. What content you want to incorporate into a diary depends wholly on you.
Point of View
The point of view or POV clarifies if you are writing in the first, second, or third person. So whether you write “I, myself, we, them, us,” or any other example, think of your POV very carefully so your sentences won’t be difficult to follow.
Tense
Most people write the verbs in the past tense in a diary because they write about what happened. However, you may write in the present tense if you are writing as the event is going on or in the future tense if you are writing about your experience while anticipating a future event.
Tone
Expect diaries to be in a conversational or informal tone because it isn’t exactly formal writing piece. Since you are free to decide how you write a diary, you can still opt for a professional tone as long as it fits your narrative and way of writing.
How to Design a Diary
1. Choose your favorite Diary Size
2. Set the purpose of making your diary
3. Personalize a Diary Template
4. Insert the elements of a standard diary
5. Save everything you made and start writing
Diary vs. Journal
A diary is a document where you have the freedom to record certain events that occurred and talk about your feelings, thoughts, etc.
Journals are documents where you can write about your thoughts, analyze them, and explore those ideas in a more in-depth approach; journals are more formal compared to diaries.
What’s the Difference between a Diary, Biography, and Notebook?
A diary is a writing document where you can log your daily experiences as a writer.
A biography refers to a published detailed story of someone’s life.
A notebook is a piece of document used for taking down notes or any other purpose.
Diary Sizes
What size of a diary you want to use can be tricky because you might want a small, pocket-sized diary that you can carry anywhere you go but also want a large, book-sized diary with more space to write instead. Nonetheless, there are plenty of possible diary sizes to consider, and be sure to choose your preferred dimensions wisely.
|
Format |
Inches |
Centimeters |
| A4 Diary Size | 8.3” × 11.7” | 21 × 29.7 cm |
| A5 Diary Size | 5.8” × 8.3” | 14.85 × 21 cm |
| A6 Diary Size | 4.1” × 5.8” | 10.5 × 14.85 cm |
Diary Ideas & Examples
Diaries have a rich history from how royal Japanese women kept introspective records under their pillows in the 10th century, how the West got hooked to writing diaries in the Rennaisance period, and down to today’s modern, multimedia diaries. Diary writing eventually evolved and sparked a number of diary ideas, such as:
- Food Diary Ideas and Examples
- Personal Diary Ideas and Examples
- Weight Loss Food Diary Ideas and Examples
- Minimal Nature Diary Ideas and Examples
- Health And Fitness Diary Ideas and Examples
- Site Diary Ideas and Examples
- Exercise Diary Ideas and Examples
- Pet Diary Ideas and Examples
- Fashion Diary Video Ideas and Examples
- Lined Diary Page Ideas and Examples
FAQs
What should be in a diary?
The important parts of a diary are the date, salutation, diary entry, point of view, tense, and tone.
What is the pattern of a diary?
The standard format is to input the date and time of every diary entry at the upper left corner of a page.
What makes a good diary?
You can tell you have a good diary when writing on it feels good rather than an errand to finish, and you, yourself can tell what makes a good diary since it is up to personal taste.
What is Doodle Diary?
Doodle Diary is a type of art journal where you can add interactive doodles into diary writing.
What are the cons of a diary?
Diaries may be redundant as it can’t be helped that there are certain days when repetitive events happen and they might not be as safe as you think if you haven’t considered a password or lock to prevent others from reading them.
What is a daily diary method?
The daily diary methodology refers to the entire assessment system that researchers can gauge, investigate, or monitor specific subjects on a daily basis.
Is a weekly or daily diary better?
It is normally up to preference but most would agree that weekly diaries are better so you have more time to plan or write more and you can avoid writing repetitive day-to-day events.
What are the key features of a diary entry?
These are the tone, tense, POV, salutation, date, and other necessary diary entry details.
What is the first part of a diary?
It is called the introduction entry.
Why do we need a school diary?
It is used to record sources of data that students, teachers, and parents could learn from.
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