I used to journal first thing in the morning. I gained a lot from the process and thoroughly enjoyed it. But my routine has since changed—the first thing I do in the morning now is read a book. I’ve been thinking about how to incorporate some form of journaling into my day, and this week I started testing something new: voice recordings.

When I take my daily walk, I’ve started recording what I’m thinking about and what lessons, if any, I learned that day. I didn’t have any expectations when I started doing this, but I’ve been surprised by how much I enjoy the process—specifically, being able to listen to my lessons as I walk. It’s also a daily feedback loop that allows me to listen to and critique how I communicate my thoughts.

It's low tech, which I like: just a phone, Voice Memos app, and EarPods. The one thing I do miss is being able to read my thoughts in a written journal format. I’m sure I can turn these recordings into clean docs with AI. I’ve chatted with a buddy who’s done this, and he gave me some useful tips and ideas on how to write the prompt to achieve this.

Looking forward to using AI to help with this. If it all works as I envision, I may have created my new digital journal.