socialrosiechen: OhLife helps you maintain a personal diary over e-mail

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

OhLife helps you maintain a personal diary over e-mail

Dear diary,

Today I found OhLife. It's an interesting service for maintaining a private journal. It aims to do the same thing Penzu does, but offers a different take on things to help people journal more consistently: Writing is done over email.

Once you sign up, you get a nightly email, asking how did your day go. You simply reply and jot down whatever it is you have to say about the day. OhLife receives your email and files today's entry into your private archive.

This is not very different from setting up a daily reminder and using a Gmail label as a journal. But what's nice about OhLife is that it includes a random "blast from the past" with every email you receive. Meaning, you get prompted to write what's new today, but you also see a random entry from some time in the past, and so are instantly reminded of the value of maintaining a diary. After all, today's routine becomes tomorrow's memory.

I think this is a brilliant way to maintain a personal diary. It's simple, it's free, and you don't even have to log on to the site to write.

The site itself is a study in simplicity. Beautiful design, bold text, and an overall welcoming vibe. If I ever want to maintain a journal, this will certainly be one candidate.