The practice of diary keeping is a good one for all persons and, additionally for some of us, it is an absolute necessity. Those of us who record or intend to start recording entries in a diary, irrespective of the frequency of those entries, might need to ensure that our present or intended method of diary keeping is optimal for our needs.

We then can consider changing our method or intended method of diary keeping if we find that it does not meet our requirements.

Many people who do not keep a diary now, have been interested in keeping and attempted to keep a manual diary in the past. Many such persons have always given up the practice out of concern that the diary might fall into the wrong hands and so to their detriment.

The lives of many of those persons, over time, have become more complex with added responsibility. This has increased their need now, much more than was the case in the past, to record their thoughts, speech and actions.

The manual form of diary keeping appeals to the person who prefers to write and edit their entries by hand. The risk of ones diary falling into the wrong hands is therefore one that such persons might have to endure. Much of what has been said so far has been about manual diary keeping.

What about digital diary keeping? The digital diary offers a much smaller degree of risk of falling into the wrong hands than the manual or hand written diary. It also is not accessible by hackers if it is kept offline.

The digital diary is totally accessible (for adding entries, reading, editing etc.) using any computer, server, gadget, external drive and location that are connected to the internet. It can be shared across multiple: computers, servers, gadgets and external drives using an Ethernet connection. It can be located on any computer, server, gadget, external drive or the cloud, in any location, and can be online or offline.

It thus is a relatively safe and very convenient form of diary; and it should appeal to those who are interested in the digital world and information technology.

There are, then, three options for diary keeping based on the media used and the corresponding method of adding entries to the diary. They are, the manual diary, the digital diary and the double diary (using both manual and digital diaries). Diary keepers and prospective diary keepers can decide on their diary keeping preferences, and then choose the type of diary that meets their requirements.

By Edward Fagan