Do you journal or ever interested in journaling?
by Shaomeng ZhangDo you journal or ever interested in journaling? I launched with this ugly old landing page about 6 months ago on PH: https://support.thezenjournal.com/
Over the last month, polished the app and also refreshed the landing page https://thezenjournal.com/ using @ajlkn's amazing Carrd.
Also tried to roughly follow Julian's landing page guide: https://www.julian.com/guide/growth/landing-pages
Would appreciate your feedback, thoughts, hot takes! 🙏
#landing-page-feedback
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I journal from time to time. And I also suggest journaling to my coaching clients from time to time. But I really like the tactile quality of journaling with pen and paper.
As far as I understand, among the benefits of journaling app will be the fact that you don't need to carry the notebooks around and ability to store data in cloud? Or is there anything else I'm missing?
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I like being able to back up my journal in multiple places so that I know I'll never lose it. It's also nice to be able to search for something if you want to read about it.
Most importantly for me though is that I can type much longer, faster, and more comfortably than writing. Sounds like you might be willing to sacrifice that for the experience of pen and paper though.
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I like to write more than type and the speed of both for me is almost the same. So for me, that won't be a decisive factor.
But it great that it work well for you!
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Nothing can beat the fill of pen and paper for sure, I wish I can replicate that, this is my attempt. I think it's not so much as the tactile part but more the lack of distractions (unlike on your smartphone) when faced with the paper. You are left with one/two decision: what to journal and how to journal. ZenJournal is pretty simple and also tries to focus on the core of journaling experience.
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I hope that some eInk device can create experience close to writing with a pen. I've been considering reMarkable for some time, but I think it's quite pricey at the moment.
As for the tactile part, it helps you to activate different areas in your brain. But probably typing can have a similar effect.
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Thanks for the link to the landing page guide!
I agree with the other comments. It's tough to journal on a phone.
On your landing page, it's difficult to read text on a background of the landscape and not a solid color. It doesn't feel very zen-like with all of the text. I would expect something to be very clean with a lot of white space and only the essential words.
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Thanks for the feedback! I'll play with the whitespace and separation of background/screenshots/copy for sure.
Yeah, it's tough to journal on the phone, that's why it needs to be absolutely easy too...😉
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Yes. I journal all the time! I use a pen and paper when possible and my 2nd choice is a desktop computer (with a Kenisis Advantage 2 keyboard).
I never journal on a phone.
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👍What apps/systems do you use for desktop journaling? Have you ever tried phone journaling? What do you not like about it? I had journaled on paper notebooks many years ago and really liked it but I hardly have a chunk of quiet time to just reflect like when I was in college...
I like that I can put my random thoughts into my phone even when I'm on a bus or on a walk, that's why I created this app.-
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I don't like using a phone for journaling because the screen is small, the input is slow, it's harder on the wrists to use. I actually do write in a notebook on public transit sometimes if it's a long trip, but I really don't like short interruptive sessions. I find they hurt more than they help.
On my desktop computer, 99% of the journaling I've done was with WordPress. I have also used Open Office for larger projects and Apple Pages for making short PDF ebooks.
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The screen is smaller, the onscreen keyboard is indeed slower than a physical keyboard. But I have typed more words into Slack and my other chatting apps more than anywhere else. And most of these are done on my phone, so my plan is to optimize this mobile experience and make it simpler and faster. 🙂
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Awesome idea. I think the page is a bit busy... lots and lots of text, particularly in the screenshots which I wasn't sure if I was supposed to read or not. An improvement (looking at your "organize everything with # hashtags" section as an example) might be to keep that heading there but remove all the bullet points, and change the screenshot to an animated screenshot that shows the hashtags feature in action. Just an idea. Also the text is a bit tough to read when it overlaps the part of the background with the stars.
I have been journaling for 5 years using Google Docs. I love the idea of being able to categorize or search for certain things like your hashtag feature. I can't imagine having typed the 500,000 words in my journal on anything but a keyboard though. Do you plan to create a desktop / browser version?
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Thanks for the feedback on the text, it's hard, especially with the busy background. I'd love to use gifs, or make these illustrations so the text from screenshots doesn't distract you from the copy. Or maybe I'll just add a frame to separate it because it's easiest... Someone also suggested using a light background instead, which I will play with too. I'll keep tweaking this. 🙏
Appreciate your sharing of your journaling habits. That's a lot of words! I know it's hard to type on the phone that's why I made this one super fast and easy almost like chatting. Currently do not have any plans for browser because this does not sync to cloud yet, but maybe in the future when there is enough demand.
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