At the end of the year, I enjoy looking back and reviewing memorable moments from that year. It gives me happiness, a sense of accomplishment and fulfilment. Unfortunately, I’ve not been doing a good job of tracking these events. I don’t take many photos or write reviews since I don’t know where to post them. I’m not very comfortable with storing all my data with Google or other big tech hence I plan to host / build something simple myself.

I’m looking for a journaling tool that,

  • Is fast and easy to use and add journal entries. I imagine the interface to be similar to Twitter or Mastodon.
  • Should allow entries to have a title and a description.
  • Should allow adding locations, links and other media to journal entries.
  • Should allow the addition of tags to journal entries. These tags can be used to filter out journal entries.
  • Should allow entries to be marked as public or private.
  • Should have support for CalDAV VJOURNAL entries.
  • Should support RSS.

The expectation is that with some disciplined tagging, I should be able to create a subcategory for each type of entry that I want to track. Once the number of tags grows, we will need to build an interface to manage them.

Here’s what I hope to be able to achieve with this tool:

  • Look at all the restaurants I’ve visited in Bhubaneswar, Odisha in a particular year.
  • Look at all the places I travelled to in Bhubaneswar, Odisha.
  • Identify all the restaurants that I’ve rated as excellent.
  • Track all the places I visit on a trip and my thoughts.
  • Track all the memorable events I’ve had in the past year.

Tech

In terms of technology, I want to keep deployments simple. I’ll be using Laravel with the latest PHP version and SQLite. On the front end, I want to try out Svelte. The interface should be responsive and accessible via a mobile phone.

Reviewing what I’ve noted down, it feels like I’m trying to build a highly searchable and opinionated micro-blogging platform with a focus on journaling. Hopefully, I’ll see this project through.