I mentioned that I’d been using the new Journal.app on the Mac for a while and from the beta cycle of macOS Tahoe. That’s changed (again!).
Ultimately, the app felt like it was getting in the way of writing my thoughts down. It was also geared to a certain type of performative journaling that doesn’t sit right with me. That type of journaling, with scrapbook properties, places, and photos, etc., is all well and good if it works for you. And who am I to judge? It just doesn’t work for me. In fact, it’s quite off-putting for me. I’m more of the start-with-blank-page and vomit-straight-from-the-brain type of journaliser. So I went back to plain markdown files and set up a couple of text shortcuts to automate things like the date and time.
I’m back here on Ulysses, and it is tweaked just they way I like it to help me with my writing, not against it.
You don’t need to pay for a fancy app that is little more than a glorified filing structure, or use a built-in app that is essentially an entrapment tool. Having your text as plain text files gives you the flexibility to move as often as you like between applications and environments that work for you.