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Diary Writing
Spring 1988
written 5/25 - 6/30

My manner of keeping diaries has evolved since the first one I began in 1974. The first one was primarily composed of sweeping summaries, interpretations of rather long periods of then recent history, or simply notes of my feelings at certain points. It wasn't until the last 25% of that first book that I began to write more frequently, about shorter periods such as weeks. The former approach covered through the end of 1976, and then I began more frequent writing in January 1977. Jan - Feb 15 '77. This latter technique continued in the second book, written through the third quarter of 1977. + May 1 (has 13-page review of mid Feb thru Apr) - Sep 30

These early writings include not only events, but also analysis and interpretation, and lists of appropriate future actions to take. Hence, they are quite complete in themselves, and relate why I made certain decisions then, and furthermore allowed comparison of my behavior and feelings against a later time, say a year or two later. Using those diaries during those years to track decisions and changes, I could sense the direction and theme of my life.

These writings do not seem explicitly useful to me now, except perhaps as entertainment. I have refined the habits of my life since the days of those early writings, so much so that the writings of those periods seem immature.

Probably the central change that has occurred in my diary writing is that they now contain much less summary and interpretation, and much more detail. Current diaries are more of a "log," and analysis of current events is written in separate essays, and stored by topic in folders or ring binders so that any topic can expand indefinitely. As noted above, the first book was primarily summaries, and the second book was more frequent but I began to mix daily or weekly summaries with my feelings and analysis, and then draw conclusions, and write my decisions therein.

The third book, covering late 1977 to 1980, is again entirely summary and interpretation. I began writing it in October 1978. Interestingly, because the pages are different colors, I began to separate the writings into sections to create structure. As the introduction shows, I was aware of this effort as time accounting and budgeting. "I tend to see this book as an accounting of my use of time and a tool for planning the future use of time, just as my small accounting book has these qualities for money." And sensing that there was a lot of trivia in the parts written frequently of the prior diaries, I intended to write about significant events only. "Just like my money system now emphasizes the major and spends little time with day-to-day expenses,