How Life Note makes the work of knowing yourself fun

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Dear Life Noters,

Carl Jung once wrote: "People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls."

We'll refresh the feed, do more seemingly important work, help everyone else — anything but get curious about our own thoughts.

And as we know, journaling is one of the most powerful ways to gain self-knowledge and start understanding ourselves. Within a few weeks, you build a vault you can call upon when you're having a bad day but don't know why.

But… It's very hard to keep up with journaling! It can feel unproductive at times... recording thoughts that we already replay in our heads all the time, what's the point?

That's why, with Life Note, our mission is to build something that makes journaling fun, rewarding, and easy to keep up. This past month, we shipped 10 new updates that continue to make self-knowledge a joy to savor in life.

And...here they are!

"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect." — Anaïs Nin

1) Choose how each entry is answered. You can now customize your own Wisdom Council — your main mentor, a custom mix, your Inner Wisdom, or no one at all! Some days I flip the switch to write by myself… not every journal entry needs a response.

2) New Day Journal Card. We've redesigned your daily journal card to make it feel more alive! Now, just by looking at the card, you can time-travel to that day — how you felt, who you were with, and what it was really about. The inspiration came from the traditional daily calendars people used to have at home; now you'll be creating your own!

3) Chats have roots now, too. When a mentor replies — in your journal or in chat — look for the small roots beneath their words. Tap one, and you're reading the exact passage from the real book, talk, or letter it grew from.

4) Inner Wisdom, organized. A significant upgrade to this beloved feature: the quality of responses has improved, and you can now organize your chats — name them, archive them, return to them anytime. You can even make Inner Wisdom your main mentor.

5) Highlight and edit anything. When a line in your daily insight strikes you, save it to your Wisdom Collection. And you can now edit the feelings, people, and topics, so each day is recorded the way it actually was.

6) The people in your story remembered. The people and pets you keep writing about now show up consistently in your weekly inner art. Create a profile, upload their photo, and you'll see an accurate, recognizable them in your art — week after week!

7) Give feedback on everything. Every mentor response, weekly letter, and inner portrait now takes a quick thumbs-up or thumbs-down, with a reason if you want. Each one directly helps Life Note understand you better and bring you the right mentorship.

8) Web Lock + find the right mentor. All of it stays yours: set a PIN for Life Note on web, for shared or family computers. And if you're not sure who to talk to, describe what you're going through on the Mentors page — we'll bring you three mentors who'd approach it from genuinely different angles.

9) Step inside your Inner World. This one you have to experience yourself, on the web: step inside your own 3D inner world and wander among your memory orbs in a mountain valley. It's an experimental feature — an alternative way to reflect on your life. You can literally walk down memory lane… The weather shifts with the seasons of your life. Your recurring themes become islands offshore — each with a small, wise creature who knows the memories you left there — and you can even meet your mentors in the world. Go explore!

10) …and the rest. 34 new mentors (13 remarkable women, plus Zen, Sufi, Neo-Confucian, and Jewish voices), and you can now filter mentors by gender and by recently added. For the rest of the year, we have an initiative to bring in many more brilliant women mentors.

Life Note Community News

The podcast is out! I sat down with Kai of The Daily Churn — he found Life Note during a 10-day trauma-healing retreat — for an honest hour and a half on journaling, AI, spirituality, and inner work. It's Episode 95!

Kai is creating great content on mental health and financial well-being, and I highly recommend Episode 89, where he reflects on his childhood trauma and explores complex PTSD & ADHD. The story he shared truly touched me.

If you have a story you'd like to share — anonymously if you prefer — send it to me, or share it in Discord. I may feature it in a future newsletter!

As always, attention and energy are the scarcest things we have. Thank you for spending some of yours here. Reply if anything resonates — I read everything.

Until next time : )

Namaste,

Daniel W. Chen | Founder of Life Note

Life Note 如何把「認識自己」這件正經事，變好玩

親愛的 Life Noters，

榮格（Carl Jung）曾寫道：「人們願意做任何事，無論多麼荒謬，只為了逃避面對自己的靈魂。」

我們滑手機、忙些看似重要的事、或擔憂身邊每一個人的生活，就是不肯對自己的念頭，產生點好奇心。

而我們也知道，寫日記其實是累積自我知識最有力的方式之一。只要幾個星期，你就會擁有一座屬於自己的寶庫—在心情低落卻說不出為什麼的日子，隨時可以回去翻找。

但⋯要持續寫日記，真的好難！有時候它感覺很沒有生產力—把那些我們腦中早已反覆播放的念頭寫下來，到底有什麼意義？

這也是為什麼，Life Note 的使命，就是想打造一個讓寫日記變得好玩、有回饋、也容易持續的地方。這個月，我們推出了 10 項全新更新，繼續讓「認識自己」成為生命中值得細細品味的樂趣。

那⋯一起來看看吧！

「我們寫作，是為了讓生命被再嚐一次：在當下與回望時。」 — 安娜依絲・寧

1) 選擇每篇日記由誰回應。你現在可以自訂你的智慧議會—主導師、自訂組合、內在智慧，或者誰都不要！有時候我也會切換成獨自書寫⋯⋯因為不是每一篇日記都需要回應。

2) 全新的日記卡片。我們重新設計了每日日記卡片，讓它更有生命力！現在光看卡片，你就能穿越回那一天—當時的心情、身邊的人、那天真正的主題。靈感來自從前家家戶戶都有的日曆；現在，你正在創造屬於自己的那一本！

3) 聊天也有智慧根源了。當導師回覆你—不管是在日記還是聊天裡—留意他們話語下方的小小根。點開，你讀到的就是那句話真正生長的地方：一本真實的書、一場演講、一封信的原文。

4) 我的內在智慧，更有智慧了。這個深受喜愛的功能迎來一次重大升級：回覆品質更好了，對話也能命名、封存、隨時回來。你甚至可以把內在智慧設為你的主導師。

5) 什麼都能收藏、能修改。當每日洞察裡有一句話擊中你，現在可以把它收進你的智慧收藏。你也可以編輯情緒、人物與主題，讓每一天都被準確地記下。

6) 你故事裡的人，被記住了。你常寫到的人（和毛小孩），現在能一致地出現在每週的內觀畫裡。建立生活中的人物檔案、上傳照片，你就會在畫中看見他們真實、認得出來的樣子—一週又一週！

7) 對一切給回饋。每則導師回覆、每週信、內在肖像，現在都能快速按個讚或倒讚，想說原因也可以。每一個回饋，都直接幫助 Life Note 更懂你，帶來更對的引導。

8) 網頁隱私鎖＋找到對的導師。這一切始終屬於你：網頁版可設定密碼鎖了，適合共用或家庭電腦。而若你不確定該找誰聊，在導師頁面描述你正在經歷什麼，我們會為你帶來三位角度截然不同的導師。

9) 走進你的內在世界。這一個，你得親自到網頁上體驗：走進你自己的 3D 內在世界，在山谷裡漫步於你的記憶球之間。這是一個實驗性的功能，也是反思人生的另一種方式。你可以真的走一趟記憶之路⋯⋯天氣隨著你人生的季節改變；日記裡反覆出現的主題，變成海上的一座座島嶼—每座島有一隻認得你記憶的小生物—你還能在世界裡遇見你的導師。去探索吧！

10) 還有這些—34 位新導師（13 位了不起的女性，以及禪宗、蘇菲、宋明理學與猶太傳統的聲音），現在也能依性別、依最新加入來篩選導師。今年接下來，我們會持續帶進更多傑出的女性導師。

Life Note 社群消息

Podcast 上線了！我和 The Daily Churn 的主持人 Kai—他是在一場為期 10 天的創傷療癒靜修營中發現 Life Note 的，我們聊了一個半小時，關於日記、AI、靈性與內在工作。在第 95 集。

Kai 持續在創作關於心理健康與財務健康的好內容，我特別推薦第 89 集：他回顧自己童年的創傷，聊到複雜性創傷（CPTSD）與 ADHD。他分享的故事真的觸動了我。

如果你也有想分享的故事—匿名也完全可以—歡迎直接寄給我，或分享到 Discord。未來的 newsletter，我很可能會把它放進來！

一如既往：注意力與能量，是我們最稀缺的東西。謝謝你把一部分留在這裡。有任何共鳴，歡迎回信—每一封我都會讀。

下次見 : )

Namaste,

Daniel W. Chen | Life Note 創辦人