Cool Tools: Q10 for Journaling

This year I’ve gotten back in the habit of journaling and I love it. Journaling gets my brain working in the morning, helps me process the decisions/information/emotions that are currently on my plate and allows me to play with blog ideas in a “safe zone”.

There are tons of options out there for journaling, either in paper or digital format, but I’ve settled on plain text documents stuck in a folder on my computer. If you want to journal on a computer there’s nothing simpler and it’s safe to say that the .txt file format won’t become obsolete anytime soon.

Unfortunately, the Windows default plain text editor, Notepad, leaves a lot do be desired. After trying out many free text editors available on the web I settled on Q10. I think it’s a gem.

Utter Simplicity

When I’m journaling it’s just for me and the final product isn’t nearly as important as the process of writing. Q10 strips away all the distractions that hinder that process.

For one thing, Q10 is strictly a plain text editor, so there are no formatting options here (bold, underline, etc.). If my goal was to publish my writing this would be a problem, but for journaling it’s ideal. When I journal my primary goal is to keep typing as quickly as possible. That’s the best way to draw out ideas and not having the temptation to stop and italicize text keeps the fingers moving.

Q10 is different from many text editors in that it is a full-screen editor, meaning it takes up your entire monitor, without even the Windows taskbar showing at the bottom. There’s just a plain taskbar along the bottom with a word count in the lower left corner and a clock in the lower right, and a few other statistics in between if you choose to show them.

All the menu options are accessed via the keyboard (Ctrl+S for Save, Ctrl+Q for Quit, etc.) and these keyboard shortcuts can be seen in a pop-up by typing F1. At first this may seem more complicated than having clickable menus, but I love the lack of visual clutter. When you’re in the middle of typing, the keyboard shortcuts are faster than reaching for the mouse, anyway.

You can also customize the visual scheme (font color, background color). I’ve set it to have black text on a pale blue background that’s easy on the eyes, with the taskbar in black with gray text for minimum distraction.

Helping You Get to Work

My favorite feature in Q10 is the combination of word count and timer. When I journal in the morning, my goal is to type 1000 words in twenty minutes. When I open up a fresh text file in Q10 I simply type Ctrl+T to open the timer option, enter “20” minutes and off I go until the alarm sounds and the neon green Stop message displays in the taskbar with my final word count for the twenty minutes.

Turning journaling into a game makes it so much more enjoyable and I actually look forward to it when I wake up. I’ve only hit my goal once, but I’m getting better and it’s fun to see my progress.

The Downsides

Q10 isn’t for everyone. This is a truly minimalist program and some people would like more or different features. Some would rather not have to keep up with text files on their computer and instead use an all encompassing program, like Evernote or The Journal. Of course, some prefer the good ol’ pen and paper.

For those who really like Q10’s feature set, perhaps the two biggest downsides are that it is a Windows-only product and it appears to have been abandoned by its developer, Joaquín Bernal. Since I’m using Windows and the current version of Q10 meets all of my needs, I plan to keep using it until I eventually upgrade to an operating system that no longer supports it.