I bought Day One the day the app was launched. I've maintained a private journal consistently for almost three years and "Josh's Archive" continues to swell with new types of content and experiences.

Soon, I'll be able to publish those experiences online for the public. Paul Mayne, Day One's founder, leaked a nice sneak-peak for the new feature:

Spotted Steve Job's yacht in the harbor at St. Thomas. https://t.co/Z423fWnT0tJanuary 15, 2014

Clicking on the link in the tweet will show you Day One's Publish layout. Simple. Modern. Concise.

But, of all characteristics, Public is what stands out. I had never considered a private journal with a public aspect before Paul's tweet. Since that tweet, I've ventured into my journal to find potential entries that could become public, but few (if any) have the necessary polish for the world to see. Chris Gonzalez feels the same way; the private nature of a journal leads to raw and unpolished ideas — ideas which, having just rolled out of bed, are not ready to walk out the front door for work.

This doesn't mean private journals can't be public. It just means that the journal is evolving.

Paul found ways to evolve the journal into an automation device. Day One automates so much of the entering process — current weather, current location, current physical state (i.e. running, walking, sitting) and even your current music selection — that a simple piece of text outlining your thoughts rounds out an already fine tuned entry. This is a re-thinking of the journalling process. Day One seems so natural now, so personal, even though a few short years ago it was hard to find a digital journal at all.

Journals are supposed to reflect the real person. Journals are thoughts and ideas that are incomplete. They are raw, pure, and brimming with potential. So, with a Publish feature, why wouldn't it be normal to show off the real you? Social networks have this facade about them that makes them fake; makeup is always an inch thick, clothes are ironed just right and your great aunt has been photoshopped out of the picture. A journal, by definition, has none of this. That's why journals fit everyone perfectly.

Public will soon become a natural portion of a private journal. There will always be something that can't be said or something that can't be seen. That's life these days. And so be it. Not everyone needs to know everything.

But for the pieces that you want people to know, why not show the most pure form of you? The simplicity of snapping a photo as you stand underneath the Eiffel Tower, adding a few short thoughts (longer than 140 characters) alongside your meta data and hitting "Publish" seems obvious now. Sure, Instagram offers some support for this type of logging, but the difference is the personality and depth of a journal entry.

Who, what, where, when, why and how: Those are the questions I try to answer in my daily journal entries so future Josh can understand what the heck I was going through. With Publish, Day One will allow everyone else to see those answers.

And realistically, it was probably always meant to be that way. We just didn't know it until now.</p