Skip to content
HomeVideosBooks
AllTopicsTrends
BlogsPodcasts
HistoryListsWatch laterLiked videosFollowing

The videos, books, blogs and podcasts Hacker News keeps recommending, all in one place.

VideosBooksBlogsPodcastsAboutPrivacySettings

Data from Hacker News, HackerTube, HackerBooks, HackerBlogs and Open Library. Credits · Not affiliated with Y Combinator.

HomeVideosBooksBlogsPodcasts
Ctrl K
    Cover of The new diary

    The new diary

    Tristine Rainer · 1978

    Biography & Memoir
    Open LibraryAmazon
    Stats for nerds
    3recommend
    5mentions
    4people
    2011–2020years
    80% recommend20% neutral

    Mentions per year

    2011201220132014201520162017201820192020

    What Hacker News says

    1. yesenadamMar 2020
      >much better off than any of my family before me

      How so? I doubt it. That sounds like a terrible life, with no enjoyment in it of any kind. A life worth living doesn't build itself! Really sounds like you are torturing yourself. Being very mean to yourself. It's easy to do - we aren't taught that you are someone in your life you have to be kind to, the most important person in fact, as it's virtually impossible to love others while being so mean to yourself. I had to learn about loving myself. Treat yourself like you would treat someone you really love.

      Imagine someone you really really love, then you forcing them to live how you are living. Doing a job they hate, no friends or family visits, not involved in anything, no joy or pleasure in life.. It would be obvious that it's a very cruel way to treat someone, amounting to torture. People don't enjoy those things, or being deprived of so many things. What things do people enjoy? Imagine a rich, fulfilling life, and work on giving that to the person you love - yourself.

      Self-help books helped me a lot with this stuff. They're the main thing that helped, I guess, apart from being directly inspired by other people and inspiring books. Everyone has their own favourites, but some that helped me - SARK's first half-dozen books, Paul Kurtz Exuberance, Carol Lloyd Creating a Life Worth Living, Joanna Field/Marion Milner's books starting with A Life of One's Own, Richard Bach books, Austin Kleon books, Zen and the Art of Making a Living, Tristine Rainer The New Diary, Ben Zander The Art of Possibility, Gracian's The Art of Wordly Wisdom. Montaigne. Plutarch. Emerson. Susan Faludi's Stiffed may help you understand yourself, your world, your work, your life better than any of these. Good luck!

      To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. – Oscar Wilde

      thread
    2. themodelplumberJan 2017
      In case it helps, not OP but here is my daily journal template:

      https://pastebin.com/djyFiZkz

      This is not on paper but I do the same thing on paper when I'm away from the computer. On my computer a cron job just pops this into a Dropbox folder as YYYY-MM-DD.md and I edit it from there.

      There are some neat journaling cues available if you read e.g. "The New Diary" by Tristine Rainer. Like writing in the third person, or just viewing a diary/journal as a place to scribble down work notes and improving on it from there.

      I probably change my own template every 1-2 months. You'll see on the "schedule" portion that the least productive part of my day is 1-3 p.m., so I encourage a lot of fun and relaxation during that time as a way of releasing anxiety and picking up task momentum.

      Most of my work in the journal is under the "other" heading, and I don't fill out every heading every day. Most entries just have a score for the day, some notes on why I chose that score, and ideas to improve it, and then a lot of ideas under "Other".

      Every Friday I do a sort of "information archaeology" thing where I go back over my paper & digital journal entries and round up reusable tips or things I've learned into a "frameworks" folder where I have separate files for things like building websites, coding, preparing for meetings, working with various types of people, possible new hobbies, etc. The recapture of these ideas has been worth quite a lot to me, as it feels like I have a better foothold next time I encounter the problem.

      thread
    3. themodelplumberApr 2016
      Hi, just saw your reply. I'm glad it helped. Other books I recommend are "The Wisdom of the Enneagram," (very good advice, though based on a different test) "8 Keys to Self Leadership" (fun exercises for INTJs, mainly Ni, Te, Ti, Se, and Fi, but also Fe and Si if you really want to round out your personality--btw Nardi himself is an INTJ) and "The New Diary" by Rainer (a good way to coax out helpful extraverted thinking in an INTJ).

      Online references I like include the Socionics wiki and the Personality Junkie website.

      http://personalityjunkie.com/the-intj/

      Hope that's helpful.

      thread
    4. da5eJul 2011
      The New Diary by Christine Rainer is another good book on exploring through writing. It has many of the same techniques. The freewriting technique not only gives you ideas, but sometimes a sense of peace about what worries you.
      thread
    5. mjklinJul 2016
      Where I'm Reading From, by Tim Parks

      The Inevitable, by Kevin Kelly

      Ideas that Changed the World, by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

      A Reader's Manifesto, by B.R. Myers

      Framed!, by Hari Singh

      Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

      Why Education is Useless, by Daniel Cottom

      The New Diary, by Tristine Rainer

      Raising a Happy, Unspoiled Child, by Burton White

      Do way, way more in WorkFlowy, by Frank Degenaar

      Unlearning the Basics, by R. Sativihari

      The Devil's Pleasure Palace, by Michael Walsh

      The Truth about Everything, by Matthew Stewart

      The Big Questions, by Steven Landsburg

      The Seven Mysteries of Life, by Guy Murchie

      The Optimistic Child, by Martin Seligman

      Systemantics, by John Gall

      The Scientists A Family Romance, by Marco Roth

      The Logic Of Failure, by Dietrich Dorner

      Organizing Creativity, by Daniel Wessel

      A Curious Mind, by Brian Grazer

      Appointment In Samarra, by John O'Hara

      thread

    Related

    Cover of A life of one's own
    2016–2024

    A life of one's own

    Marion Milner
    4 recommend · 12
    Cover of Breakfast of Champions
    2008–2025

    Breakfast of Champions

    Kurt Vonnegut
    21 recommend · 54
    Cover of Write now
    2008–2026

    Write now

    Barbara Getty
    7 recommend · 12
    Cover of The Diary of Anne Frank
    2009–2026

    The Diary of Anne Frank

    Frances Goodrich
    6 recommend · 28
    Cover of Letters to a young poet
    2014–2026

    Letters to a young poet

    Rainer Maria Rilke
    15 recommend · 29
    Cover of The diary of a young girl
    2016–2026

    The diary of a young girl

    Cherry Gilchrist
    2 recommend · 7
    Cover of On the Clock
    2019–2022

    On the Clock

    Emily Guendelsberger
    3 recommend · 5
    Cover of The now habit
    2008–2026

    The now habit

    Neil Fiore
    70 recommend · 120