Cogitorama, a tool to raise your self-awareness

May 3, 2014| Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli| in category Personal development, Uncategorized 16 comments

When I was a student, I was too lazy to write entire journal entries but I still wanted to develop my self awareness.

In my journal, I would write just a few keywords that best described what was on my mind at the time instead of writing a full blown entry.

That’s how the concept of Cogitorama was born.

The name Cogitorama comes from the latin “cogito” (thought) and the greek “-orama” (see).

I guess you could see it a bit like the Twitter of journaling, you keep the essential of journaling.

Let me give you an example, my cogitorama for today would be:

+australia +weekplan -bangkok -tired -hot

(As you can see, I am not a big fan of Bangkok…)

I prefix the positive keywords with a +, and the negative ones with a –.

The Cogitorama extension for Week Plan

In WeekPlan, you can enable an extension to be able to use the Cogitorama concept, it looks like that:

Cogitorama

Positive keywords are in green, negative in red.

The keywords that are used more regularly get shown bigger. Also, there is a global positivity score for the day to show you how you are feeling over time.

I hope some of you will find it useful!

Previous Next

EtienneJ

Pretty cool. Might try it out.
Amy Lu

Holy cow, I’ve been doing something like this on my phone for the past year! It’ll be great to have the same thing right in my week plan. Definitely trying it out!
- Aymeric
  
  Ah ah cool! Let me know what you think!
Taryn Morvillo

I am in love with this idea – I am a compulsive journaler, and what starts out as a brief note often ends up overtaking the original task, project, email or other actionable item for which the note was meant to support or add important information to – making a lot of my task lists or project plans look like the rough first draft for an unbearable, unreadable, self-indulgent and histrionic memoir of the inner workings of an anxious, neurotic and compulsive person who NEVER GOT ANYTHING DONE – but knew EXACTLY why, and how, and what this meant in past and future contexts . . . So I think you may have helped me out a bit. or more than a bit… How much would a bit be, in this context? Because if I’m using it as a half-truthful self deprecating comment, then “a bit” is an intentional understatement. However, if I am . . . Just Kidding. Okay I’m not. That’s really what I do. But I promise I will stop it now. THANK YOU!
- Aymeric
  
  Ah ah, thanks! I am glad you find it useful 🙂
- dswartz44
  
  WOW, now that posting was a great “case in point” for the need for brevity! And I thought I was the only one who talked/wrote like that!…………….;)
  - Aymeric
    
    🙂
Dan

If you make a mistake in your Cogitorama entry, how can that be corrected?
- Aymeric
  
  Yes if you pass your mouse over the entry, you should see a Pen icon appear.
Rami Sedhom

Is it possible to put keywords as multiple words, like: -(tired body) +(explored more courses) … ?!
- Aymeric
  
  Not yet but the workaround is to use dash in between words: -tired-body
ruthenium66

I love it…but it isn’t synced to where I am (in the US) so what I kept trying to see my entry for Monday night but it was hiding under tomorrow’s date.
- Aymeric
  
  Thanks, someone raised a new issue with the journal that can be related to that. Will fix within 24 hours.
Ana Dennison

Is there any reason why the Cogitorama extension would stop making oft-used keywords bigger? When I first started using it, it was totally fine, but recently everything is appearing as if it’s the first time I’ve written it.
- Aymeric
  
  It could be a bug. We are going to look at it thanks!
  - Ana Dennison
    
    Great! Thanks! It’s such a great concept, so I really want it to work fully~