There are only two things that matter in the consumer software business: making an app that (1.) does precisely what’s needed (no more, no less) and (2.) makes accomplishing the primary task so easy it seems like no thought is even required. My week with Day One seems to confirm both of these have been easily accomplished for a task I’ve always wanted to do but dreaded: writing my personal online journal.

I don’t come to this assessment lightly: I’ve tried again and again to start and continue writing my innermost thoughts in a fashion that was easy, felt useful, and was easily manipulable in the past. Sure, a simple text document does the trick but there’s something almost “too loose-leaf” about journaling in a plain old document. First, the discipline of marking up the date information will wear over time. It’s funny, but that extra 30 seconds of typing virtually the same information at the beginning of an entry just becomes a dreaded task. I used to blame my own thoughts for this before I realized we pretty much all think like this.

Secondly, just having enough structure to the entries to easily review them over time is a highly appealing part of the process. We always want to look back on particular periods from time to time, and there’s nothing inherently “attractive” about searching non-visually through a plain text document.

Finally, and likely most importantly, adding an entry anytime should be no more than one click away and all that time and date stuff I mentioned should just get added. If the computer already knows the time then why should I have to enter it?

Click, type, done. That’s the most important part. The rest should be simple, and it is. The calendar interface is a beautiful, logical way to view past entries and they can all be easily exported to text – including time and date stamp. Grab it at the App Store today and give it a short. There’s a reason it’s won so many awards already.