APP REVIEW: Gratitude Journal Your Positive Thoughts by Happy Tapper

After my morning exercise, meditation and such, I like to utilize Happy Tapper's Gratitude! app to capture my positive thoughts for the day!  It's a slick and simple app that I first found while digging for "positivity" in the app store.  Soon as I saw it, I snagged it and fell in love with the app, Happy Tapper and Carla Kay White's friendly, positive demeanor!

As I've mentioned before, Gratitude Journal is the first app I saw by Happy Tapper, and I went looking for an iPhone Gratitude Journal for the same reason I wanted a mobile Vision Board.  I had tried countless times to do journaling , whether gratitude or just in general, and ALWAYS failed miserably because I would have to carry the darned thing everywhere at all times to make it useful.  I checked out the few options that were available at the time (a lot more are now) and I've since checked out a lot of the newer ones.  Gratitude Journal by Happy Tapper continues to be the very best in my opinion.  

As the first of their apps, it pioneered their aesthetic of simple, sleek, single purpose apps.  It does one thing, does it well, and with their usual fun and happy look and feel.  Once you set it up, it's pretty self explanatory.  Here's how I use it throughout my day:

I tap on the icon, enter the pin number (because I password protect mine, which is optional), and then I'm on the list of my past days entries.  I tap the "+" sign, I get a fresh page, and I start entering my items that I am grateful for that day.  My day always starts with the same thing "My Morning Routine!".  That serves a dual purpose for me.  I can see at a glance how many days I have been successfully completing all my morning items, AND I'm EXTREMELY grateful that I am doing so, so of course it works for the idea of Gratitude as well.

Next I tap on the little photograph at the bottom, and select a photo from my library that I find inspirational.  I take a lot of pics with my phone, so this is not usually a problem.  If I don't have anything that moves me that day, I leave it as is and it just uses the little Gratitude! icon guy.    Lastly, I tap 5 stars, and I'm done!  You can rate your day 1-5 stars.  Mine are almost always 5 stars because of my outlook on life, but that's fairly recent.  I used to rate the day differently than I do now and I found the star ratings to be not so important.  Since reading Savor, I look at it as a GRATITUDE journal, and the only things in it are things I am grateful for, so the star rating has lost it's meaning for me personally.  Every day is a GREAT day!

That's it.  Gratitude! is another very simple, wonderfully designed app by Happy Tapper that should be a benchmark for app designers.  If more developers would strive for this type of slick feel and smooth operation of a simple task, the app store would be better for it!

Bottom line:  Like the Vision Board, it may be something you are really in to, or it may seem strange to you.  But having used it regularly for a very long time, I can tell you that at the very least you'll find it a great way to keep you focused on the things that matter in life, and take your attention away from the things that don't!  What I like about Gratitude Journal - as opposed to any "regular" journal - is that you are not writing anything negative.  If you do this first thing in the morning, and review it before bed, it will start and end your day with positive thoughts.  AND it's been created by Happy Tapper in such a way that makes the whole process fun, simple and effortless.  What more could you ask?

Go get it!
MondoSamu