Thoughtful
2025 - Present • iOS Design & Development
Inspiration
When Apple Journal launched, it introduced a native journaling experience within Apple’s ecosystem. However, its core structure relies on a single, continuous vertical feed of entries.
While clean at first, this approach becomes harder to navigate over time. Entries blend together and revisiting specific moments after months of writing requires scrolling through an extended timeline.
The experience supports capturing thoughts quickly, but reflection—a central aspect of journaling—becomes less intuitive over time. So, Thoughtful addresses this shortcoming by organizing entries day-by-day.
Design Philosophy
Each page, feature, and interaction should reflect how we naturally remember our lives—yesterday, last week, or two years ago. Features such as Tags should not only be built with technical constraints in mind, but should also consider cognitive constraints. More on that later.
Given that Thoughtful is a mental-health focused app, its copy, design, and UX aims to be inviting, intuitive, and most importantly, non-invasive. While features and prompts should encourage the user to ponder, reflect, and write, it should not push, pressure, overwhelm, or judge.
Additionally, because Thoughtful is only available for the Apple ecosystem, all interactions, animations, and UI elements should feel native to iOS (and eventually MacOS, iPadOS, and WatchOS).
Each swipeable page in Thoughtful represents a single day, just like Apple's Fitness and Calendar app.
Entries written on the same day live together on that page, and users move through time with a horizontal swipe. This makes it easy for the user to revisit the previous days, or jump weekly by swiping on the dial toward the top of the screen.
Calendar
To make longer jumps, the calendar in the top-right provides a month-level overview where days are marked with the same checkmark indicators.
Additionally, unlike a typical calendar app, the user cannot navigate to a future date. If the user is currently viewing a page that is not today, a button appears at the bottom, allowing them to "Go to today".
Onboarding
Thoughtful's first-time experience begins with a short guided 3–4–5 breathing exercise, a quick tool I often use for myself to find grounding.
Afterward, users are gently asked how their mind has felt lately, and are provided a three-option selection.
The interaction is intentionally lightweight and non-clinical, designed to encourage awareness without requiring deep analysis.
Tagging
Tags provide lightweight organization without requiring users to build complex systems.
Most note-taking apps rely on manually typed “#tags,” forcing users to remember what they’ve already created. With no structure or limits, tags can quickly become fragmented, making it difficult to stay consistent and easy to lose track of what already exists.
In Thoughtful, tags are integrated directly into the editor toolbar, allowing users to quickly select existing tags or create new ones without manually typing “#.”
The input is automatically focused, making the flow fast and uninterrupted. The interaction is designed to be linear and unobtrusive, so it supports writing rather than distracting from it.
A limit on Tags
A limit of 10 tags is also intentionally enforced. Because working memory can only manage a small number of items at once, this constraint reduces over-categorization and decision fatigue. The result is a system that promotes clarity and intentional organization without introducing clutter.
Search & Filter
Search and filtering are designed as tools for reflection, making it easy to revisit entries connected by a shared tag, topic, or phrase.
To maintain familiarity and consistency, the same tag toolbar appears above the keyboard once the user begins searching. The entry counter in the top-right provides the total number of entries a user has, then the number of filtered results when a search is active.
Fun Little Details
My favorite part of building Thoughtful has been filling the gaps with easter eggs and self-expressions.
For example, at the end of the calendar view, Matthew 6:34 NLT, a Bible verse that frequently helps me find grounding in the present, is written.
Or, because I've been really enjoying yoga lately, I made a fun use of the Recently Deleted's empty state message to express my love for the practice.
End Goal
Thoughtful is built with the belief that journaling should scale with your life. The mission is to create a system that remains clear, calm, and useful not just for weeks, but for years. Over time, it aims to become a structured personal archive that makes reflection effortless and growth visible.
Long term, Thoughtful is designed to fully integrate within Apple’s ecosystem, expanding thoughtfully across devices while maintaining its simplicity. This includes iOS, MacOS, iPadOS, WatchOS, and perhaps even VisionOS.
The vision is not to add complexity, but to deepen utility and help users better understand their patterns, their progress, and themselves.