Building a smart journaling app in 2 days
side quest no. 3: unlocking backend storage and intelligence with Supabase + GPT-4o integrations
For the past few months, I’ve been using Daily Bean to log my days and jot down quick reflections. At first, I liked it—but over time, I started noticing some limitations:
It tracked attributes I didn’t particularly care about (chores, meals, self-care... although maybe I should track those? 🤔)
The emotion options were overwhelming (what exactly is pit-a-pat?)
There was no web app—typing on a phone keyboard is tedious
The free version required watching ads just to save an entry 😭
Instead of continuing to put up with these limitations, I thought: Why not build my own journaling app, designed exactly the way I want it?
Building my own solution
I started by sketching rough ideas in Excalidraw—nothing fancy, just enough to map out the core features and layout. This helped me think through what I wanted before jumping into development with Lovable.
From there, I iterated:
Designed the layout: Tweaking and polishing each component piece by piece.
Connected to Supabase: Setting up database schemas for journal entries and user accounts.
Integrated GPT-4o: For smarter insights and quick access to past journaling entries.
Refined the UI: Spending extra care—and a good number of prompts—to make sure everything looked pixel perfect (or close to it).
One of my favorite and most delightful moments was building an image preview feature for the home page. I was worried it’d be tricky to pull off, but Lovable made it surprisingly smooth!
try it out :)
👉 Another Day Another Entry Journaling App (Look Ma, no ads!)
I'm excited to continue making improvements to the app. A few upcoming ideas I’ve been thinking about:
✅ Better insights & richer mood tracking
✅ AI prompt starters to jumpstart meaningful conversations
✅ Data importing & integrations from other potential data sources (like Daily Bean)
✅ Even more UX/UI polish (such as adding better validations and consistent styling)
✅ Automatic tag extraction from journal entries to reduce the manual tagging
reflections
Building this wasn’t just fun—it was freeing. For the first time, I wasn’t held back by technical limitations or the frustration of not knowing how to code. Lovable became my creative playground, letting me explore ideas in real time and sparking moments of curiosity: “What if I tried this?” or “Could I make this happen?”
As a PM, I've struggled with insecurity around not feeling technical enough. Over the years, I've accumulated countless ideas that never saw the light of day simply because I lacked the coding skills to build them. There's a frustration and vulnerability that comes with having a clear vision but feeling restricted by your own abilities. At times, I've thought, maybe it's just time I learn to code... but I could never find the momentum to push through that daunting process.
This experience shifted that mindset completely. I realized I don't need to be fluent in code—I just need tools that let me express my ideas clearly and visually, in a language that feels natural to me. Suddenly I was building, iterating rapidly, and seeing my vision come alive. For the first time, I truly felt empowered to create something real, all on my own.
And this feels like just the beginning. I'm genuinely excited now—excited to dust off those dormant ideas and finally watch them come to life :)