# Diary Studies

> Run diary studies that capture experiences over time — habits, journeys, and intermittent behaviors interviews cannot reach. Use when researching longitudinal experience, episodic events, or behaviors that are hard to observe live.

- Skill: `itsual/diary-studies` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add itsual/diary-studies`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/itsual/diary-studies/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Research & Search
- Author: itsual (https://skillmd.com/u/itsual)
- Updated: 2026-09-21
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/itsual/diary-studies

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# Diary Studies

## Overview

Diary studies ask participants to record experiences as they happen over days or weeks. They surface patterns across time with less reliance on memory reconstruction.

## When to Use

- Longitudinal product or service experience
- Health, finance, or habit-related behaviors
- Intermittent events (travel, support incidents, purchases)
- Journey research across many touchpoints

## Core Practices

- Define prompts that are specific but not leading
- Choose medium (app, chat, voice, paper) for participant fit
- Set cadence and duration to match the behavior cycle
- Send lightweight reminders without nagging bias
- Plan mid-study check-ins to maintain quality
- Analyze both individual trajectories and cross-participant themes

## Principles

- Participant burden kills completion — keep entries short
- Compliance ≠ honesty; design for ease and motivation
- Incentives should not distort what gets reported
- Time-stamped entries beat end-of-week summaries when possible

## Verification

- [ ] Prompts map to research questions
- [ ] Completion and quality rates are monitored
- [ ] Analysis preserves temporal patterns