When I look back on my childhood, it is often a blur. But when friends post a picture of my school or college days, it is remarkable how it starts a chain of recollections. It is as if everything was there in my memory, lying buried somewhere and suddenly they are there for me to relive and relish again.

I don’t really need a whole video to remember what happened in the past. I only need a second, a trigger to jog my memory for a walk down memory lane and I must thank 1 Second Everyday, a new age digital memory application for this. This app helps you capture one second of video footage every day that you can put together as a video clip.

Once you have downloaded the app from the App Store or Play Store, open it. See what the pro version has to offer and decide if you want it or not. It costs around Rs 350 a month and is worth it if you want to keep a digital diary. The user interface presents itself as a calendar of dates in large boxes. You allow access to your video library and camera. Then magically, the dates get filled up with videos you have taken. If you don’t like them this way, you can always revert. Tap the camera icon at the bottom to capture a clip or you can set the app to open straight to the camera in settings. Once you start capturing your clips, the thumbnails will appear in the calendar windows.

You can even choose a date in the past and add video clips from your camera roll to it. You can add an extra second of the footage as well. The memories of a forest picnic can come alive with just a second of the video of the long drive to get there. You can move your finger across the slider to capture just the most interesting moment you want. It can be people, selfies or food, anything that will make a good memory.

Not just one-second videos, you can create projects too. For people with a new baby, you may want to capture the moments when your baby does everything for the first time; fleeting moments that come and go in the blink of an eye. If you are a grandparent, you may want each moment you spend with your grandchild to be a significant memory for you.

The added charm of this app is that as you add a new snippet, a journal entry page opens. You can either write a synopsis of your memory or maintain a regular journal. Lower down the page, there a button that says “Inspire me”. When you click on that, prompts such as “What are the five things you think about on your bucket list” or “Who are the people you interacted with today” or “What is your current favourite book to read and why” help to get you started on journaling.

You can rediscover the forgotten resolutions of your life. Remember when you set that weight loss target. iPhone live photos are amazing as your one-second videos, especially if you have a pet dog or cat in your life. You don’t have to be perfect. You can record that silly moment of your life, the unwashed moment, the straight-from-bed moment and laugh about it later. Mash all these one-second memories into a video of your life, your goals, your dreams of travelling and your hobbies.

This digital diary can help you emotionally too. It makes you look for and be aware of the small yet important moments in each day. We live in a busy world; it is difficult to slow down, to notice things. There is a need to practise mindfulness; to become aware of our thoughts, feelings, to experience our surroundings with all our senses — taste, sound, sight, smell, touch. This app can help us to do all that if we allow it to.

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