Every night, right before I go to bed, I get an e-mail.

How did your day go? The subject line asks.

And no, it's not from my mother. The e-mail is from a service called O Life.

Some nights I respond with a lengthy recap of the situation at work,

or a funny quote from my three-year-old, or a list of all the things I'm worried about.

Other nights, it's just a quick line to remember something that happened that day.

We went to Governor's Island on the ferry. It was very hot.

The service compiles all my responses, and sometimes it sends one back to me.

Remember this? It asks.

I decided to essentially automate my diary for two reasons.

One, I was overwhelmed with guilt for not writing more consistently in my kids' baby books.

And two, after switching my calendar over from paper to smartphone,

I realized I missed those little notes I used to write to myself about who I ran into on the subway,

or just how stinky the go on his canal was when I walked home that day.

Remember what's happened in your life.

That is O Life's tagline. And I feel like it's getting harder for us to do that.

And turns out, surprise, surprise, it's not just me.

The move away from paper has been a blessing and a curse for biographers.

People are a lot more comfortable letting you empty out there,

storage, facility, or basement, or garage than they are.

You're, you know, hooking something up to their laptop.

Researching and remembering our icons, how the digital age is altering our biographies.

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