A few years ago I realized my days all kind of blurred together.
So I started journaling. I eventually built a good habit of doing it once a week. Every week, I read the previous entry and then write a new entry. Around the end of the year, I go back and read the whole year.
I prefer to use a physical journal with nice paper and a decent pen.
It has been very transformative for me. I write about my experiences and I write about what I read. I also write about what changes I want to make, and reflect on how changes I wanted to make are going.
Reviewing my thoughts in this way has led me 1) to be more forgiving of myself, focusing more on growth instead of failure and 2) to make incremental progress on objectives I have.
This is wonderfully inspiring! I think journaling forcing you to write about things that matter. While you could write on what you had for breakfast every morning, often journaling draws attention to the moments that resonated with you.
I do this because I have really strong automatic negative thoughts, and always have. These can be really harmful to general flourishing, in particular by disrupting sleep and undermining self-confidence.
I don't really read these back. Rather, the writing itself is a kind of practice which aids processing of difficult emotions.
When I'm having difficult feelings, putting negative thoughts down in writing "gets them out of my head" which means I can let go of them, in turn easing the difficult feelings associated with them.
When I'm having positive feelings, putting a description of them down in writing forces me to notice them more than I would otherwise, which in turn inflates them.
Creating a balance of positive feelings to negative thoughts is one of the ways to take negative thoughts under control and manage them. What fires together wires together. Spiralling rumination is a seriously harmful thing to do to your own brain. Journalling is one way I manage this.
Totally the same for me RE negative thought processing. I find that I can really dive deep on the negativity and it doesn’t end up being all that helpful. I find that I have to be mindful that I’m not just wallowing in it but moving towards processing it. It feels like that intention is what helps me get what I need to put of the activity.
I've been journaling since 2015, one text file per day and have not missed a single day. However, quite often the daily consists of the single word "Working.", so the bar is not exactly high. I usually write about what I spent my day on, and impressions about the media I'm consuming. I also collect interesting quotes and links. The longest dailies occur when I try to analyze my direction in life, progress with personal projects, the frustrations of a day job, and such. I originally started journaling as a form of brainstorming to help writing fiction, but I since moved that content elsewhere because its format clashes with the rest of the journal.
I sometimes read old entries randomly, but rarely find it enjoyable. However, every New Year's Eve I skim through each daily from the previous year and make a list of "all the things I forgot I did this year", and the list always surprises me very pleasantly with lots of things I totally forgot about. Honestly this alone makes it worth journaling — I feel really bad about not being able to reliably recall things I did prior to 2015.
Looking at the entries from the earlier years, my writing has definitely improved a lot. I always write in English although it's not my native language. I also like to write on paper but it makes organizing the documents a pain.
To answer the question, yes it has improved my life and I don't plan on stopping journaling.
Journals ? No, it's just a mess of a bunch of unrelated things that only have date in common. I'd definitely consider doing one for travels, could be a nice thing with attached picture but for day to day things I prefer different kind.
Logging and notes? Yes. I am fond of "personal wiki" idea.
Project gets its own page with all relevant info. And links to all the other relevant things. Search makes sure I can actually find it. at worst if I wanted to look at history I could git blame so "when I wrote that" feature of journal is also filled in.
I use QOwnNotes which is absolute overkill feature-wise for me but I use it coz it keeps files in markdown which means I can edit/view it in many other things if required. Then syncthing to sync to other devices.
I'd only want for better integration with todo/calendar tools.
My ideal would be ability to write a calendar event (org-mode style) anywhere I want. And a feature to be able to express "put this event on my to-do list after date X". So I could, for example, put a maintenance thing year ahead on to-do list but without a concrete data and calendar alerts to bother me
I did use org-mode for a long time and it was great when only using editor but weak integration with anything else made me eventually leave it. Like, I love the featureset but non-emacs implementations always miss something (like spreadsheet-like table handling with formulas) and I grew tired of it.
it is not about the content or knowledge. Journaling is a tool to help you reflect and refine your thoughts. The thought process that came out of writing is more important than what gets writtern. In short, it helps you think better and more self aware.
For the first three months of the year I was religiously journaling. Pretty much every single day, with weekly and monthly reviews. Then towards the end of the quarter when it became apparent that I wasn’t going to get my project finished on time and that I was miserable I completely burnt out and stopped journaling and haven’t gone back to it yet. Journaling felt like work and it also felt like it was making my mental head space worse - it was constant, hyper focused reinforcement of negative energy and would just remind me of everything I was failing at or failing to do. I was succeeding at many things at the same time and writing those down but the journal was something of a relentless OODA loop for self improvement which meant I was constantly dissatisfied because my life was fixated on achieving the next goal rather than trying to enjoy the process. It didn’t help that the main problem I was working on was a frustrating nightmare.
I do want to start journaling again because it can lead to insights but I might have to experiment with it to find something healthier but I’m not sure what that would look like. All that being said I’m not sure my biggest insights come from journaling so who knows if it is that valuable. They probably come when I respond to questions like this on the internet or interact with people.
Thinking about it, in a way maybe it has helped. After burning out I kind of came to the realisation that I really am sick of being where I am and doing what I am doing which has lead to me selling up everything I own in order to go travelling. So maybe the journaling served its purpose of hammering home to me how dissatisfied I was with life and how I needed to make a radical change. The insight didn’t come whilst I was journaling but the journaling indirectly lead me to the insight. Maybe I’ll take it up again when I finally get out of the country in a few months.
>> I kind of came to the realisation that I really am sick of being where I am and doing what I am doing which has lead to me selling up everything I own in order to go travelling. So maybe the journaling served its purpose of hammering home to me how dissatisfied I was with life and how I needed to make a radical change.
First of all - good luck, I hope traveling will help you clear your head and find that change you are looking for. It worked in my case. Also, you reminded me of two other things journaling can help with - as you point out, it can lead to insight. Trying to formulate your thoughts clearly in writing can be very potent. And journaling can also work as a storage of good feelings - for example, I walked multiple paths of Camino de Santiago [1], each of them was a few weeks of great times... and I was journaling them. Every now and then, when I feel down after especially long and dark winter, I re-read those journals and they make me feel good. Áh, nostalgia strikes... I am gonna read them right now.
I have been writing a journal for about 6 years now. I usually write 3 entries a week spanning from a few sentences to hundreds of words.
Personally, I feel there are many benefits to it, mainly:
1. It gives me time to think, to process my thoughts, explore ideas, and handle emotions. I often learn a lot about myself, what I did well, and how I can improve.
2. It is a great way to preserve memories. Only after I started writing my journal did I realize how much I forget about my past. I've always taken photos throughout my life, but those only capture a very small part of my life. My worries, the music I listened to, the TV-series I raved about, my dreams, my thoughts on the books I've read, the deep talks with my friends, are all preserved in my journal. It is easy to remember your vacations to exotic locations, but do you remember your everyday life from years back?
3. It can be meditative. It feels great to be able to sit for up to an hour and write without any barriers. I don't have to stress about my writing style, the words I use, embarrassing stuff about myself. I truly feel I can express myself to the fullest.
I'm really happy that I decided to write my journal in Markdown. This format can be opened pretty much everywhere, even on my phone or my moms computer. Furthermore, it enables me to do some crude formatting for code, create headings, and even attach images. And since it is digital, I can search in it pretty easily.
Could you elaborate on where exactly you save or store your entries to make them universally accessible? For instance, do you use a specific application or cloud storage service?
I use Nextcloud hosted on Hetzner. It is pretty cheap and supports almost all systems I can think of. It feels a bit sluggish at times (slow sync, apps can be buggy), but I'm pretty happy with it.
Oh and the mobile app has a decent editor for text / markdown files :)
Writing simply helps me to think clearly. So journaling is just a way for me to crystalize my thoughts. And it works great for that. It also helps me see patterns I might not be aware of over time.
Mine tends to be stream of consciousness, just one level above brain-dumping on scratchpaper, until I hit on something I want to explore. Then it becomes more structured (and sometimes ends up very structured indeed in mindmaps or various project folders, etc).
It works great for me. I get ideas down in useful forms. I don't have to continually consciously think on ideas to keep them alive, reducing cognitive load. I have a tool for effective reflection. I feel like it's helped me lead a more intentional life. Simple as that.
Journaling has fundamentally changed my life in almost every measurable facet. It is the single habit I can point to that helped me accomplish things like in my personal life - stop biting fingernails, run a marathon, run the Boston marathon, be a more engaged Dad. It has also helped diagnose lots of professional patterns - good bosses, bad bosses, understanding that everyone has value and has flaws.
My approach is to read journal entries written on this date from previous years. For example, this morning, I read what I wrote on 5/16/20, 5/16/21, 5/16/22.
Readit News
So I started journaling. I eventually built a good habit of doing it once a week. Every week, I read the previous entry and then write a new entry. Around the end of the year, I go back and read the whole year.
I prefer to use a physical journal with nice paper and a decent pen.
It has been very transformative for me. I write about my experiences and I write about what I read. I also write about what changes I want to make, and reflect on how changes I wanted to make are going.
Reviewing my thoughts in this way has led me 1) to be more forgiving of myself, focusing more on growth instead of failure and 2) to make incremental progress on objectives I have.
I do this because I have really strong automatic negative thoughts, and always have. These can be really harmful to general flourishing, in particular by disrupting sleep and undermining self-confidence.
I don't really read these back. Rather, the writing itself is a kind of practice which aids processing of difficult emotions.
When I'm having difficult feelings, putting negative thoughts down in writing "gets them out of my head" which means I can let go of them, in turn easing the difficult feelings associated with them.
When I'm having positive feelings, putting a description of them down in writing forces me to notice them more than I would otherwise, which in turn inflates them.
Creating a balance of positive feelings to negative thoughts is one of the ways to take negative thoughts under control and manage them. What fires together wires together. Spiralling rumination is a seriously harmful thing to do to your own brain. Journalling is one way I manage this.
I sometimes read old entries randomly, but rarely find it enjoyable. However, every New Year's Eve I skim through each daily from the previous year and make a list of "all the things I forgot I did this year", and the list always surprises me very pleasantly with lots of things I totally forgot about. Honestly this alone makes it worth journaling — I feel really bad about not being able to reliably recall things I did prior to 2015.
Looking at the entries from the earlier years, my writing has definitely improved a lot. I always write in English although it's not my native language. I also like to write on paper but it makes organizing the documents a pain.
To answer the question, yes it has improved my life and I don't plan on stopping journaling.
Logging and notes? Yes. I am fond of "personal wiki" idea.
Project gets its own page with all relevant info. And links to all the other relevant things. Search makes sure I can actually find it. at worst if I wanted to look at history I could git blame so "when I wrote that" feature of journal is also filled in.
I use QOwnNotes which is absolute overkill feature-wise for me but I use it coz it keeps files in markdown which means I can edit/view it in many other things if required. Then syncthing to sync to other devices.
I'd only want for better integration with todo/calendar tools.
My ideal would be ability to write a calendar event (org-mode style) anywhere I want. And a feature to be able to express "put this event on my to-do list after date X". So I could, for example, put a maintenance thing year ahead on to-do list but without a concrete data and calendar alerts to bother me
I did use org-mode for a long time and it was great when only using editor but weak integration with anything else made me eventually leave it. Like, I love the featureset but non-emacs implementations always miss something (like spreadsheet-like table handling with formulas) and I grew tired of it.
For the first three months of the year I was religiously journaling. Pretty much every single day, with weekly and monthly reviews. Then towards the end of the quarter when it became apparent that I wasn’t going to get my project finished on time and that I was miserable I completely burnt out and stopped journaling and haven’t gone back to it yet. Journaling felt like work and it also felt like it was making my mental head space worse - it was constant, hyper focused reinforcement of negative energy and would just remind me of everything I was failing at or failing to do. I was succeeding at many things at the same time and writing those down but the journal was something of a relentless OODA loop for self improvement which meant I was constantly dissatisfied because my life was fixated on achieving the next goal rather than trying to enjoy the process. It didn’t help that the main problem I was working on was a frustrating nightmare.
I do want to start journaling again because it can lead to insights but I might have to experiment with it to find something healthier but I’m not sure what that would look like. All that being said I’m not sure my biggest insights come from journaling so who knows if it is that valuable. They probably come when I respond to questions like this on the internet or interact with people.
Thinking about it, in a way maybe it has helped. After burning out I kind of came to the realisation that I really am sick of being where I am and doing what I am doing which has lead to me selling up everything I own in order to go travelling. So maybe the journaling served its purpose of hammering home to me how dissatisfied I was with life and how I needed to make a radical change. The insight didn’t come whilst I was journaling but the journaling indirectly lead me to the insight. Maybe I’ll take it up again when I finally get out of the country in a few months.
First of all - good luck, I hope traveling will help you clear your head and find that change you are looking for. It worked in my case. Also, you reminded me of two other things journaling can help with - as you point out, it can lead to insight. Trying to formulate your thoughts clearly in writing can be very potent. And journaling can also work as a storage of good feelings - for example, I walked multiple paths of Camino de Santiago [1], each of them was a few weeks of great times... and I was journaling them. Every now and then, when I feel down after especially long and dark winter, I re-read those journals and they make me feel good. Áh, nostalgia strikes... I am gonna read them right now.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_de_Santiago
https://medium.com/personal-growth/travel-is-no-cure-for-the...
Personally, I feel there are many benefits to it, mainly:
1. It gives me time to think, to process my thoughts, explore ideas, and handle emotions. I often learn a lot about myself, what I did well, and how I can improve.
2. It is a great way to preserve memories. Only after I started writing my journal did I realize how much I forget about my past. I've always taken photos throughout my life, but those only capture a very small part of my life. My worries, the music I listened to, the TV-series I raved about, my dreams, my thoughts on the books I've read, the deep talks with my friends, are all preserved in my journal. It is easy to remember your vacations to exotic locations, but do you remember your everyday life from years back?
3. It can be meditative. It feels great to be able to sit for up to an hour and write without any barriers. I don't have to stress about my writing style, the words I use, embarrassing stuff about myself. I truly feel I can express myself to the fullest.
I'm really happy that I decided to write my journal in Markdown. This format can be opened pretty much everywhere, even on my phone or my moms computer. Furthermore, it enables me to do some crude formatting for code, create headings, and even attach images. And since it is digital, I can search in it pretty easily.
Oh and the mobile app has a decent editor for text / markdown files :)
Mine tends to be stream of consciousness, just one level above brain-dumping on scratchpaper, until I hit on something I want to explore. Then it becomes more structured (and sometimes ends up very structured indeed in mindmaps or various project folders, etc).
It works great for me. I get ideas down in useful forms. I don't have to continually consciously think on ideas to keep them alive, reducing cognitive load. I have a tool for effective reflection. I feel like it's helped me lead a more intentional life. Simple as that.
My approach is to read journal entries written on this date from previous years. For example, this morning, I read what I wrote on 5/16/20, 5/16/21, 5/16/22.
I wrote down my methodology here: https://mcook.fun/journaling