Deepstash

The Journaling Habit

Learn from old experiences
When looking back on her previous journal entries, Virginia Woolf remarked that she often found the significance to lie where she never saw it at the time. Reading your old journal entries is a bit like reading a great book for a second time. You pick up on new sentences and see the past in a different way.
The Surprising Benefits of Journaling One Sentence Every Day | James Clear
Journaling sharpens your memory
Time will change your face without you noticing, but it will also change your thoughts without you realizing it. Our beliefs shift slowly as we gain experience. Journal entries remind you of how you once thought.
The Surprising Benefits of Journaling One Sentence Every Day | James Clear
Journaling motivates you
There is something about knowing that your day will be recorded that makes you want to make at least one good choice before the sun sets.
The Surprising Benefits of Journaling One Sentence Every Day | James Clear
Proof of progress
When you have a bad day, it can be easy to forget how much progress you have made. But with a journal, it's easier to keep a sense of perspective. One glance at your previous entries and you have proof of how much you have grown over the months and years.
The Surprising Benefits of Journaling One Sentence Every Day | James Clear
How to Make Journaling Easy
Write one sentence per day. The primary advantage of journaling one sentence each day is that it makes journaling fun. It's easy to do. It's easy to feel successful. And if you feel good each time you finish journaling, then you'll keep coming back to it.
The Surprising Benefits of Journaling One Sentence Every Day | James Clear
Journaling Prompts
What happened today? (Daily journal) What am I grateful for today? (Gratitude journal) What is my most important task today? (Productivity journal) How did I sleep last night? (Sleep journal) How do I feel today? (Mood journal) Leave 31 lines underneath each prompt. One line for each day of the month. This is where you'll write your one sentence each day. Once the month is complete, you can look back on 31 beautiful journal entries per prompt.
The Surprising Benefits of Journaling One Sentence Every Day | James Clear
The most influential gift
... is a journal. Journalling initially affords you to get rid of your anger/frustration, into a book (with a pen). Journalling helps you to get your frustration out before you can direct it at anybody else.
How To Become Ridiculously Self-Aware In 20 Minutes
You’ll Live In The Moment More
When we write we focus on the details. We write about the little idiosyncrasies of an interaction with someone. And most times when journaling we write while the interaction is still FRESH in our minds. This strengthens our observation muscle . Then we start looking for little details in our next interaction.
How To Become Ridiculously Self-Aware In 20 Minutes
Journalling helps you reflect
Journaling increase self-awareness. Recording your thoughts is like stepping in wet concrete. The outline of your foot is now there forever. You can find out who you really are. You can find your weaknesses. Your opportunities. You can challenge yourself with those realizations. You can make plans to better yourself.
How To Become Ridiculously Self-Aware In 20 Minutes
How to start journaling
The biggest mistake is to journal only in reaction to something that is going on, instead of letting it be part of a system. Make writing in your personal journal part of your everyday routine.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
Benefits of a Daily Journal
When you keep a journal, you can look back on important life events to read about how you felt at the time. You may also be able to learn from these past experiences. Writing about traumatic events results in physical and psychological health benefits. Journaling focuses on understanding traumatic events and makes people see these events with an extra level of clarity.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
Set Aside Time Daily
Start your daily journal off on the right foot by scheduling your writing for a set time every day. If you find your mind is most active in the morning, wake up 15 to 20 minutes earlier and jot down your thoughts then. If you prefer to record everything after the day is over, then make it an evening activity before you go to bed.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
Use the Right Journaling Tools
There is a traditional way of journaling with a notebook and a pen or pencil. Then there’s the modern method, where you type your thoughts on a device. Choose a method that you can do consistently.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
Journaling Environment
Journaling is about you and your thoughts. The best way to record those thoughts is to minimize distractions. You do need a quiet part of the room that’s away from other people. In this day and age, separating yourself from technology is also important while you write in your journal.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
Protect Your Privacy
You may consciously or sub-consciously avoid writing about certain topics for fear of what others could think. This fear may hold you back from writing about stuff that matters in your journal. The easiest way to protect your journal is to keep your journal with you at all times. Tuck it away in your bag.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
Date Each Entry
When it comes to your journal entries, if it’s important enough to record, then it’s important enough to date. Having a date above each entry can help you understand your thought process as it relates to important life events.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
3 Types of Journals
The Freedom Journal is goal-oriented, as it’s designed to help you achieve one goal within 100 days. The Moleskin Journal is whatever you want it to be, as you write whatever is on your mind. This type of journal is versatile and excellent for sorting through your thoughts. The Five-Minute Journal focuses on gratitude. Take five minutes every day to write about the good things in your life. This simple task leads to a more positive mindset and increased happiness.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
Be Honest with Yourself
Record how you really feel, not how you think you should feel. Share the first thought that comes to mind . The first thing you think about is typically what’s most important to you at that moment.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
Focus on Simplicity
Journaling is not professional writing. Just get your honest thoughts down on paper as they come to you. The quality and depth of your writing aren’t important in journaling.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
Avoid Censoring Yourself
When you know your journal is for your eyes only, you have the freedom to write whatever you want without worrying about anyone else’s thoughts or judgments. As you write, don’t worry about your grammar or spelling—no matter how good or bad they are. If you can understand what you wrote in each entry, then the grammar and spelling are fine.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
Write by Hand
The slowness of writing by hand is actually better for connecting with your thoughts as you write them. Since it takes longer to write everything, you end up thinking deeper thoughts and really considering how you feel about what you’re writing.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
Sticking with the Journaling Habit
When you start your journaling habit, make that your main priority. Commit to it for at least 30 days, and, to get the best results, tie it to another pre-existing habit of yours. For example, if you start your day with a cup of coffee, you could decide to journal every morning while you drink your coffee.
How to Build a Daily Personal Journaling Habit
Benefits of journalling
Journaling can help with personal growth and development . By regularly recording your thoughts, you will gain insight into your behaviors and moods. Journaling can be used for problem-solving and stress reduction . It’s been proven to improve mental and physical health.
10 Journaling Tips to Help You Heal, Grow and Thrive
An effective tool
Journalling can be used to sort through turbulent emotions and to discover hidden lessons from your experience. Art journaling: using mixed media can help you express yourself in refreshing and unusual ways. Journals can help you reflect. It’s a method of allowing the light of understanding and compassion to shine on your past.
10 Journaling Tips to Help You Heal, Grow and Thrive
Tips to get started
Start writing about where you are in your life at this moment. Describe your living situation, your work, and your relationships. Don’t edit your thoughts or feelings and don’t correct your grammar. Don’t censor your thoughts. If there’s something you are struggling with or an event that’s disturbing you, write about it in the third person.
10 Journaling Tips to Help You Heal, Grow and Thrive
Types of journalling
Gratitude journal . Maintain a daily list of things you appreciate, including uplifting quotes. Journal of self-portraits . You can take pictures, draw colors or shapes or collage images. Nature diary to connect with the natural world. Record the things you notice about the sky, the weather, and the seasons. A log of successes . Begin by writing the big ones you remember then regularly jot down small successes that occur during the week. A favorite song log . Write about the moods they evoke and explore that time and space of your life.
10 Journaling Tips to Help You Heal, Grow and Thrive
Do it Before You Get Out of Bed
Try grabbing your notebook as soon as your alarm goes off and writing for a few minutes before your feet even hit the ground. This way you know it will get done, and the activity first thing in the morning may help wake your brain up.
8 Ways to Stop Thinking About Journaling and Actually Start Journaling
Use an App
While many people recommend journaling in a physical notebook to give your brain a break from screens, if you’re having a hard time keeping up that practice, you can try using an app that you can whip out when you have an extra moment in the day.
8 Ways to Stop Thinking About Journaling and Actually Start Journaling
Don’t Use Full Sentences
Feel free to have your journal as disjointed as you want. Leo Babatua of ZenHabits says he only writes his journal in bullet points; just three to six per day. By making it this easy, he says it’s much more attainable for him to keep it up.
8 Ways to Stop Thinking About Journaling and Actually Start Journaling
Write on a Calendar
Instead of getting a notebook to journal in, get a (large) desk calendar or date book, and then just challenge yourself to write a sentence or two every day, on that day. This small amount of writing a day feels attainable. By writing it on a calendar, it’s very obvious when you’ve missed a day.
8 Ways to Stop Thinking About Journaling and Actually Start Journaling
Make a Template
Sometimes the hardest part of journaling is staring at a blank page and not knowing what to write about. Create a template that you follow every day. Maybe that’s writing three things you’re grateful for every day, or asking yourself a question each day, like “What can I do to make tomorrow better than today?” If it’s helpful, you can create printable journaling “worksheets” that lay out the activities you’ve promised yourself to do.
8 Ways to Stop Thinking About Journaling and Actually Start Journaling
Find Fun Prompts
Find a bunch of interesting prompts that you’re excited to mull on and write about, and then spend each day journaling on a different one. Search for “journaling prompts” and start collecting your favorites. Compile them all in a Word document or on the first page of your journal and work your way down the list.
8 Ways to Stop Thinking About Journaling and Actually Start Journaling