10 ways you can journal too...
You may well have tried to journal at some point. Perhaps you had a diary as a child or teen (with a lock?). Even if you haven’t, you can’t have avoided seeing or hearing about journaling and how great it is.
However, many people either start with good intentions (nice new pad, best pen) but after a while it peters out and then stops completely. The pad gets left on a shelf or repurposed as a to-do book. For many others they think about journaling and never even start.
Some of the most brilliant people have kept detailed journals: Maya Angelou, Frida Kahlo, Marie Curie, Charles Darwin and Thomas Edison. Look them up - they’re all fascinating and some beautiful. Hundreds of gurus swear by journaling - and the thing is they’re right to...
Journaling promotes better recall, it increases your mental clarity and your ability to prioritise effectively. It also enables the brain to encode information better so you’re more likely to remember it. One of the biggest benefits for me is it allows me to get things out of my head so I can quiet the inner voice. As Tim Ferriss puts it: “I’m just caging my monkey mind on paper so I can get on with my fucking day.”
So if journaling is so good why do so many people resist trying or give up? I often suggest journaling to coaching clients and when there’s resistance it’s almost always one of two things:
“I don’t have time”**
The reality is that most of us do have time, we just choose to use it on different things. Consider this: the 80:20 rule states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes - this has been proved repeatedly in fields as diverse as sports to economics. What’s that got to do with journaling you say? Well my experience shows that the space for reflection and prioritisation makes it much easier to work out how to direct your energy to the 20% rather than wasting it on the 80% that won’t deliver much benefit.
“I just can’t write like that”
This is the fundamental misconception that most people hold: that journaling is ONE THING - pages of long-hand narrative (preferably in neat handwriting!). It’s not! The reality is that journaling can be whatever you want it to be. To give you some food for thought I’ve listed ten of my favourite techniques.
Free-writing - just get a cup of tea or coffee, open your notepad and write whatever comes to mind.
Morning pages from The Artist’s Way - First thing in the morning write three pages and don't stop until they’re full. The author Julia Cameron says, “Once we get those muddy, maddening, confusing thoughts [nebulous worries, jitters, and preoccupations] on the page, we face our day with clearer eyes.”
Lists - Fill your pages with lists of things you’d like to do or achieve. For example:
Ways to look after yourself
People you’d like to reach out to
Books you’d like to read
Things that were great last year
Things to do this week.
4: Art-journaling - Sketch, draw what you see, doodle, create a comic strip, decorate letters - you can also mix these up. This has the additional benefit that it uses a different part of your brain that is associated with greater creativity so your ideas may come to you more freely.
5: The unsent letter - Write a letter to someone else or a future or past you.
6: Dialogue - Write a script between yourself and someone else. This is good for situations you might be anxious or worried about. Test out the conversation you want to have.
7: Dream journaling - Write out your dreams. For this you’ll need a pad next to your bed.
8: Bullet-journaling - For those of you who love organisation this is a very structured methodology with its own pad! You could also read blogs and set up your own system.
9: Essence - Write one, two or three words that summarise the essence of where you are; how you’re feeling about the morning, what you'll take from today etc.
10: Gratitude - Writing a list of the one, two or more things you're grateful for today. Most famously Oprah kept hers for a decade before her life got so busy she stopped. @Oprah, if you’re reading this, see ** above!
I hope you are inspired by this and you go and root out a pad and pen and start or resume your own journal. Let me know how it goes for you in the comments!
One additional tip that I sometimes use is to write a few metrics at the bottom of the page each day. e.g. How is my energy level today? (1-10) How well did I sleep? (1-10) Have I done exercise or meditated... Then you can look back over time and see correlations.
Postscript: Pen or Keyboard?
You might wonder whether you really need a notepad. Couldn’t you just use your laptop? Or even better one of the many apps that will geo-code your every note and sync across devices. I don’t deny that they certainly have their appeal and advantages but I’d really suggest you start with pen and paper even if you do then take a snap on your phone or type up key points. Here’s why:
Writing by hand helps you to learn
Visual learners can work better when they can doodle around the words
You’re much less likely to get a notification on your notepad that will distract you!
The pace of writing allows you to slow down your thoughts which can have a meditative quality.