Earlier today, Darrenkeith and I were chatting about this #30DayBlogChallenge and the benefits thereof. He mentioned that he doesn’t really see it as a challenge, but more of an exercise to sharpen/better his writing skills. I totally get that as a legit way of looking at it. He also mentioned that he’s more accepting the fact that he’s writing for himself, more than hoping to do so for other eyes to read and comment on.
His mention of “writing for oneself” led me to make the comment that what that is, is journaling. Journaling is something I’ve read a lot about regarding all the aspects of it, especially those that are beneficial. It’s something that I actually started in 2017 in that very journal you see in the photo above. What I quickly learned is that it takes discipline to form a journaling habit, pretty much like any other habit, for that matter. I would start, then stop for awhile, only to pick up doing it again, which resulted in large gaps in time between entries. This year I started again and have been a lot more diligent, though still not daily.
I’ve read about the common ways of journaling – things like giving thanks for five things in your life, writing about goals, etc. Some say it’s not quite like a diary, where you aimlessly do a brain dump of whatever is on your mind, others say it’s ok. I tend to do a mix of all of that because it gives a larger picture, a snapshot in time, or timeframe of what my mental thoughts, trends may be. That’s useful for me because, over time, it does allow me to gauge what I’ve been going through and even why (yes I periodically go back and read past entries one a large block of time). It allows to see how serious I am about reaching goals by looking at the current results/state of being regarding progress towards achievement, so I’d say I’m getting some benefit out of this regular “exercise”.
What seems to help solidify the habit is to journal early in the morning before the day really kicks into gear, as my mind is pretty clear and it’s one way of starting the day out. I want to create another habit of reading the entries before going to bed as well, to see what kind of effects that may produce,
As you see, I’m old school – tactile pen and paper journaling versus electronic. Like listening to music via physical mediums like vinyl, cassette, CD, minidisc, etc (anything outside of relying on an internet or cellular connection to do so), provides a different and preferred experience for me.
Well, that’s it for now. As always, thanks for there read.
Oceans of rhythm…
Fresh
I’m a big fan of journaling. I’ve been journaling off and on sense I was high school. I have an stacks of old journals in the attack. I use my journal for a number of things. I use it to collect my thoughts. I use it to work through issues. I use it to document my day. I use it to work out my goals and to clarify my thinking. Sometimes I use to rant. Up until 2003, I always kept a paper journal. Then, I switch to electronic journaling. I’ve used various journaling apps over the years, but in 2011 I discovered the DayOne app and having been using it ever since. I have 2, 991 entires in my DayOne journal. I like using an electronic journal because I can tag my entries which makes it easy to cross-reference my thoughts on any given topic. I also like the automatic metadata that gets captured with each entry like the exact time, the location, weather, and if I’m listening to music while writing my journal entry, it automatically logs the track i was listening to at time of writing. And best of all my jounral is backed up in the cloud so i don’t have to worry about physically losing my journal and I can write across all of my devices – phone, macbook, ipad, desktop or indeed any computer because i can login through a web browser if i don’t have access to the app. I do miss the tactile feel of pen and paper, plus i’m a huge doodler and many of my old physical journals have sketches and drawings in them. That’s a negative, but on the plus side, I can add pictures to my DayOne entries, and I can record audio notes if I don’t feel like writing.
Nice to hear! I used Day One for a very very short time and heard nothing but good things about it. Your approach to journaling is very much like mine (as you’ve read in the post), but I’ve yet to add doodles and drawings 🙂 I like the idea of using as a brain dump and, as many things, storage in the cloud is very convenient and with the proper app, writing from any number of devices and having them sync across them is great. The flexibility resulting from app features is a plus for sure. Thanks for the comment.
I have tried journaling and in the end it because a “start/stop” thang for me. The journals I have started I find myself never going back and reading them. This is so cool you take the time and handwrite your journal and go back and reflect your past achievements, your progress.