Four Reasons Why Men Should Keep a Journal and How

Jerry Dugan
Sep 1, 2018 · 6 min read

Originally published on August 25, 2018 on beyondtherut.com

Journal for Your Life

Many of the men I come across scoff or cringe at the idea of keeping a journal. Often the idea of journal writing brings images of someone laying on a flowery comforter jotting down the words, “Dear Diary,” or having to write out ideas with perfect grammar in a voice that sounds like someone time traveled back to the 1800’s or further. Kevin Costner from “Dances With Wolves” often comes to mind for me and many of my earlier journals from the 1990’s were written as if I were Lt. Dunbar sitting in a wheat field contemplating life.

If you still think that you’re too tough to write in a journal, consider this. General Patton kept a journal. If you haven’t heard of him, watch the movie “Patton”. This was the man who went to combat wearing a pearl-handled six-shooter during World War II. One of my favorite quotes from Patton was “An army without profanity couldn’t fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag.” The Axis Powers feared him so much that he was sometimes more effective as a distraction than actually being on the battlefield. You don’t get much tougher than that. Other noteworthy men who kept a journal include the following: Thomas Jefferson, George Lucas, Thomas Edison, and another U.S. General George C. Marshall! (from The Art of Manliness podcast)

The truth is that journal writing does not have to be anything difficult. The grammar does not need to be perfect. You do not need to be worried about preparing entries that are publish-ready. Here are four reasons why men should keep a daily habit of writing in a journal and how to go about it.

Four Reasons Why

  1. A Journal Acts as Your External Brain

I’m not going to take a gander at how many thoughts per day our brains process. Some say conservatively 12,000 a day and others send a meme across social media claiming 70,000 a day. How the heck do you measure that anyway? I have no idea.

What I can say is that the world demands our attention just about every moment of every day. In just the process of getting out of bed in the morning to go into my morning routine, I know I am battling thoughts on whether or not I will work out, do I want coffee this morning, what is for lunch today, what do I need to do at work? That’s all while rolling out of bed to turn off my alarm!

Throughout the workday I’m bombarded by emails asking for information. That requires thinking through where to find that information and producing a response. Social media brings multiple conversations and different trains of thought. Commercials and advertising tell me I need to buy their stuff. My kids tell me I need to buy them stuff!

That great idea I had at 5 a.m. is long gone by the time the day is done and I’m able to revisit it. All the details that would have made that idea work, gone. Why the idea was a good idea in the first place, gone. Has this happened to you?

Writing in a journal every day, and even keeping a pocketbook of some kind, provides us with a place to jot down our most important, inspiring, world-changing ah-ha moments for later retrieval. Whether you review that entry later that day, next week, or next year, the ideas and details can be recalled more easily. It’s like having a brain, or recording system, outside of your zombie-cuisine appetizer that sits on top of your neck.

2. A Journal Helps You Achieve Your Goals

“To measure is to know. If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” Lord Kelvin, Sir William Thomson

Journals help us see where we have been and also give us a place to write out where we are going. Writing for the present state of things whether it is measuring how we feel about a situation, the number of miles we have run, or the number of inches measured on our waistline gives us a picture of the progress we are making…or not making.

Brandon and I have a friend named Dave who keeps a handwritten journal, a separate book for each year. During his quiet time each morning, Dave takes out a journal from a previous year and reads that day’s journal entry. It gives him insight on where he was that day in history. On some days, he is surprised to see what progress he made, and how life changed because of something he wrote about years ago. Other times, he finds he is still struggling with the same issue or obstacle years later. Identifying those moments of insanity where he does nothing differently and expected different results gives him an opportunity to apply some future-focus on what he will do differently for the next day, week, month or year.

In episode 144 of Beyond the Rut, we discussed how we have used Evernote to do something similar to what Dave does. Here is an image what of what that looks like for my own Evernote journal since that episode inspired me to return to that process.

3. A Journal Helps You Gain Clarity and Focus

Whether it is a situation at work that is driving you mad, a rough patch in life, or articulating goals, keeping a daily journal helps you gain clarity and focus on your thoughts.

My preference is to write in my journal every morning for 5 to 15 minutes on three things that I am grateful for. It helps me create the positive mindset and focus I desire to have throughout the rest of the day.

I have also used my journal to clarify goals as far out as five years from now and what it would take this week to move one step closer to them. I keep those goals in Evernote as well in a separate folder, however my daily journal entries give me insight over the course of time to show me how I am doing.

There have even been times when writing in my journal about a work situation led me to a real solution I could implement. Journal writing can help you gain clarity as you express your own thoughts and even contemplate other perspectives. I lost count how many times I realized a hole in my own thought process simply by writing out what I was thinking about a situation at that time.

Kary Oberbrunner often states that clarity comes with action. Well, the action of writing every day in your journal can bring that clarity! From that clarity, you can prioritize your life.

4. A Journal Allows You to Leave a Trace

Your thoughts written down become a testament you leave behind for your children, grandchildren, and other people. While your journals may not garner the sales of a President’s memoirs or The Diary of Anne Frank, you can share your experiences with future generations.

You don’t have to be on your deathbed like in Tuesdays with Morrie or The Last Lecture, but you can start writing today, every day, and have something that will speak to your children after you are gone…or at least when they are old enough to understand where you were coming from all these years.

How to Start a Daily Habit of Writing in a Journal

The important two things you need to do for a daily habit of writing in a journal is to decide what you want to write in, then stick to a time when you will write in that platform.

I use Evernote right now with a Notebook titled “Journal”, and in a few weeks I will probably switch to a hand-written notebook then back again. That’s just me.

The trickier part is to make it as easy as possible for you to write every day. Shawn Achor’s book The Happiness Advantage describes the “20-second Rule” where if something takes more than 20 seconds to accomplish we often choose to do something else instead. Where do you need to place your journal platform of choice so that it is within reach and takes less than 20 seconds to get started? Set that up every day, or every night.

Since I use Evernote for my journal entries, I have my iPad with keyboard placed somewhere it is ready to go the moment I’m at that part of my morning routine. Give it a try.

After that, just do it! Give it a go, and stick with it. If you are traveling for work, plan so that your journal comes with you.

Jerry Dugan

Written by

Co-host on @BeyondTheRut. Husband, father, #Blogger, #podcaster, @TEDx speaker, @GoodMenProject http://beyondtherut.com

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