A Short and Simple Guide to Journaling
Journaling is a great hobby to improve your mental health and your overall writing too.
What is Journaling?
Journaling is the most simplistic form of writing. You can call it a method to convert your thoughts into writing.
Basically, you will be writing down your thoughts, problems, goals, or plans on a paper/digital notebook.
Benefits of Journaling
- Journaling has been proved to improve your mental health
- Writing about yourself can give your more self-awareness
- Journaling helps you organize your life (by writing goals and plans)
- Journaling can preserve your memories. You can literally travel back in time by just reading any old entry.
- Journaling improves your writing
Methods of Journaling
There are two methods of journaling:
- Paper
Nothing beats writing on paper. If you like going old-schools, get a pen and a notebook.
Try writing with your favorite pen. Moreover, there are many journal-specific notebooks available that you can buy online.
2. Digital
If you are good with typing, then the digital method is best for you. Moreover, a digital notebook is a safer option because it is difficult to hide a physical notebook from your family or roommates.
There are many note-taking apps that can be used for digital journaling.
My personal favorites are:
This is a free service with all the text formatting options available. Plus, you can also upload images and PDFs.
You can read my full review of the Zoho Notebook here.
If you want to go completely private, this service is for you. Because Standard Notes offer an end-to-end encrypted for free. However, you don’t get text formatting options in the free version(just a simple text editor). But it offers a better organization of your entries by assigning tags.
>> Both of these services have mobile and desktop apps.
What to Write in A Journal?
It depends upon what’s your purpose of writing. Are you writing for improving your mental health, for planning your future goals, for documenting your life, or for creating a writing routine?
Basically, you can write anything you want. There are no hard and fast rules.
When you sit to write, don’t worry about the grammar. Continue writing with a stream of consciousness. You can edit your journal entry at the end if you want.
But… I get it. For most people, journaling is not easy. Every time you sit down to write, you keep staring at an empty page or blank screen. Basically, you don’t know what to write in your journal.
This is where journaling prompts come into play.
What are Journaling prompts?
Journaling prompts are topics or ideas that can serve as a starting point for your journal entry. It can be a word, a statement, a photo, or any general trigger.
Journaling Prompts for improving your mental health
- Write about the problems are you going through in life
- Write the three things that you can do to improve your life
- Write about your past mistakes and what you learned from them
- Write your long-term and short-term goals.
- Write a recap of your day
- Write a letter to your past or future-self
- Write about the things you are grateful for (A Gratitude Journal)
Some creative journal prompts:
If you got a creative kick, take inspiration from these prompts.
- Write a short story
- Write a poem
- Write a review of your favorite movie or the last movie you saw
- Write about your favorite fictional character
- Write about how the world will look like in the next 50 years
