What Journaling for 3 Years has Taught me
Journaling is basically turning your thoughts, you activities, your days, into text that you can read in the future.
You can write down your goals, and each day talk about how you came closer to that goal.
It’s a tool that the greatest thinkers used.
And when something has been used for that long, surely its worth trying out right?
I started Journaling in July 2021 on an app called Notion.
Here’s how it looked like:
It was simple interface,
nothing fancy like on Pintrest.
But it worked,
and that’s what matters.
The Happenings is quite self explanatory,
I write down what I’ve done for the day, new ideas ext.
In Grateful For is where you type down things that you’re, well, grateful for.
It doesn’t have to be something really epic,
It could be something simple like water.
The last one is titled 3 important things.
Also called MIT’s (Most Important Tasks), these are to-so’s that help you get closer to your end goal.
I’ve recently stopped writing these in my journals and just moved them to a task app.
A few months of doing this,
I started to get bored.
It started to feel like a chore,
so I stopped…
Here’s the first thing I learnt,
Don’t force yourself to journal.
It should be something you look forward to.
Otherwise, you’ll never build the habit.
On my birthday,
I got a notebook.
It was one of those empty, no lines, notebooks
I started journaling on those.
It was much better.
If your planning on journaling, use physical notebooks.
There’s just a different feel to it.
One of my favorite parts about journaling is flipping through the pages and seeing how far I’ve come.
After a couple of months of using this notebook,
I decided to switch.
I got a new notebook,
a lined one.
I preferred this one because I found it easier to write on.
The note book was small,
A6 sized to be exact.
So it was quite easy to fill up.
My entries would always be filled,
sometimes there wouldn’t be enough space.
Eventually the pages finished,
And I got a new notebook.
It was much larger than what I was used to
A5 sized.
I started having trouble finishing the pages.
That’s when I learnt,
You don’t need to finish the pages.
Not everything we experience is worth remembering.
Fill it up with lessons the important stuff you learnt that day.
How you want to get better tomorrow.
At the beginning of a month,
I would write down 5 goals.
Each for a category of my life.
And at the end of each week,
I would rate myself,
I would check how much progress I’ve made to that goal.
This makes your journal an accountability buddy.
You can see at the end of each week what you should improve.
Making yourself write down what you did that day makes you rethink your day.
Like watching your day in 10x speed to pick up on the important parts to note down.
If you played a Minecraft for 3 hours, you’re going to remember that.
This helps you figure out your flaws, at least for the day.
You can make sure the same mistakes are not made.
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
~ Winston Churchill.
Conclusion
Journaling is a way to measure your growth
It’s a way to track your goals.
It’s a way to keep yourself accountable,
and make sure you don’t make the same mistakes.
Journaling is not just for mental clarity but also for viewing your growth.
