How's your journalling habit like?

[Sauvik]

I have been journalling for about 2 years , it had helped me a lot , writing down things does have a therapeutic effect. But i am not able keep consistent. I journal about once or twice a week and usually.

 I just sit down and sort of write about what I am doing in life and where I am going.

These days I find that I have very less motivation to journal and find it hard for myself to make myself sit.

What are the most effective and efficient ways to journal, how often do you journal and how to make it as a regular habit?

 

 

[kindayellow]

I journal a couple times a week, I give myself a life update for when I read it back in the future, and it's usually on a day where an event happened that easily segments into an issue I'm having I then dissect that issue.

 

I've also committed to doing a yearly interview with myself, ask the same set of questions to myself annually to see how my answers change over time.

[ValiantSalvatore]

@Sauvik I used to journal every day I started in 2015 approx.

Mostly I was disturbed by thoughts and needed to vent, so I was constantly writing down what I thought about incidents and experiences of daily life and how it affected me, what it meant sometimes just to vent. 

I am not doing it consistently anymore, I tried different kinds of journals now and am still looking to find the perfect journal format. 

At best make a 100% commitment and journal every day for 10-20 min. I stopped journaling regularly because it did not serve any purpose anymore, it did it so much that I felt and read about it during that time. That too much introspection can cause depression and negative feelings etc. 

I was motivated because of internal struggle and wrote often for even hours sometimes, not knowing what to write about also.

Leo's episode how to keep a commonplace book is most likely the best plan on how to go about it in a strategical and "metaphysical" way, in case there the journal would serve as a tool to contemplate, deliberately with. 

I was able to maintain the habit because I used it for exercises

- Gratitude exercise ( journal)

- cognitive behavior "therapy" exercise (destroying limiting beliefs, reframing events)
- shadow work
- general venting and describing, reflecting about real life events and seeing the bigger picture, finding reasons on why things etc.


At best find an environment and have a very good reason to do it. Just journaling for fun may be nice and such, yet if it does not fit any purpose then it will be difficult. So, find your why. May be the best advice. Then the classic cue, routine, reward or the habit loop. You can google that and find out how to create any habit. 

I finished listening to the audiobook "Atomic Habits".

What you can do is habit bundling. You take habits that are already installed and link a habit that you want to implement to it. For e.g morning shower, meditation, eat breakfast.  Or set an alarm for 10 pm, meditate, go to bed. If you want to go to bed by approx. 11 pm.

Otherwise having a cue might be very good, for instance for working out it helped me to always have a bag full of sports clothes. So, I save myself the qualms of having to think about packing my sports clothes and pack my sports clothes right after I finish doing my workout. Now it is even easier to go for sporadic runs, in case I do not have this structure.

For journaling, a clean desk might be excellent otherwise some cushy place in a beanbag or even outside in a park. So, setting an environment which would give you an incentive to journal would be nice. 

For instance, I don't feel the need to journal at the moment, because all of the worries and qualms I've been dealing with have mostly disappeared that I have been journaling about. 

What I currently do is weekly reviews and ideally daily in my bullet journal. ( I still can't get on a good level there yet).
Also, having a normal journal next to my bed which is not per se for college. To write down gratitude, yet I just started that last week.





 

[St Clair]

I journal a couple of times a week. For one, as a writer, it is the most brilliant opportunity for me to practice my writing and develop my craft.

But primarily, I see it that I am telling my story. If I were to die tomorrow, my legacy - all my ideas, aspirations, insights , etc - will be left behind for my family, tucked away in the 11 or so journals of the past few years.

My journal is the physical manifestation of my journey. Take a look at those words side by side -  they are twins!

Peace and happy journaling !

[denydritz]

I've been writing a journal since 2005. I usually write once a week, at the end of the week, for a review.

There were times when I wrote in my journal more than once a week. Right now, I'm writing in it once a month.

I think the effective way to write a journal is simply to write it. When you have something to write, then write; if you don't, then don't. I don't think we should feel pushed to fill a "quota" to write in our journal. Even if we only write once a year, then that's enough.

[ThermalTide]

I go through phases with journals, but overall I've been keeping record of my thoughts, feelings, accomplishments, and failures for years. Sometimes I'll have a few weeks where I'm experiencing growth or going through strife, and I'll write every day. Other times I'll only journal once every couple of weeks. I love being able to go back and see how far I've come, particularly in times where I feel stuck and unmotivated. It's incredibly therapeutic to write down ideas, dreams, memories, etc.