Reading all these journaling posts on HN with interest but struggle to get into it myself. I find it just ends up my going around in circles or getting frustrated, but I think that's just me, whenever i sit down to think about anything and try and make sense of anything in my life, I really struggle, sometimes if i'm able to think clearly I feel good about half way through but when I try and bring it all together i'm just overwhelmed.
Not being able to see the direct benefit, i'm not sure if there is any overall law or else it's just a big time wasting exercise. It's also hard to do at the end of the day due to low energy.
The trouble is there are so many things I can do for my mental health and improve myself, perhaps all help, but there is just no time. Meditation can be great, but it's a huge time suck, taking a walk out in nature, nice but takes more time, exercise has the biggest benefit for me but takes a lot of time and energy, but when am i meant to get anything done after i finish work if I do all of these? Then to fit journaling in, I have to stop working earlier to sit down and just write my thoughts?
One of the biggest benefits I find with journaling is that I will often solve problems for myself. I'll write about a problem and then find myself typing out "I should do..." and when I read that I know what I should do.
There is a story about an old man going to watch the ancient Olympics. The place is packed and he can't find a seat until he arrives at the Spartan's section where the Spartans all leap to their feet to offer the old man their seats. The crowd of Greeks all cheer and the story's narrator observes sadly "All the Greeks know what is right but only the Spartans do what is right."
I think there is a similar disconnect in my brain. Sometimes it is very easy to know what is right and harder to actually do what is right. When you're writing though you can easily leverage the "know what is right" part of your brain and when you see what you should do typed out in front of you, it's easier to engage the "do" part of the brain. You force yourself to confront the discrepancy between what you know you should do and what you are actually doing.
I have benefited from this in everything from arguing with my wife ("I should apologize") to debugging ("I should make sure function X does what I think it does"). I have a standing order to myself to do what I think I should be doing.
From Ted Chiang's truly wonderful "The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling":
> As he practiced his writing, Jijingi came to understand what Moseby had meant; writing was not just a way to record what someone said; it could help you decide what you would say before you said it. And words were not just the pieces of speaking; they were the pieces of thinking. When you wrote them down, you could grasp your thoughts like bricks in your hands and push them into different arrangements. Writing let you look at your thoughts in a way you couldn’t if you were just talking, and having seen them, you could improve them, make them stronger and more elaborate.
I also had a hard time ever keeping a journal until I sat down one day and started working through The Artist's Way [1], which my partner had on her shelf. There are parts of it that don't really work for me, maybe a little too self-help-y, but the main practice of what the author calls "morning pages" ended up getting me going.
It's very similar to what the article's author ended up hitting upon -- just sit and write out the internal monologue. Let it go freely and don't worry about it making sense or having direction. Don't think about it too much and don't be precious about it. If there's a thing that comes up and you want to work it out, that's fine, start unpacking it. If it's just "man I really feel tired today" and other things that feel like nonsense, that's fine too.
Personally, I went from never keeping a journal to having a daily journaling practice for maybe 5 years after following The Artist's Way for the 12 weeks of prompts it gives you. Now I'm only doing it a few times a week, but that's because I'm working on other things that the journaling brought me to.
As with most things related to the interior life, what works best for you is intensely personal. For myself, I have journaled sporadically for the last decade, as the occasion presented itself.
At first, I bought the notebook to catalogue a trip to Europe. The first pages contain detailed daily logs of about 2 months of my life while I was there. At the time, I recall feeling like I was wasting valuable time that I could spend having more experiences, and there are many missing days as a result. But now 10 years later those pages contain stories I have failed to retain in my memory, and help me to reconstruct the days I didn't record. People and interactions I would have forgotten, short-lived but vivid crushes, a tomato sauce recipe transcribed poorly via a picture dictionary from a retired Italian grandmother at a hostel in Lourdes.
Other times, I've used the journal to clear my head during times of turmoil. Weak and unfinished thoughts on difficult circumstances, poetic images of my emotions, scribbled bullet lists of what happened and in what order as I tried to piece things together.
For a spell, the same journal was where I kept daily todo lists. Today, I'm using it as an outlet for my personal thoughts and goals, to keep them distinct from research notes and work notes. I find that writing them down helps me to clarify what I want and to move in a consistent direction over longer periods than focus and determination alone would allow.
The only consistent format for my journal is putting a date at the top of each entry and writing in pen so I can't erase it.
Every time I look back over what I've written, I take something different away; Rarely do I read what's there and count the act of writing it as a waste of time. It's a window into the past.
I think when one starts writing all the messiness of one's life / thinking shows up even stronger and makes 'writing' to feel like a wall.
I have tons of notes from all over the years, but only now, gradually, I tend to treat it more and more as a perfect way to make things clear and have fun doing it. I see it (looking from the practice) as a self-enforcing process, when it is kept alive it starts to bring flowers.
So I would rather talk about simply 'writing' and even finding different modes of writing - themes, journal, goal oriented, mumbling, notes, thought,...
As someone put it (I cant credit properly): Writing is nature's way of telling you how sloppy your thinking is. ;)
What is proposed in the article is even stronger, it is to talk with oneself using writing, dialoging as in... I ask X, is anoyone (inside) who would like to answer? ... and so on... Strong stuff. :)
You are not alone.
I don't journal, but I've tried on & off over the years.
I find I had more 'fun' building the framework* to start journaling then actually doing it.
IMHO Journals work good for those who are not introspective. It's a way to "discover" how you really feel about a topic/day/week/trend and to extrapolate from there.
I already know the dozen or so reasons "why" I am unhappy, but I also recognize the choices that I made to get to this position and it's better then the alternative.
* from VIM keybindings, to EMACS, to a web-diary, to some other variations I've discovered that my roadblock to writing it down isn't my hesitancy to write it, but to face the truth of what I have to write.
I think the way my mind works, is it's always thinking about this kinda stuff, it's always being introspective. All I need to do is not be super busy or have something taking up my attention and i'm doing it automatically anyway.
Cooking, cleaning, showing, even while I browse online, i'm constantly looking for things and data to match what i'm introspecting about.
> whenever i sit down to think about anything and try and make sense of anything in my life, I really struggle
I used to feel much the same, but also found after I started keeping a diary in early 2018 that this got a lot easier. Being able to refer back to my earlier thoughts and considerations, as I wrote them down and thought through them in the moment, saved a lot of time in "getting up to speed" on prior context, and also enabled me to test my hypotheses for why I felt a way or what might help me feel differently.
It's made a huge difference, despite that I didn't start with that expectation, or really any expectation - I had a flu and a 102° fever for most of that week and the next, I didn't go into it expecting anything to make much sense at all! I just started, and stuck with it, and that seems to have been the thing that counted.
For you it might be worth a try, or it might not. That's true of anything, and I think it may be worth considering that it's not necessarily possible to know going in what's really going to help and what isn't. More important, I think, is to be willing to give things a try, in order to find out whether they really are useful. If that means working a little less to make space, then sure, to some extent there's a tradeoff there. But on the other hand, if you don't put the work in on yourself, who else is going to be able to?
There's only so much time in a day. Try one for a few months. Did it help? Maybe keep doing it then. Definitely try something else if it didn't. Maybe keep a simple log of it - just a date, the fact that you did it, and if anything interesting happened maybe write that down too. Maybe don't if that gets in the way of you just sitting down and doing the thing.
How can you carve your time up differently? What would your life look like if you replaced that "I need a break, I'm gonna look at HN/Tiktok/Twitter/etc" reflex with "I need a break, I'm gonna meditate for a few minutes" or "I need a break, I'm gonna get up and dance to this bangin' tune that just came on"?
("Walking meditation" is a thing too, and a walk out in nature is a great place to do it!)
And: how can you bend your life so that your job is enjoyable; how can you bend your life so that the time you spend "at work" is well-spent, and that you don't have to waste extra hours in the parts that help?
I never thought I would be a journaler, but got into it by accident.
I read self improvement books regularly, and I started keeping a journal of what I was reading. I try to read 10 pages each day, and at the end of my section I just write a paragraph summarizing what I had read.
After awhile the summaries started naturally including examples from my life so that I could remember the points better. And my own personal goals and aspirations. Once I was there it isn't that different from a standard "life" journal, but having the book you are reading really gives you a crutch to lean into and grow off of.
Zen saying: "You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day. Unless you're too busy, then you should sit for an hour."
Gandhi: "I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one."
Meditation is like a time-doubler for me. Something like 1 hour of meditation makes me able to do 4 hours worth of productive stuff in the next 2 hours. But the hard part is the initial investment of time. You have to spend time to make time?
I really like vipassana, but journaling is also a meditation.
I used to worry about this, and then I realized I have years of internet comments that may as well be my journal. Going back to any of them will remind me of what I was thinking around that time. Same happens to me with screenshots, like was mentioned in that post yesterday titled “take more screenshots.”
It takes a bit of motivation to get me there, but once a month usually works out for the most part. I summarize my thoughts on stuff going on in the world and with my life.
I don't use any fancy software. Just some markdown files in a private git repo.
after I get done with a bicycle rise (I do push while I ride, like pulling on my cleats/toe clips, not just pushing - And I rarely coast) so a shower is usually recommended for me after (to give anyone a sense of my exertion).
And during the last part of the ride and the time thereafter, ideas frequently start flowing, I see solutions to problems that now appear obvious, where before I felt stymied.
And that is what I hope to get out of journaling...
I've been journaling for over 10 years, and I can empathize with everything you're saying here. I wrote a short guide for effective journaling here[1], and plan on writing a lot more on the topic soon. I do have some thoughts about what you've written specifically though—I hope it's helpful.
> I find it just ends up my going around in circles or getting frustrated, but I think that's just me
It's not just you. Circular thinking or rumination is very common. I find journaling helpful in these instances because it is a lot easier for me to recognize that I'm ruminating when I write my thoughts down. When they're physically in front of me, you can see the looping. When it's ephemeral thoughtstuff in your head, it can be a lot harder to recognize.
The trick (for me) is finding a way to escape that loop once I've recognized it. That's why I edit all my journal entries after an initial stream-of-consciousness braindump.
There are a number of techniques you can play with to broaden your viewpoint—write down an interpretation of events that is the opposite of what you think, imagine the situation from a caring friend's perspective, etc.
It's helpful to think of this as play, which brings me to my next thought.
> whenever i sit down to think about anything and try and make sense of anything in my life, I really struggle ... i'm just overwhelmed.
> It's also hard to do at the end of the day due to low energy.
It is possible you have set too-high expectations for your journal entries. You will look at a majority of entries, immediately after writing them, and think, "What trash, I will never want to read this again."
That's fine. You might be right—maybe it's worthless. But you'll be surprised at how frequently, a year later, you find that you were wrong. It is interesting to read those honest entries that are twisted and convoluted and just messed up.
And you will make progress over time, if you're flexible with your mindset and open to change. Most entries will be ugly and definitely not revelatory. That's fine—it's the accumulation of observations that leads to breakthroughs. Putting too much pressure on the individual entries themselves can actually be counterproductive.
> The trouble is there are so many things I can do for my mental health and improve myself ... when am i meant to get anything done after i finish work if I do all of these?
This is a real problem. I don't love the narrative around "self-care" I'm frequently exposed to. Industry has a vested interest in making you feel like their solution is one you absolutely need to incorporate, to the point that self-care becomes yet another external imposition for many people.
To be sure, all these things you list can be helpful, but getting in touch with yourself and deciding what you need and when you need it is most important.
> I must acknowledge my internal dialogue - more than one voice with differing perspectives that both reside inside of me. This means making my entry more of a dialogue, one that explores many avenues and looks at things from all sides.
I once took the approach of journaling in a spreadsheet to address this. It was actually pretty useful.
I took two approaches:
- A column per "aspect", and row per topic. I factored time out of the equation, and let each cell mature and become more well articulated. Not every aspect had something to say about every topic.
- A column per "aspect" and a row per day, allowing variance in the topic. Each cell becomes what that voice is saying at the given time.
This let me see both evolution of thought and accumulation of thought. It lead to me having a very full and rich understanding of myself at the time and what I thought and felt.
Ultimately, it did quite well at getting me through a tough time and helping me make decisions on very difficult topics.
> I must be completely honest and make no attempt to hide from thoughts or feelings that arise. This can only be done (for me, personally) when I'm sure that no one's eyes will ever see it. Only then do I allow myself to be completely open.
Mainly a question for the author, who is unlikely to see this, but how do you ensure that no one's eyes will ever see your journal? I guess I could set up automatic GPG encryption for org-roam, and journal in there, but I'd much rather journal on paper. A safe? A cash box?
For me, "no one" translates more accurately to "no one I care about." I keep my journal physically on my person, in the backpack with my laptop. If the backpack is stolen, I actually don't care if the thief reads my notes -- maybe he'll find something of value there. More than likely, he won't care about my interior conflicts.
My wife and friends know not to look through the journal without my permission, and I trust them. If I didn't trust them, I would find different friends.
I have created a writing system for p&p rpg long ago and I kept improving on it for years as a hobby. It's messed up on purpose, i used it for puzzles and my players (math and CS graduates) couldn't figure it out so it's good enough. I also got comfortable enough with it that i can read/write it reasonably fast. I'm using it for writing personal stuff down (on actual paper which i keep in my actual desk). It's also good for short notes kept in physical wallet. You won't decode it when all you have is 5 weird scribbles and i don't think a thief would steal my wallet, follow me home, search my home, steal my journal and do a cryptographic analysis just to read my journal or steal my bank account :)
I believe in physical air gap and security through obscurity far more than in keeping personal stuff on internet-connected Turing machines no matter how well the encoding algorithm is supposed to work.
I use vim-gnupg. It makes the whole thing a breeze. And in my experience, the author is completely right: I won't open up all the way unless I have guaranteed privacy. It's not that I have anything criminal to hide, but we all have things we're uncomfortable putting on the page and being forced to acknowledge as reality.
I highly recommend the book "Your Head is a Houseboat" to anyone who wants to start journaling but doesn't really know how to get into it. It is a very approachable, almost child-like introduction to your brain and the voices in your head.
I have found this type of “self examination journaling” to be very valuable. Rather than spilling random thoughts on paper, I try to study myself like a subject and ask myself things. I interview myself on paper and uncover some great insights about who I am and why I do things. I’ve never been on top of it as much as I should, but what little I have done has helped me overcome some big personal obstacles.
My variation:
- through therapy and random thoughts, collect questions for oneself (see below)
- when you journal, pick a question based on feeling, aim to spend all the time writing and go!
I like to meditate afterwords because it puts me in a very open and receptive place when I journal.
Questions I’ve found effective:
Why do I do X? instead of Y? when faced with Z? What should I do?
What are my motivations? Inspirations? Fears? Where do they come from? Which ones are healthy? Which ones are winning? How do I make them converge?
How do I identify my inner child’s desires? Which ones are important? Which ones are not? How do I make myself happy while still being responsible?
This seems a very interesting approach. I find i have multiple "voices" in my head, all of which are parts of me. I can have conversations between these mini personalities,but I've never tried writing them down. I think I will give it a go. Needs to be super secure journal though! :-)
I've been reading "No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model", and I wonder if you might find the book worth the read!
I was introduced to journalling by the book "The Intensive Journal" written by Ira Progroff. It was mesmerizing at the time (me being young and all). I abandoned it because it was too much "quantified self" long before that term became popular. I checked and now there is some website associated with it promising the sun, moon and stars. Suitable if astronomy is your bag I'd say - caveat emptor is all I am saying.
However, I think that the practice of keeping a journal is generally a good thing if it's not done exclusively for navel gazing.
One great benefit I find is that it proves we are all "fools unto ourselves if watched".
This clicks for me. I have numerous barely started journals, along with varying levels of guilt about not writing every day, and a lack of feeling anything is coming out of the process.
Not being able to see the direct benefit, i'm not sure if there is any overall law or else it's just a big time wasting exercise. It's also hard to do at the end of the day due to low energy.
The trouble is there are so many things I can do for my mental health and improve myself, perhaps all help, but there is just no time. Meditation can be great, but it's a huge time suck, taking a walk out in nature, nice but takes more time, exercise has the biggest benefit for me but takes a lot of time and energy, but when am i meant to get anything done after i finish work if I do all of these? Then to fit journaling in, I have to stop working earlier to sit down and just write my thoughts?