The Art of Journaling

[Karmachanic]

https://psyche.co/ideas/learn-the-art-of-journaling-and-archive-your-life

[txomsy]

Cool and inspiring. Thanks.

[K Singh]

Enjoyed reading this. As someone who has been journaling for five years using Fountain pens, I will happily recommend it to others as well.

[inkstainedruth]

Interesting article (especially as someone who has done morning pages for over a decade).  Thanks for posting the link, Karmachanic!

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Horseflesh]

I should send that article to my wife, she journals. It was interesting reading, but journaling is not for me. 

[Paul-in-SF]

I took up journal writing ("journaling" to me sounds much too intentional; all I do is write in a journal) four years ago as something to do with my fountain pens. I am terrible as a letter writer because I am always afraid I will be boring (with some justice I think). With a journal it doesn't matter. I can fill the page, and I don't look back. I have never read anything from my journals after I have written them; the only thing I look back at is the pages full of different ink colors, which I find oddly pleasing. 

 

Since I only write at home, I use a large format (A4) journal and try to write a page a day. I definitely write every day, but some days there just doesn't seem to be enough to say to fill a page, even if I try to draw on the most trivial of events and thoughts. I have written about the weather, and what we had for dinner, and the pen I am using that day (if I especially like it or don't like it), any pens I have bought and am expecting to arrive, and so on. That's not all I write about, but I don't spend much time on topics of the day like politics. Anyway, it suits me, and I expect to keep doing it as long as I am able to write. 

[XYZZY]

Thanks for this!

 

From the article, quoting Joan Didion:

Quote

We are not talking here about the kind of notebook that is patently for public consumption … we are talking about something private, about bits of the mind’s string too short to use, an indiscriminate and erratic assemblage with meaning only for its maker.

 

YES!  FINALLY!  That's basically my journals.  This makes me feel so much better that nobody would ever pick up one of my journals and find a coherent story.

 

The length of my journal entries vary a lot throughout the year.  I've been in a rut where I might write little more than 1/2 page per day, except for the past couple weeks where I haven't even opened it.  Other times I'll go for months where two A5 pages is a short day.

[K Singh]

6 hours ago, Paul-in-SF said:

the pen I am using that day (if I especially like it or don't like it), any pens I have bought and am expecting to arrive, and so on

I do this so often. Sometimes I even list the pros and cons of the pen I intend to buy or sell. Writing about my pens sometimes help me to clear my mind and make a firm decision on whether I need to purchase a pen or not 🙂

[dipper]

That article from "Psyche" website written by Sarah Boon is interesting, thanks for posting.

 

Perhaps most useful as something to share with another individual who may benefit from having the idea explained to them?

 

However, in that aspect - as a convenient way of sharing the "idea" of writing a journal with another person - there is one omission or false assumption made that I must mention here.

 

The article does not convey the idea that the "stuff" put down on the journal pages can include diagrams, sketches, charts, mind-maps (aka bubble diagrams), doodles, pasted-in objects (your rail ticket, or a cutout piece from anything that you picked up that day), or even "stickers" ( Though I don't really know what those are ! )

 

Today I have just filled up a 234 page A5 notebook containing my "stuff" from 24th Dec 2022 to 14 Jan 2023. Now, flicking through its pages, counting places where there are two facing pages of pure text only, with no charts or mathematics or drawings or graphs or design sketches on those two pages, there are just seventeen instances in the whole book.

 

Reading through my old notebooks, where pages are text only, might be interesting, sometimes valuable, but often tedious. In contrast the pages with non-text content are always fun.....

Part of my diary from 1988 of a camping holiday in the English Lake District ....

[Estycollector]

I'd probably want to burn every completed journal, if I were to be honest. 

[countrydirt]

I've journaled on and off over the past 30 years or so.  It seems that my writing output increases with impending or current life changes (births, deaths, divorce, retirement) and it gives me a place to work through emotional issues.  I've kept several of the journals from the past, but in some cases I've burned the notebooks to symbolically release the dark ravings as I've transitioned from one stage of life to the next.  Currently I'm writing at the end of the day to simply capture the events of the day. 

 

Oh, and all of my journal writing is done with fountain pens.   

[ajoe]

Thanks for the link. I have never journaled, but who knows, maybe…

[Runnin_Ute]

I discovered that a journal can take many forms. The morning pages, like Ruth talks about, the very formal day by day, or something more free flowing. I will postulate that I have been journaling after a fashion since January 1986. Many of these look like entries in my Franklin planner.

 

In fact, the way it was initially designed was more than just a to do list (Prioritized Daily Task List), or a schedule of meetings with clients, interviews and the like. They emphasized ONE calendar for your whole life.  To put your whole life in it. I have put job ads cut from the paper I applied for, notes from calls, notes from college courses even.  January 2023 began my 38th year using the tool. Stuff I do at work, all kinds of things. The way I use it today, is different than how I used it 5 or 10 years ago.

 

Also at times I used other books either in addition to, or instead of - at least for some things. The private stuff, as I recall there isn't a lot of that in my Franklin. Not that I can remember all the stuff I put in there in the last 37+ years.