Darius Foro: 29 Journaling Tips to Help You Write Every Day

Nowadays there are many social networks and blogs, and for many they replace the old way of keeping a diary.
On the Internet, people share both emotions and plans, although they don’t even know how to keep a personal diary. Emotional posts on blogs and on the pages of a live journal are similar to a personal diary, but sometimes it is difficult to share feelings with an electronic machine, then ordinary paper versions come to the rescue. Classic notebook entries have never completely lost their relevance; they are still popular among schoolgirls and adults of different genders and status. At the same time, many people are not going to start writing down their thoughts, no matter in a notebook or in an electronic document, although the benefits of this process are tangible.

It's never too late to start

There is no specific time or age when you should start a journal; you may need one at any point in your life. For example, first-grader Alexandra Ippolitova began taking notes directly in her school notebook. She tried to write down everything that happened to her at school and at home:

“January 17, 1984 Here and below, fragments of the diaries are given in accordance with the author’s spelling and punctuation. School. Today at school everyone said that we will have 5 lessons in our class. And I said to myself that we would have three lessons. Because the third lesson was 3 filmstrips and the 4th lesson was a Moscow concert. And in the 5th lesson there was physical training on skis. At home. I forgot!”

A page from the diary of first-grader Alexandra Ippolitova. 1984 © “Prozhito”
And the anonymous author from Ust-Narva, whose diary is kept in the archives of the Research Center for Eastern Europe at the University of Bremen (Forschungsstelle Osteuropa), began writing notes a week after his retirement:

“9-VIII-68 I know that the lot of many who have “retired into a well-deserved retirement,” as our sentimentally saccharine newspapermen and party and trade union committee speakers define pensioners, is unenviable: they are gradually, but still very visibly and noticeably, getting fatter, stupider, sicker and quite quickly merge with mother nature, participating with their remains in the eternal rotation of matter. Salvation is not to lose shape, to do something, to strive for something, to participate in something - while the pot is cooking and the legs are running. Journaling is a type of work like this.”

Why keep a diary?

It’s not for nothing that this process is called a personal diary. This is something deeply personal - emotions, dreams, plans. Often, notes in a notebook witness the stormy tears of schoolgirls in love and the first business combinations of young entrepreneurs. The first reason for keeping a personal diary follows from this - it helps to throw out emotions and structure thoughts .

Interesting! Psychologists advise emotional people to keep notes so that they can subsequently evaluate themselves from the outside and learn to manage their feelings.

Another reason is the opportunity to preserve memories of the situation with the emotions that the writer experienced then . A few years later, many people enjoy reading their entries, remembering funny and sad moments from life, plans and dreams.

The third reason for keeping a personal diary is the opportunity to express all the secret experiences, indecent thoughts and pent-up anger . Sometimes it is impossible to shout at an unfair boss, take revenge on an offender, or have an affair with someone. Writing in a notebook or electronic document allows you to do whatever you want on its pages with your boss, your offender, and other people. Thus, it relieves tension, while at the same time allowing you to assess the situation from the outside.

Short posts are also valuable!

You don't need literary talent or a love of detail or introspection to keep a journal—even sketchy entries can be valuable. Emperor Nicholas II kept a diary from the age of fourteen and always did it in a sparse, factual manner - regardless of what was happening around him - war or revolution. The last entry was made on June 30, 1918, a few weeks before the execution:

“Alexey took his first bath after Tobolsk; his knee is getting better, but he cannot straighten it completely. The weather is warm and pleasant. We have no news from outside."

The last entry in the diary of Nicholas II. June 30, 1918 State Archive of the Russian Federation

Starting and keeping a diary

It was said above that records of ongoing events begin to be kept in 2 ways. Spontaneous keeping of personal notes does not require comments, there is already a diary and it is being filled out, such people do not need to be taught how to start keeping it.

A conscious desire to keep records makes it possible to initially foresee the nuances of the future diary by choosing the format, style and method of filling it out.

You should start recording with the following steps:

1. Decide on the format - electronic or paper.
2. Choose a program or buy a notebook, diary and pens.
3. Think about when and where it will be more convenient to take notes.
4. Decide on the structure of records - free or sequential.
5. Figure out where the paper version or the electronic password will be stored.
6. Make your first entry.

These are the main points of starting a diary, with the exception of 2 nuances. These are not requirements, but rather recommendations for convenience. One of them concerns paper records, the other electronic ones. In the first case, when purchasing, it is advisable to purchase a hardcover notebook or notebook , this will allow the diary to maintain a good appearance longer and not wrinkle. When choosing an electronic option, you need to determine in advance where and when entries will be made, and based on this, you need to select a format - an online program or an inconspicuous document on a desktop computer.

For those who do not know how to spontaneously share their thoughts, you can try the following recording algorithm:

• when (date, day of week, time of year);
• who or what (me, she, dog, wind, car);
• what happened/what they did;
• what emotions aroused;
• what thoughts came to mind;
• what should or should not be done about it.

This structure is suitable for the diary of a junior schoolgirl, and for the notes of the head of a department of a large enterprise. The only difference is that events and objects will be different, as well as conclusions, descriptions of emotions, etc. Also, do not forget that this structure is optional - items in it can be changed, rearranged, removed or added. Understanding more convenient entries will come with time, and for this you just need to keep a diary.

Important! The main rule of keeping a diary is to fill it out! How to start it, what to write or draw in it does not matter.

Keeping a diary correctly means only making entries in a convenient format and with a comfortable frequency. You can think in advance about the number of entries per day, week, month, or simply carry it with you and share your thoughts with the diary at the first desire.

A few entries a day, as desired, is an ideal way to keep a journal. This allows you to reset excessive emotions and immediately write down the necessary thoughts or good ideas. Not everyone can afford to keep notes in this mode; some understand the need for a diary, but are not able to devote so much time to it.

For organized people, the method of filling out a diary in the evening is suitable, and the volume of the entry does not matter. You can divide the entries into morning, afternoon and evening, telling in detail the events of the day, or put everything in one text. You can also highlight what is happening at work or school, separately describing love or life experiences. There is only one rule for keeping a diary, everything else is very individual. Over time, everyone chooses a way to fill it out in a form that is more convenient for them; all that remains is to start maintaining it.

Use an Observation Journal

There is no need to wait for something extraordinary to happen in your life. It's enough just to look around. Biologist Boris Golov spent his entire life observing birds and recording his observations in a diary:

“May 3, 1938 Grishkov forest. I scared a jay out of a hollow. It is possible that there is a nest there. Last year there was a jay nest in the same hollow. 2 buzzards fly very low over the forest. A black kite flew by."

Diary of Boris Golov. 1938 © “Prozhito”
Leningrad post office employee Ilya Melgunov followed the life of the ficus:

“February 5, 1971 Ficus is sick again. Leaves are falling. 9 leaves left. Today I took the ficus out of the pot and washed the soil. I planted it again, not so tight for the roots. <…> February 18 The ficus has only 3 leaves left. I expect that either the last ones will fall, or they will get better. I suspect the cat - maybe she went into the ficus pot.”

Reflect according to the ABC scheme

The ABC Formula for Self-Reflection is a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) tool that has a strong evidence base.

Make a table of three columns, where A is Activating event, B is Beliefs, or beliefs, and C is Consequences, or action taken.

How does this work in practice? You write down an event that caused you unpleasant emotions. Next, record in writing the thoughts and beliefs that shaped your mood. And write down what you did in this situation.

The thought of being boring made you feel anxious and resentful. Please note that it was not the situation itself that caused this emotional background, but precisely your attitude towards it, thoughts about yourself in this situation. For example, another person might think that the guy has a lot to do and that he will call back when he is free. A third person would decide that the guy is “bad”, get angry and create a scandal. By keeping an ABC journal, you learn to notice how your specific thoughts about yourself, others, and the world trigger specific emotions. Try changing your ideas to feel better: write down alternative thoughts. For example:

“In fact, there are dozens of reasons why the guy didn’t call me back. Problems at work, in the family, with health. Maybe he's afraid. Maybe he has other priorities now. It may even be that he doesn't like me, but not necessarily because I'm boring. Maybe we're just different people. Or, on the contrary, he himself is boring, and I’m too active for him.”

Next, decide what you can do best for yourself in this situation. For example: “I don’t want to spend the whole day thinking about it, worrying. Perhaps the only way to find out what’s going on is to call yourself and find out the reason.”

. Regularly keeping such a diary will help you get to know yourself better, become aware of irrational thoughts and try to think differently, and therefore live differently.

Talk to the diary

It is difficult to establish who was the first to turn to his diary as an interlocutor.
We can only say that this practice became popular at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries and arose under the influence of the epistolary genre. At this time, many authors notice that an interesting and trustworthy interlocutor can be not only a pen pal, but also a diary. Diary of Magdalena van Schinne. Cover of the 1990 edition © Uitgeverij Verloren
In October 1788, the Dutch girl Magdalena van Schinne, instead of writing and sending a letter to her friend, simply wrote down on a piece of paper:

“Oh my paper, you are the only one who will hear my ideas, feelings, worries and joys. Here I can pour out my soul completely; with others, even with my best friends, I want to learn to hide my feelings, or at least I don't want to tell them about myself anymore. You are my only confidant."

Since then, the diary has repeatedly helped people out in situations where they lacked a reliable and understanding interlocutor.

TOP 5 best ideas for what you can write in your personal Diary

You may have thought that personal diaries are started solely for the purpose of writing from time to time about your joys and hardships. As an option, of course, it is possible. But there are many other ideas of what to write in your personal diary.

I will present to you the TOP 5 thoughts on this matter:

1. Description of events in life, a brief description of the day.

   The most common reason to start a journal is to share your thoughts with him throughout each day. You can write what interesting, memorable or sad thing happened to you, what you learned or learned, who you met. This is a kind of memoir or autobiography, re-reading which in the future you will remember many funny moments.

2. Emotional unloading, mood charting.

   You have already realized that a diary is the best listener who will never betray you. Therefore, the next thought about keeping a diary is to “take into account” your own emotions and feelings. Write about what mood you are in today and why. Indicate it with a small drawing, for example, happiness with a flower, sadness with a teardrop, etc. At the end of the month you will be able to create a kind of chart of your own mood.

3. A step-by-step plan to achieve your goal.

   If you have a designated goal in life, you should definitely keep a diary. For what? To write about what you are striving for and what steps you will need to take to achieve your goal. Also share your impressions every day: what you managed to do, what steps you took, how close you are to the result.

4. Making important decisions.

   Many psychologists agree that the best way to solve a problem is to write it on paper and choose the most optimal way to solve it. Therefore, if there are often situations in your life when you need to make an important decision, keep a diary. In it you will indicate what exactly concerns you, and what will happen if you accept this or that option for resolving the situation. Simply put, you will need to weigh the pros and cons.

5. Outline of dreams and desires.

   All people like to daydream from time to time. And at the moment when a new dream appears, the old one is sometimes forgotten or seems no longer so attractive. So that your own dreams do not confuse you, and you can set new goals and desires for yourself every day, it is worth writing about this in your personal diary. This way you won’t forget anything, and you can easily prioritize.

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If you have no idea how to keep a diary of one direction, do not try to write only about your emotions or plans for the future. Nobody forbids you to keep several diaries at once or divide one into many blocks. How and what to keep a diary about is entirely your decision.

Share your experiences with your diary

A diary helps you turn feelings, experiences and doubts into text on paper, which means you can look at them from the outside. Sometimes you need it to take a breath, make a difficult decision, or understand something important about yourself.

On December 1, 1923, Soviet Komsomol member Valentina Sokolova wrote in her diary:

“<…> Now I think only about the future. What will become of me? Will I always feel out of place? After all, this is flour. I thought that I loved adventures and suddenly everything shook. What to do? For what? And will anything come of it? Will I really be the odd man out? Let’s say I solved the last question last year and it seems correct. Now what should we do?

Diary of Valentina Sokolova. 1923 State Archive of the Perm Territory

How to keep records correctly

Filling out the paper version with your thoughts or the electronic version is an individual choice. The same can be said about the rules for filling out a diary. It is important to understand one thing - it should be convenient .

Some people are more suited to quickly writing down their thoughts in transport, others need silence and a lot of colored pens, markers and all kinds of stickers, photographs, newspaper clippings. You just need to understand that there are no specific rules for keeping records. A personal diary is the untouchable space of each individual person; he can do whatever he wants in it and as he pleases.

What will be inside the diary depends greatly on who will keep it. The personal notes of a student programmer will be filled with tags and ideas, a housewife can complain there about low-quality household chemicals or rudeness in a store, and a businessman will write down plans for modernization or thoughts on restructuring loans.

The frequency and volume of filling will also be individual for different people, although it is worth highlighting schoolgirls separately. For them, a personal diary is something special, colorful and tender, and sometimes dark and incredibly rude. At the same time, all people need to know only a few identical principles by which a diary is kept.

Or draw, paste photographs, magazine clippings, tickets and anything else that is important to you to keep

A diary is not always exclusively a text that you wrote yourself.
Essentially, this is an archive of your impressions, into which you, like a herbarium, paste everything that you do not want to forget. Anonymous diary. 2000 © “Prozhito”
So, a fan of St. Petersburg “Zenith” in 2000 pasted portraits of her favorite football players, drawings and a photograph of the Depeche Mode group into her diary.

“August 3, 2000 Yesterday I was at Zenit with the girls. It was cool. Zenit - Spartak Alania 2:1. Zenit is a champion!!! How cool it was. In the 7th minute, Radimov scored a goal into the top corner so beautifully from a free kick.”

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What else can you write in your personal diary: alternative options

The first of the proposed ideas for filling out a personal diary can rightfully be called the most popular among people, regardless of age and gender.
However, these are not all the options that you can write in your own diary.

Once you start a diary, you should write in it at least several times a week. You can do it more often if time allows.

Only then will keeping a diary make sense.

Please note: if you have neither the strength nor the mood to write something in your diary, do not force yourself. In this case, it is better to leave the diary for a while, and then return to filling it out, re-reading the last thoughts.

If you think that the recordings are too personal and could fall into the wrong hands, use a code

Portrait of Samuel Pepys. Painting by John Hales. 1666 © National Portrait Gallery, London
The author of one of the most famous diaries in history, London official Samuel Pepys, used a mix of Spanish and French to make it difficult to read fragments about his love affairs.

“On February 17, 1667, Mitchels and his wife paid us a visit, we drank and laughed a lot, after which - it was a beautiful evening, the moon was shining - Mitchels and I went boating. To my chagrin, I saw how all the way ella huddles a su marido and hides manos, quando yo trying to take one de los - so that evening nothing happened to me con ella. When we landed on the shore, under some plausible pretext I sent my hubby back to the bateau, hoping to snatch a couple of baisers from her; I took her by the hand, but ella turned away, and quando I said: “I can’t tocar te?” — with a slight modo she answered: “Yo no I like it when they touch me.” I pretended not to notice this, after which I politely said goodbye, et su marido andar me almost to the mi casa, where we parted Per. Alexandra Livergant."

And the Soviet schoolboy Oleg Chernevsky used a homemade cipher made of brackets, semicolons and other symbols.

Encrypted diary of a Stalin-era schoolboy

What Oleg Chernevsky wrote about in 1937–1938

What to write about

Three things you are grateful for

Gratitude is a superpower that we all have. It helps us feel happier, less anxious, and more successful at work and in other areas of life. Write down what you were grateful for today.

One phrase for self-affirmation

Self-affirming phrases can also help build mental resilience. Choose your words carefully to get rid of something in your life or, conversely, to create something new.

One fear you will overcome today

To get rid of anxiety, you need to try to face some of your fears every day. This, of course, does not mean that you need to jump out of a plane every day or quit your job. We all have hundreds of little concerns that we try not to think about. Start small and repeat day after day. After some time, you will learn to control your fear and channel it in a positive direction.

Important Quotes

Very often, someone's insightful words can reach our hearts and inspire us. This could be a quote from a book, a song, or a word from a loved one. Designate a page in your diary where you can write them down. When you need motivation and positive emotions, you can open it and revive your favorite words in your memory.

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Formation of original pages

Select the optimal color scheme and the required number of sheets. Colors can vary - from light to dark tones; Using scissors, you can give the pages different shapes, add delicate lace or round them; When choosing a title page for a diary, give preference to thick materials; Using a hole punch, two holes are made on the left side, and two rings are threaded through it to connect the pages. If there are no rings, then you can tie the pages with a beautiful ribbon; To create pages, purchase a ready-made notebook and create a creative design.

Secret Thoughts

Recording very personal, innermost, one might even say intimate thoughts is the basis of keeping such a diary. When you write down all your experiences, be it anger, joy, sadness, disappointment, love, passion, you realize all this again more deeply when you write down your feelings on paper. And then, re-reading all this in a few days, months or years, you can rethink all those emotions again and understand why you made this or that decision, you can see how you have evolved and developed as a person.

Emotion chart.

If it’s still difficult to express your thoughts, you can try keeping a chart of emotions. Every day you should describe the strongest emotion, what caused it, and what its external manifestation was. At first, the entries can be short, for example, “Anger. They promoted a colleague, not me. I decided to look for a new job.” This will allow you to identify markers of your behavior and understand whether a person reacts correctly to failures and achievements.

To make it more fun and simpler, you can supplement the names of emotions with drawings, for example, express anger with lightning, joy with an emoticon, happiness with the sun, love with a heart. Emotions do not need to be sketched, but rather assessed on a five-point scale. The good ones are in the plus, the bad ones are in the minus. At the end of each month, you need to draw a visual graph to see how your mood has changed.

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