Episode 106 – Tips for easy journalling

Hello loves.

Today I want to talk about journaling, because, quite frankly, I am rubbish at it. I remember growing up, my sister had a five-year diary, and she wrote in that thing pretty much every day. And one year I was given one for Christmas and I probably wrote in it three times over a six-month period and ultimately threw it in the bin.

I have been terrible at journalling my entire life.

It’s as if there’s a perfectionism to it that I just do not achieve. I hear stories about people that write streams of consciousness every morning over a handful of pages. I’m a very creative person, but that is not my skill set. Half the time I don’t even speak in complete sentences, so to sit down and diligently write these beautiful scripts every morning it’s just not going to happen.

When I started my grief counselling, she spoke to me about writing therapeutic letters, which I’ve done one, and again felt that there were certain rules as to how it should be written. Almost back in the days of being at school writing a comprehension essay. So when it came to doing my journaling recently for my grief counselling, I decided I was going to make up my own rules, of which I have three.

The first one, I only write a couple of sentences.

Bullet points mostly. As I say, I don’t often speak in full sentences. It can be two or three, it can be seven or eight. What went well today? What didn’t go so well today? A couple of things that you’re grateful for. Ultimately, I am never reading back through these things again so it doesn’t really matter about me writing things down that I need to remember. If it’s something that I want to take grief counselling with me for instance, I will quickly scribble that onto a separate piece of paper and pop it into my handbag so that I have it with me, but it’s about keeping it short and simple. Because the easier something is to do it, the more likely I am to do it.

Second rule, keep my notebook in the same place.

I prefer a paper notebook. I don’t get on well with digital, not least because it’s far too easy to get distracted if you’re having to use your phone or the computer. But yes, it can be hard to keep your journal hidden when you have prying eyes in house. So I use skinny ones that I can carry around in my handbag and then once they’re full, I chuck them away. But I have it in the same place so I can write in it whenever I want to. But equally if I do not have it to hand I will use a scrappy piece of paper or I will use a post it note and I will just add it to the journal. I don’t sit there and diligently write out whatever was on there. I just stick it into the journal.

And my final rule of journaling is, it doesn’t matter if I miss days.

And this is one of the reasons I use a plain notebook so you don’t have the dates on each page so it’s much more obvious if you miss some pages. But if I miss a couple of days, I don’t sit there and make myself fill them in to diligently have each day listed. I’ll just carry on from the day that I am at. Some days I’ve missed a couple of days. Some days I might have missed two weeks. Some days I might have two months in every day. It doesn’t matter. The idea is not to be perfect. The idea is to just have a habit.

It’s the intention behind why you are journaling as opposed to the actual journaling that you are doing.

Make up your own rules. You don’t have to have a special time of day, literally whenever you want, whatever you want, however you want. If you don’t even want to keep an actual journal and you just want to use the post it notes and throw it straight in the bin? Who cares? It’s entirely up to you. And if you can make it work for you, you are more likely to do it.

And that’s it.

I hope you found this useful. And please let me know if you decide that you do give journaling a try after listening to this.

And remember you are worth it, and you get to choose.

Have a lovely day