Listen Up And I Will Tell You How To Do A Journal
I am a dude who keeps a journal somewhat consistently. This is an opinionated guide on how to successfully keep a journal. It explains a system that works well for me, and I have written it as though it were instructions to myself. I share it with you here today in case you find it useful too! Feel free to try it out and change up bits and don't work as well for you.
For mental health. I find I know my mind and my thoughts and my emotions much better when I journal regularly.
To notice repeating patterns of thought, and to make connections between disparate thoughts.
You'll need to prepare a new journal before starting.
1. TITLE PAGE: Inside your journal write your name and contact information so it can be returned to you if found.
2. INDEX PAGE: On the first spread, write the alphabet down the page in four columns. That is, fold each page in half so there is a crease down the middle, giving you two columns per page. Write 6 letters per column, leaving equal spacing between them. Combine x, y, and z together as your final entry. This will become your index.
│ A G │ M S │
│ B H │ N T │
│ C I │ O U │
│ D J │ P V │
│ E K │ Q W │
│ F L │ R XYZ │
Figure 1: Lettering for an Index Page
3. PAGE NUMBERS: Start numbering the pages in the bottom corners. You don't need to do a bunch of these. You can number as you go.
Divide your page mentally, or physically with creases or ink lines, into three sections:
1. HEADER: The HEADER will take up the top five or more lines of each page. About 20% of the page. I like to reserve the first line of the HEADER for the page title and the date. The rest, and the majority, of the HEADER will be taken up by the SUMMARY. See AFTER WRITING below.
2. MARGIN: The MARGIN will take up about 20% - 25% of the edge of the page. This is for keywords and notes. See AFTER WRITING below.
3. BODY: The rest of the page will be the BODY. This is where you do all your actual writing. See WRITING below.
Your page might look something like the following.
┌───────────────────────────────┐ │ Header │ │ │ │ │ ├──────────────────────┬────────┤ │ Body │ Margin │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └──────────────────────┴────────┘ Figure 2: Example Journal Page Layout
Turn off all your electronics and notifications.
Close your door and remove all distractions.
In the center of the first line of the HEADER write "journal" and today's date.
Set a timer for 20 minutes, and start writing, and then don't fucking stop. Write what you're feeling, what you're thinking, what's nagging you, what you dreamed about, what you're looking forward to, what you're afraid of, what's holding you back, what you need to get done, what you did yesterday, what you're going to do today. Just write. It doesn't need to make sense, it doesn't need to be pretty. You're not writing for anybody but yourself. Just write.
When the timer goes off, either start to wrap it up, or keep going for another 10 minutes or longer if you have the desire and the time.
NOTE: Sometimes the act of journaling can be very introspective, and a lot of big feelings can come up during the process. Take a moment to consider your physical and mental state. If you feel agitated or restless, or are breathing fast or have a quick heartbeat, then you might take a few moments to calm and soothe yourself.
Then, if you have time now, fill out the following sections of the page. If you don't have time now, you can do them at the beginning of your next journaling session before starting the timer. Or some other time. I usually wait a couple of days or even a week and then do a bunch of entries all at once.
1. KEYWORDS AND INDEXING: Read through your entry. In the margin, note any keywords or recurring themes or anything that feels otherwise significant. You can also make a brief elaboration or annotation here if you want to. When finished, consider any keywords or notes you might want to keep track of or refer back to later. Add them, and the page number, to the INDEX in the front of your journal.
2. SUMMARY: The majority of the HEADER is reserved for the summary. Write a couple sentences summarizing the contents of the page.
The index, summary, and keywords allow you to search and skim and review your journal relatively easy. The ability to keep track of and notice recurring thoughts and ideas is the main reason I keep a journal.
Write every day at the same time.
Or every day whenever you have time.
It doesn't matter if you break your streak and haven't written in a couple of days or even a couple of weeks. Just start again. You don't need to explain or justify your absences from your journal to anybody. Not even yourself. Just write.
There are lots of other things you can use your journal for.
That's it. Now you know how to do a journal.
The Notes + Summary + Keywords framework is basically the same thing as the Cornell Note Taking System. You can find lots of examples and instructions by searching online for Cornell Note Taking System.
If you would like a good system for structuring your date planning and todo list, search for Bullet Journal. Be prepared for quite the rabbit hole. "Bujo" fans are endlessly creative and extremely dedicated. I have incorporated parts of this system into my more productivity focused / work journals. But I don't usually have any expectations of this particular journal being productive in this way. Your mileage may vary.
Figures 1 and 2 are tables created by groff and the `tbl` preprocessor. For example, here is the groff for Figure 2: Example Journal Page Layout.
.TS
allbox center tab(|);
c s
lw(2i) r.
T{
Header
.sp 2
T}|
T{
body
.sp 12
T}|margin
.TE
When writing this document in vim, I just wrote the groff inline, visually selected it, and `:'<,'>!groff -t -Tutf8`.
date: 2023-12-31 title: HOW TO JOURNAL url: gemini://tilde.town/~dozens/14.gmi contact: dozens@tilde.team keywords: journaling groff