The Benifits of Journal Writing
Journals, Diaries, log books whatever you want to call them. They rock.
I wish I would have written all of the things that I have thought down in a book. Well not all of the thoughts but the more constructive ones.
Journal writing is a great way to document what things you are thinking about in life as well as taking time out of your day to reflect on people you care about.
To me the most important things in life are relationships with other people. If you take the time out of your busy life to think about how much these people mean to you, you will become more at peace.
Writing also allows us to vent our frustrations and feelings out. I sometimes think of journals as writing letters to God.
One of the tacticts I've adopted is to write in my journal in the first person.
Here's what I've gotten from other people about writing in journals/diaries.
"What one of my friends does is dedicates a page to a person. He'll have a picture of them and write what he thinks about them around the page. His likes and dislikes about the person."
Tamara B.
"Sometimes it is interesting to go back and see how profound the things you were writing were. You'll ask yourself: 'Did I write that?'"
Linda G.
The way I write is usually chronological events. Sometimes I'll work backwards going from what just happened to events further in the past. Usually however I am writing one thing and it reminds me of another thing. This goes on and on and I go off on a tangent. I've tried devising a system of writing when I go off thinking about something else. Someday after I'm gone people can see how I thought and what things I went through.
I'll find myself stressing out because I haven't updated my journal in a while and I dread the thought of catching up. A good system is to put little post-it notes of activities and quick notes on what to write about, that way if you don't get around to writing until the weekend you'll still have something to jog your memory.
My girlfriend Jamie and I have our own Date journal, it lists our various dates and what we did. It is a real blast to catch up on too! We write the day, time, activities and even some funny thing that happened or our "first" something (e.g. first kiss). It then too becomes a date. Our tradition so far is to go to Burgerville and compare our calendars, journals and memories to write down our activities together.
Pop Culture References
There are a couple pop culture icons that pop into my mind when I think journals. I love episodes dedicated to the wonders of journal writing.
Remember Mr. Belvedre? He always wrote in a journal at the end of each show. There was even a few episodes where he made the journals into a book and published it. Who knows maybe I'll do that someday?
Doug Funny always wrote in a journal. He wrote his thoughts and some events.
And who could forget Doogie Howser? He ALWAYS typed up his journal.
On a side note:
- My grandfather writes in a book. Mostly his book is an event log/frequently used information. Plus he cuts out the Columbian's weather dog. I've had to use it occasionally when I can't remember what I did that day. I think he started doing it during his time in the Navy and then as he was a head electrician for the city.
- I used to have an Matt's Big Ideas book. In this I wrote my webpage Ideas and other projects I have tucked away in my brain. If you write something down you free up your brain;s resoucres to think about other things. Also many lost thoughts occur and disappear into the dark abyss some people call the past.
- I also write my dreams in my journal.
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