Lessons from 15 Years of Journaling
Lessons from 15 years of journaling & replacing my smartphone
- Don’t get sold on a brand
- The whole point of this is mindfulness, patience, introspection, reflection - rushing off to go buy some premium notebook to get a quick dopamine hit goes against EVERYTHING this is about
- Fun stationery CAN help, though - but make it a delayed purchase when you know you’re going to use it. You have to be driven to do the thing before upgrading gear makes sense.
- Hype is counterproductive
- This isn’t some lifestyle hack or brain rewiring. It’s just a practice
- Right tool for the right job
- Calendars/grocery lists synced between family members or work accounts still goes best in tech
- Not everything has to be analog
- Systems only work if they solve your problems - adhering to them for the sake of it doesn’t help
- It’s okay to not be consistent
- You’re not a failure just because you didn’t handwrite anything for a week, a month, or a summer
- Boredom is beautiful - embrace it. Your best thinking and processing happens then
- Attach reward to the process, not the end goal. The “Goal” is not a pile of completed journals, but a contemplative experience where you’re choosing to journal or reflect rather than scroll your phone. The end image doesn’t matter
- You’re not obligated to keep them - but you might regret tossing them
- You’re under no obligation to look back through them
- photo/video/scrapbooks tend to highlight our best moments, journals highlight the daily minutiae. There’s not always a reason to dive back into that
- It’s always changing and evolving
- It’s not a flex, it doesn’t need to be a part of your personality
- Develop your thoughts instead of vomiting out hot takes
- Goals: control impulse, develop thoughts, recognize and embrace feelings, regulate dopamine
- Habit forming is hard
- Different journals for different purposes
- You’re beholden to no one
- Tracking is more valuable than gamification