The irony is...

I kept one while attending music school. And my one new thing to do this year was to keep a daily journal starting Jan 1. I've been pretty good about it until the last couple of days - I blame it on NAMM. Sensory overload and not enough time before passing out at night. However, I will be doing a full recap of the past 3 days later tonight.

The big thing for me was to find an app to do it with multiple devices. While I haven't found that app yet, I did start with my laptop to keep it.

I hadn’t ever thought about your reason for keeping a daily diary — about it telling the truth of how you really felt, when you look back — and I absolutely love it. I don’t know that every single day is realistic, but I’m going to try harder to get some things down even when nothing particularly momentous is happening, especially for this reason.

Thanks!

Love this article, especially the idea of “Thoughts on...” I’ve been using a little free service called AhhLife for the last four years and can highly recommend it.

http://ahhlife.com

It works by emailing you every night. You reply to it with your journal entry for the day. Or you can reply every morning. It’s super lightweight and configurable. And since it works over email you automatically have a backup of your data over time. I have never found anything easier for getting into the habit of daily journaling.

Cheers,
Obie

Nice to hear from you. It’s been a long time.

Yes. This is a good reminder. At least 4-5 dozen people have asked me to write my book. Everytime I tell a story..... it’s hard to remember past experiences unless some reminder pops up in a conversation. My late husband was a brilliant novelist, columnist, journalist. My late brother in law was a super famous novelist, screenwriter. Etc. Maybe I was surrounded by too much success in that area so I have been unable to fulfill my own destiny. I was always intending to be a writer.

Interesting too as I just saw the film THE WIFE ....with Glenn Close. I won’t ruin it for you in case you haven’t seen it. You should.

Thanks for the prompt.

Anastasia

Hi Derek

Good to hear from you. I started back into practice as a marriage family therapist and I use cognitive therapy regularly and now they have dialectical behavior therapy what is cognitive therapy + mindfulness. IRA progoff wrote a book on journal writing and there's lots of interesting psychology books about that such as embracing ourselves by winkleman and Stone where you dialogue with a different side of yourself like the inner critic or the inner child or the feminine side or the angry side or the scared side etc.
I am pleased to say that Christina has been writing new songs and would like to make a new CD this year. I've been driving Uber and Lyft part-time and I said a prayer what's next Lord and I meant Alexandre de Lyon a singer who opened up for Bruno Mars and has the agent Chris Knight who works with maroon 5 and then I met a guy who promotes for an r&b artist next day and then I met virtual reality LA and then I met a guy from RCA and then I met Steve Chen from YouTube and a bunch of other people ending up with a couple people from my neighborhood when is Nick Gallant with Disney and Drew oropeza who wrote a couple songs that ended up in the top 40 he was actually able to buy a house these days in our old neighborhood with the royalties. I'm hoping that we all have a great New year.

This is a great idea. I have kept journals forever. but the journals according to subject are important....that's a great idea.

BTW....NAMM is too noisy anyore....

Your are learning your own way to wisdom.

Awesome...

I think this is one of your best posts. Thanks for sharing.

What are your thoughts on electronic vs paper? Big fan of your stuff. Thanks.
I prefer digital because it takes no space, I have it with me almost everywhere always, and most of all: I can type one command to search it and get instant results. — Derek

It's good advice. Since I'm constantly reflecting (against my will), for me that kind of introspection would be exhausting. However, I do journal my family life and have been for 20 years (so I have about 2000 pages of family journals!) These are not particularly deep, yet they do describe accurately things that happened, how I responded, etc. that memory would tend to alter.

Great list.

I think like yoga and meditation it may take a little work at the beginning to develop the skill. Not sure how much I’ll have to write about some days.
I’ll need to improve my thinking to evolve my writing.

Great article, thank you.

Adam.

Very interesting, as usual. I've been keeping diaries for many years. Longhand in the typical college notebook. Anything and everything. Essays. Poems. Precis for a show. Synopsis for a show. Names.

Quites a stack of notebooks by now. keep calendars also. Take a listen to sample of my new 45 rpm (!). Teamed with German co that publishes
A Is For Apple and also manufactures 45s of Apple centric artists
It's a RAD lovesong. www.brutesforce.com/confections/products/

The main thing here is just keeping it going...the body, the will, the self-esteem...amidst the attempts to gain recognition in the undeniable
horror of this realm.

And this... my current attempt to communicate the Pledge of Allegiance to The Planet to the world. Want to bring his understanding to 2020 Tokyo Olympics...what could be more logical than the people from all over the world pledging allegiance to the planet...and here is the way to do that.
http://planetwork.world

Besides your own reach and influence you may have friends, associates, colleagues in the Olympics and can consider aiding in this consciousness raising project.

All The Best,

Stephen Friedland
for BRUTE FORCE ®
917-751-9103

HaHa! Had to share this, I glanced at the topic in my email from you and I read it as Daily DAIRY and Journals. (With daily having ai also, my brain put it in both words). I certainly had a thought about that. "You're kidding, he thinks we should eat dairy daily, I haven't had dairy in over a year." I HAVE to read this one. I didn't catch it until the 2nd line of the blog... LOL.

Love this, what a magnificent way to learn the habits or our own minds, much of which is culturally created and seems to have an opinion on about everything as you've pointed out. I love these experiments and practices you share. Great advice on Plain Text Editors, got me to thinking about my cloud situation and maybe I better jump on that with important stuff... Thanks.

I’ve been keeping journals for years. Thoughts are amorphous. When I write my ideas down they manifest into material form. Lately, I’ve been trying to pay more attention to my hand motion as I write. It feels like a mindfulness practice. My wife thinks I’m nuts with so many journals strewn around the house. I also keep digital versions. I write everything down.

I find that there is a difference in output quality when I physically put pen to paper. It’s like holding a guitar while songwriting where your whole body becomes a vehicle for the muse. 



I particularly like my “feelings” journals. Overtime I am able to observe feeling patterns and how certain kinds of thinking produce certain kinds of feelings. Putting those observations to paper has helped me see how many of my thoughts lead to emotions that don’t serve me well. You might say this is a form of EQ or emotional intelligence. As a result, I allow fewer thought/feeling disruptions to upset my happiness baseline thereby contributing to my overall life satisfaction. Big win.

I’m in the middle of reading “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown where he devotes a few pages to journal writing. BTW your name came up in the book. Better there than a bathroom wall. Thanks always DS for your value add contributions.

I was just thinking of doing this the past few days. I was putting my thoughts all over the place but this makes so much sense to document the changes over the years. Thanks Derek!

thank you for sharing your inspired ideas with me, Derek, I always read them with interest

Derek,
A very insightful piece. Thanks for the hints.
( Just in jest ! ) My life has become very repetitive, mundane, static, and unchanging. If I take on your suggestions where can I get a computer keyboard with a DITTO key ?
John D. Laskowski
Carsonville, PA

I have been meaning to restart a daily journal like I used to keep in my teenage years and early twenties. It's one of those things I know it's good for me but keep putting off anyway. Your thoughts have encouraged me. Thank you.

This is a great idea. If I'd have done this decades ago, the information would be priceless.
It is! ☺ — Derek

I don't have a Thoughts On one, but I do have a general one and try to write daily. It really does help to iron things out in the mind, clear the clutter, and secondarily to hone the writing chops.

This is so cool, and I try to do the same daily.

https://penzu.com/ and old apple Note works for me at the moment. All in the cloud though, I'll consider downloading weekly.

Thanks!

Thanks!

Derek... I use Evernote and wrote my first entry tonight. Thanks for the nudge.

But you got me wondering about the permanence of cloud based platforms. Why not write it on paper?
Paper works. — Derek

Hi Derek. I've been doing the journal thing for about 5 years now. It is amazing looking back and seeing what my mind was working on. Last year I expanded on this by doing a video log on my worst days. Its one thing to read how I was feeling but a real mind blower to actually see my face and hear my voice

Hey Derek,

This is excellent. I recommend a similar habit in my Raise Your Inner Game material. I do mine in the morning, though, as part of my morning routine. Sit. Journal. Most every day. With, of course, some stretches where I don't. ☺ But rarely do I miss for more than a week or ten days. And I can really tell when I do.

Mine is what you would probably call a feeling journal. I think of it as my Inner Game journal. It's just a daily note on how things are going, internally. What's stressing me out. How the previous day went (doing the daily things that help, avoiding the bad habits).

Technically, I use Scrivener. Probably because I have it. ☺ But I like having a different page for each entry, but all of them still grouped together in the app.

Anyway, I was just talking with a reader about the daily journal two days ago. It is THE thing that makes the difference for me, over the long haul.

Two big things it does:

1) Keeps my inner game top of mind. The biggest cause of slipping off track is forgetting. Writing about it daily keeps that from happening.

2) Takes away the power of the negatives. If I notice that I'm feeling especially stressed, for example, or anxious or depressed, just noticing that takes away a huge amount of its power over me. I see it, and then I can plan what to do that day to deal with it. Impossible to overstate the benefits of that.

Finally, it smoothes out the ups and downs. Over time, writing daily about what's going on for you, you start see things over a longer arc, and realize life is not really as out of control as it can seem. ☺

Anyway, great post. And good to hear from you!

David

Great plans, but not enough of me to go around.

Cognitive behavioral therapy sounds interesting Derek.

Personally my journaling has been more utilitarian as of late.
Tracking progress, goal setting, weekly/daily planning, etc.

Rarely I’ll go back & review. Though it is pretty rewarding to see how an approach or thoughts on things have changed over time.

Writing is a great snapshot like that.

Lack of writing/journaling daily seems to put me on a slippery slope when it comes to getting the musts complete for the day.

Idk bout you but I like hitting the marks I set for myself in a given window. Drives a sense of accomplishment & fulfillment for the day/week/month/year, etc.

Would you agree?
Yep! — Derek

Derek,
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about how to go about having my Website rebuilt in the way most productive for me and my business. Now, I'm thinking about your methods and tomorrow I must decide.
Thanks for the Pearl of wisdomd you always open our minds to. Happy New Year and all the best you, and your fmily.
Ernie

Nice post. Thanks for this

enjoyed your article, Derek.
I’ve been keeping a diary since the 1970s
as well as journals. I still use pen and paper .
in fact I have old leather bound parchment books with
quill and ink. also write primarily in irish in my daily diary.
again thanks for the article.
“sláinte”

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."
-- Benjamin Franklin, Inventor

I always write down one thing I enjoyed doing that day. There was not a single day I didn't easily find something, because there is always something good in every day.

The regret list is definetly a great idea, will start doing that too.

Thanks for the great article!

Derek great food for thought my friend.
For me writing is like taking a big breath
And then blowing it out. It always feels
So good on the exhale....
Peace

This! 💜

Two reasons I wanna start doing this:

1. To improve my god-awful memory of what I’ve done recently.
2. To give to my kids one day.

Thanks, Derek. :)

I've been writing my diary since primary school. I prefer the traditional way to record my thoughts on paper every day before bed (I do sketch and draw a lot). One of the most obvious benefits of keep a journal is helping me with my sleep. Once I transfer my thoughts from my head onto the paper, I have the clear vision of where my worries/problems are and then I can tell myself I'll be able to find the solution after a good sleep. I think the strategy here is once you see clearly rather than everything is so messy in your head, you'll be able to persuade yourself to have a rest.

When you say, "Use plain text, or a standard format not owned by any company"
do you mean to save in a format that can be opened easily in whatever platform? What if I create in Pages, what would be a good format to save my journal in where I can keep it going and add to it daily and read it on PC & apple and whatever operating system may come along? It seems word processors are owned by companies, but I suppose the plain text is not. I'm sorry if my question seems tedious. I have been keeping a journal and backing it up offline, but I want to make sure about how to save them. Thanks!
Yes, not Pages. On Mac, use TextEdit. On Windows, use WordPad. Some day you might be using a different kind of computer that's not invented yet, and will deeply regret if everything is saved in the Mac-only “Pages” program. But if you save in plain text or “Rich Text” (.rtf) you'll be able to read it on any future computer (or watch or hologram or reading robot or whatever). — Derek

Solid inspiration! Thanks!

What about just a single file, journal and "thoughts on" all together. Create a hashtag around said thoughts. For example:

2019/01/27 Caught up on music practice and house cleaning. All alone today and felt a bit lonely with the wife out of town.. #musicpractice: finding a full day or more of alone time creates a "cleaner" environment for problem solving

You've done it again with this insightful--and inciteful--post. I began years ago to keep journals. I think it was a Jim Rohn recommendation to do so that got me into it. I started with hard-bound archival record books, and have experimented with many other types and styles since. I currently write daily in a Moleskine. My kids tease me that my journals, all shelved, make me look like Kevin Spacey's character in "Seven." But the good news is that I have quite a record of my life and thought at this point. It's helped me to recognize patterns in my life that needed to change, and provides an awesome reminder of how far I have come in my life. But I do prefer the analog way, obviously. I like the idea of people knowing I've actually touched the pages, and you can tell by my penmanship what kind of mood I was in when I was writing. Thanks for reminding me of the importance of my practice. Peace.

I can dig. I just now set up a doc for journals and a folder for Thoughts On. Only time will tell where it goes.

The "thoughts" suggestion I love! Total brain overload just thinking about your list of thoughts and what my thoughts are on each... must admit I have kind of got a little bogged down at "kissing" got me thinking.....sorry thoughting? (insert laughing emoji here)
Thanks Derek.

I have been doing this for a few years now (on and off). The interesting thing is reviewing past journals. I have found some very repetitive patterns... there are things that I have been complaining about and working on changing (at least according to my journals) for a number of year now... and yet I am still writing and complaining about the same things.

Great article, Mr. Sivers. Thank you. For some reason, it reminded me of a recent movie I saw called SUPER about a guy who got a call from God to become a vigilante superhero. At one point, his sidekick is frustrated because they're not out there fighting crime, and he tells her that maybe she just needs to be bored sometimes. She says...

LIBBY: You don't see them bored in comic books.
FRANK: That's what happens in between the panels.
LIBBY: Wow, in between the panels! Is that where we are right now?
FRANK: We could do anything here.

This journal idea sounds like a great way to get through the Between the Panels days, which in my experience, is most days. Keeping this record could be a great way to look back at the Between the Panels days and see that, in hindsight, and taken together, they were actually pretty extraordinary.

Ah HA !! I just started to grow up about my addictions, Which I never knew I had ? I suspected but because I resisted I was being so selfish. I stated going over all of the events I had been a part of that would have been far less complicated without self medicating and man...holy cow. I start each day with a prayer for peace in my brain and for peace with my loved ones. I'm so much quieter and sleeping like a 12 year old now. I'm learning to keep a journal which has given me a grounding on earth.

Joy to you my friend,

Eric

I started keeping a journal when I was nine, and I wrote my daughter a letter about it when she was nine...

“Dear Katie, When I was nine years old my mom gave me a blank journal. It was the greatest Christmas gift I had ever received, or would ever receive. I’ve kept it faithfully, and it helps me a lot. The good things are fun to look back on, and the difficult things are easier to understand once they’re in writing. Since I was little, I’ve been conscious of how short life is. It makes me sad. The journal is my way of saving my life. Until I had you, I didn’t know if there was anyone who would want to read what I’ve written. Knowing my bubbly little nine-year-old who’s having trouble falling asleep because she’s so excited for Christmas may someday find this interesting makes it more fun to work on. I hope it’s a good story! I wish I didn’t have to miss any of your story, Kate. I love you so much! Mom.”

Derek,
I always enjoy and learn from you (since Growth Hacker interview) , I also appreciate that you have answered my emails (I'm the TV repairman) (now Drone repair). I write down thoughts because I want to write two books. one on overcoming addiction (clean 30 years) one about entrepreneurship (my version of it). I am not organized , maybe what your suggested can help me better organize my thoughts and accomplish my goals .
Thanks
Eric

Thanks Derek funny timing as I am making a bunch of notebooks now - I normally use google sheets though as I like to chart it out

And your nownownow has become a bit of a journal for me as I have kept it as a public archive every Sunday I used to delete the old entries but put it as an archive instead on the bottom of the same now page - https://mikesblog.com/now/

Love this. So useful. I have something of the kind, but it's all over the place. Will get it together tomorrow! Also, I have a mothering journal that I've been writing for Noah (my son) since he was born. Every time something different, important, funny, unusual, sad, etc, happens, I write it down in letter-form for him on a file I have on Google Docs. Been going for 8 years so far and I think he'll really appreciate it in a few years.
☺ — Derek

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the daily diary.
I have been trying to pick up this habit, and then I stop.
Now that I read your blog, I think I have another perspective of how to do it.
I will start today and track it in my habit tracker to build momentum.
Thank you again because I have been reading your blog and book summaries since 2017 after I got introduced to you by Tim Ferris book "Tools of Titans".

Thank you Derek. My practice has been inconsistent and messy and I'm excited to put some of this to work. Especially the "thoughts on" journals. I really appreciate the insights on regrets and on how you work out inner conflicts. I tend to want my journal to be "me," so I try to work it out before putting it down... I now see the flaw in this and how the journal can be a tool for figuring "me" out. Much of your work has impacted me, and this one struck a chord at the write time and place. Wishing you well.

Well.
I wonder if I will ignore this, from my "busy life." or humbly get back to it.

I remember in my first shared house, back in the mid1970's, three of us at once writing in our journals at the kitchen table. At that age we were sweetly sentimental about our lives.

At the time there was one—count 'em, one—book on how to keep a journal, by a woman who had gone to the (what ever we had back then) and discovered there were no books about journals. There are more now.

This was back when the students of professor Philip Zimbardo were asking him about shyness. Again, no books found, so he wrote the first one.

In time I wondered, "Can a man by taking thought add one inch to his stature?" and therefore I put up a semi-permeable membrane around my journal, writing only safe stuff.

At present my journal is, among other things, a way of being accountable to myself on a daily basis, as I can plan in the morning and write the results in the evening. Best to be realistic.

That is really strange. I even thought about start writing a diary yesterday and here is your article.
Okay, I will prepare a new diary and start writing from today on.
Thanks for this post!

Hi Derek,

It really is the highlight of my day when I see your name in my inbox. I have been journalling for a while now as well and your mail has confirmed I'm on the right track. I heard a quote on Tim Ferriss's podcast which said 'I only know what I'm thinking once I've written it down'. I recently did a TEDx talk and found journalling was instrumental to my writing process and really helped flesh out my conflicting thoughts. I love your advice to question the initial thought - I found the goal I wrote down belonged to an old version of me and not necessarily what I want now. Only writing can provide that clarity.

Thanks for your article, always inspiring.

Have a brilliant day,
Warm wishes
Lori

Thanks Derek good Idea

I was lucky enough to go on a school cruise (certainly another time!?) around the Baltic when I was 16 and the detailed log I kept about that won me the Captain's Prize.

I was careful too to keep a diary when I went to university so that, as you say, I would not not rely on distant and embellished memories but fix that time accurately. And I've kept a diary sporadically ever since even though a lot of people are scathing about this particular habit.

Whatever else one can say about writing, it certainly helps to clear the mind. You often don't know what you really think about something until you write it down.

It's a dying art. It's the sort of activity that gets easiy squeezed out in the daily routine, replaced by mindless SMSs.

Which reminds me. I must write that blog post I was thinking about....

Derek, a question on “thoughts on” - do you have a separate file for each topic, or you work with tags? Sometimes thoughts fall into more than one category, such as investing+money or sex+regrets eheh.

I’ve been practicing handwriting journaling for 5 years (Cameron’s “morning pages”). And although it’s a truly healing, it’s indeed illegible most of the times.

Hope Portugal is treating you well!
Separate file for each. If there's too much crossover, like Investing+Money, then I'd just merge them into one flie. And for things really separate (Sex and Regrets, hopefully) just write about the different aspects in each. — Derek

Been struggling to keep up this practice for a decade now. Mainly because I deem this too intimate to keep it in an electronic unencrypted format.

When you start a daily entry but then realise that you are mostly writing "Thoughts On", what do you do? Cut & Paste if into the "Thoughts On" journal? Leave it in the daily journal? Create a duplicate in the "Thoughs On" journal?
Smart to keep it encrypted, yes. And yeah that's a funny question, but I do that all the time. Writing in my daily diary then “Hmm… I need to add this to my ThoughtsOn/Friends.txt” (or whatever). I'll copy the chunk over to that file then dive deeper into it there, and when I switch back to daily diary write “See ThoughtsOn/Friends.txt for today.” — Derek

I enjoy reading your posts, Derek. Thank you so much.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Memoires: The Diary
For Android users, search google play store, spell it correctly.

It's free, it doesn't track you or secretly glean information from your phone.
AND it lets you back up everything inside a zip drive for safe storage.
You can set the tags for your "THOUGHTS ON"

Best of all, you can record voice notes, photos.

A fun way to start our journal each night, "Hey dear, what was the best thing that happened to you today.

Buy this APP creator a cup-of-coffee after you've used it a few years.
I wish every APP served its purpose as well as this one.

NOTE: The app hasn't been updated in years, but it works perfectly on Android 9.0 on my Huawei Mate 20 X.

Unsolicited Huawei testimonial: I love the Mate 20 X! Though I bought it just to piss off a certain government that believes they have the God-given right to place their secret backdoor on our phones. It's the best phone ever! I bought mine in China -35% discount versus the international version. BONUS: Google play store services works perfectly even though Google is banned in China.

Thanks derek going to try this out.

Great write up Derek!

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I have found it very valuable to reflect by Journaling. I write in the morning after meditation and before bed every day with the 5 Minuite Journal 📓. It is interesting to see the way that you look at the different areas of life and create categories. I also take a photo every day, this helps me remember that day in more ways and this I find very enjoyable to go back and look at.

Jim Rohn has a great book on how to Journal and recommends to write in it all the time and keep it with you so you capture all the things you learn and the moments that are meaningful to you.

Thank you again Derek! Make 2019 an outstanding year! 😃

You said no need to comment so I will just say ‘Thank You’ for all the advice over the years.

My life coach gave me a task that goes like this.

Each morning when you waking up drinking your favorite beverage. Write in your journal at the beginning of your day instead of the end.

Write about your perfect day. Imagine it and put it on paper.

Want to blow your mind? At the end of the month, review your morning and evening journals. Don't be amazed if your days match whatever you wrote that morning.


Amen to Mozes' APP recommendation -- Memoires: The Diary for Android.
AWESOME APP.

Interesting. I love:

> This is important because years from now you might be looking back, wondering if you were as happy or as sad as you remember during this time.

> You can’t trust distant memories. But you can trust your daily diary. It’s the best indicator to your future self (and maybe descendants) of what was really going on in your life at this time.

Also the 'Regrets' journal.

I'm looking forward to when voice memos become easy enough to construct, save, and search that we can create an audio version of this. Or perhaps, that's a job for me to take on one day.

Thanks Derek.

Thanks Derek,
All the best for 2019
Jan

Thank you so much for this, Derek. I've been journaling for a few years now -- which is a long time given that I'm in my early 20s -- but I've always created a new file in my vimwiki for each day. To keep the entire diary in one file would enable me to read and review the previous entries a lot easier, which'll prove to be quite beneficial, I assume. I've also been doing themed entries which are kind of a less sophisticated way of doing "Thoughts On..." journals, so I'll start implementing those as well.

Cheers!

Ha... Once again, we haven’t talked about it before, but we both do it exactly the same way! The only difference is that I detest typing, so I keep on handwriting.
Not sure my ink will still be “something that will be readable in 50 years.”
Indeed, it’s doing a lot of good. More than we can even imagine in the first place. It feels great to write, sure, but to me, rereading it (insert period of time here) later is what matters most. I was kinda shocked by my own writings more than once, both in a positive and a negative way (knowing that we’re all wrong about plus and minus. In physics, negative charge = good, and positive charge = bad.) but in the end, it’s definitely something to do. Great idea Derek. Separating topics is also important, thanks for pointing that out.

Thx Derek for sharing your thoughts!
Always love to see one of your mails in my inbox ;)

It’s me again...
Do you have any book recommendations about CBT?
All the best in 2019
Michael
I don't yet, no. — Derek

I hear what you'e saying! My issue has been in the past that I don't have one system. I'v started journalling on paper, in word-documents, in Evernote, in DayOne.

I see a huge point in having one journal for all the tiny bits of Vidar that pops up here and there.

I'm actually considering a blog for this. But that may not get all my deepest thoughts and fears. What do you think about that?

Great piece, Derek. I liked how you future-proofed your writing in a plain-text file. Funnily enough, I wrote about this topic just last week at https://dazne.net/journal/. Thanks.

A few years ago I did the "morning pages" journaling for a few months and then stopped. But after stopping I kept finding myself thinking about those days when I journaled every morning and how much of a difference it made with helping me think more clearly and feel less stressed. Journaling my thoughts even helped me speak to people with more clarity.

This year I've started journaling every day and plan to never stop again.

The "Thoughts On" journaling is a great idea and I will implement it into my daily journal routine today. The regrets journal is an especially good idea.

Thanks for these recommendations!

Last year I started a blog as a public daily diary, and wrote more than 160 blog entries. I stopped to take a break in December, and haven't found the inspiration to get started again. I think I just found the inspiration I needed!

I recently came across a group of people (https://github.com/RichardLitt/meta-knowledge#readme) creating wikis containing everything they know (e.g., https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz) and it sounds very similar to your idea of topic journals. I was thinking of replacing my daily blog with a wiki, but after reading your article it makes a lot more sense to do both.

I, for one, would love to see what you've written under some of those headings in your topic journal. Do you think having a public diary and topic journal makes sense, or are these better kept private?
It's ideal if you can share some publicly. But I think you need the freedom to write privately without having to consider anyone else's perception of it. — Derek

I've been keeping a diary for 15+ years now. And I do regret the couple of years where I stopped keeping it, because I lost on perspective and insight doing so! (= I wasted time)

I dabble in a lot of different topics in it, too. Though I basically keep it all in one file (6.7MB of plain text!) and use a form of hashtag to keep track of the different topics.

I've found it very valuable to:

• Understand and fix past issues (family history, problems growing up.) It brings a lot of clarity -- and it's a lot cheaper than psychotherapy; probably a lot more effective too!

• Understand oneself better: our behavior, the impact of our decisions… Re-reading yourself once in a while get you lots of insight.

• Decision-making and goal tracking. e.g.: every month, I would re-assess my business goal to see how I'm going and what the next best move would be. Also helps stick to it for long-term, demanding goals.

• The memories. "A life worth living is worth recording." And there's more substance to it than to, say, Instagram pics.


And I just use it to reflect on a bunch of things and make my thinking clearer (books, people I meet, concepts…) Thinking in writing is more powerful than mere thoughts, because you get to take a step back.


In passing, I also used it for learning languages:

- Started it in my native French… but ended up switching to English, which is now my most-used language – the one in which I feel the most comfortable articulating complex ideas.

- I kept it a bit in two other languages at times. Helped me immerse myself in the language more (was harder of course, but still worth the effort.)


My tip to someone starting now would be to keep it in Markdown. And do keep it on the computer where you can *search* it (re-reading is half the insight and, after a while, it's just humongous so you'll need the ability to search.)

I will do it ! Thanks !

Is it just me that's really curious to know what your thoughts on airports are?

Journaling has been the one constant for me through the last 5 years. As someone with busy seasons on the one hand and weeks of calmer times on the other it helped me keep somekind of steady in my mind. Also on days I felt unproductive but journaled I knew at least I did something usefull.
I have some rituals in my journaling I copied from the www I'd like to share:

Morning:
I am greatfull for...
What would make today great?
Then write 2-3 lines about current readings and what to learn from them.

Evening:
3 amazing things that happened today ...
Journal of what I did and how I felt about it.
How could I have made today better?

Very nice, Derek!

Thanks for sharing this.

Oh wow!

Filing journals under "domains" is such a cool idea!

Usually, I end up writing about one topic each time anyway (about whatever has occupied my mind that day the most). But then have trouble finding my writings looking back.

So useful ideas. Thanks!

Love this post. I have organized my thoughts in evernote but hate the cloud and being stuck in a proprietary system so will look at switching to plain text. Odd that they don't have such a simple option of text for exporting.

I journal for clarity and problem-solving. I’d never ever share it with my loved ones. Journaling is very different from verbally confiding with a friend or therapist. It’s almost like the magic eight ball in providing answers and direction. While writing, clarity emerges. Yes, one’s real feelings about big subjects like careers, marriages, love, conflict, confrontation, relationships, and so forth.

Should I make a big deal about an issue, or not? Fish, or cut bait? Remain in a career or relationship? What do I fear? What action should I take? What are the risks? What’s my inner compass telling me to do? Will I do it? If not, what’s preventing me? And what are the costs of denying the raw truth uncovered by intimate journaling? If not now, when?

Started writing like this at 29. Was too perfectionist to start typing on a computer, so I would go to a nearby table and journal a page a day, or try. Didn't work at first, but three years later I journal everyday on my computer multiple times, to the post where I sometimes worry if I journal too much.

I have budget journal that I update every month, a regret journal with every regret I ever had, a wishlist journal, an attention journal to manage my responses to my posted work, and back when I tried cryptocurrency trading I had a journal for that.

It's fantastic for memory as well. When I read back, I could not only see my own patterns of behavior but how similar I thought to what I think today. Painful as it might be to admit that I haven't changed as much as I would like, it's satisfying to know I have a tool to win against myself.

Hi Derek. Always a great treat to hear from you! Thank you for having a bigger picture in your life of the whys. It is truly what drives each of us and what you are doing is reflecting upon your life thoughts and motivations. You are a student of U! The more you are able to see how different life moments affect you the more you are able to understand why you are doing and thinking the things you are thinking. It shapes our entire existence and then it becomes greater then you and then you want others to encounter this same thing! Thanks for your willingness to share your ideas to help others grow! Much appreciated friend! God bless. Jim Vilandre www.jimvilandre.com

Great article. I have started & stopped this process countless times. How do you get over the fear that someone might read it? I've found that I can't shake this. It forces me to not be 100% honest & therefore loses much of the value. Thanks Derek!
Password-protected on an encrypted hard drive. ☺ Though my friend Valerie's approach is wise. — Derek

Good to hear from you! I noticed there's no "Waiting" Thoughts On Journal - seems these last few weeks might have filled up that volume!
As always, thanks for sharing - hope all is well!

For folks who aren't afraid of the cloud and want a way to track their private journaling, get stats on how much they've written, textual analysis, etc. check out https://750words.com/

Oh, Derek! This is timely for me. I woke up questioning my morning journal practice, itching to shake it up a little and find something more inspiring and connected to my current life.

Your topic journals are great inspiration for this! Thank you for sharing today.

Also, I am curious your thoughts on Erika, since that is my name, although I can assume those thoughts are about another Erika :) still, it was fun to see. Tell her I say hello!

E.

Hi Derek,
U really enjoyed this post; it's very timely for me. And, while I'm not ready to leave public commentary, I'm happy to share privately via email.

Best,
Landa

Thanks for sharing, Derek.

I journaled briefly when I was a teenager, going through my first love and heartbreak. It wasn't helpful. Indeed, it kept me stuck on unhealthy and obsessive thoughts I would have done better to let go of. I was never able to--until years later--look back at those journals with anything resembling the objectivity required to learn from them.

It took maybe 15 more years for me to realize I could finally journal in a healthy manner.

Journaling is not for everyone or every situation. It takes a certain amount of emotional maturity to have an accepting relationship with your past self.

But now that I've gotten to that point, I am so grateful for the ability to save my most important thoughts. And that's how I journal: a simple moleskine in my pocket and by my bed in which I record insights and feelings of the sort that don't occur every day, and which seem important to my outlook on life. It's a manageable amount of information for me.

I’ve done this for decades too, although I’m a bit less organized. I also have done a meditation practice for more than a decade now that involves reviewing the day at the end of nightly meditation, and doing a mental “re-do” of situations I feel I could have handled better. Michael Roach describes this really well in The Diamond Cutter. It’s incredibly useful.
Also, you’re absolutely correct, you DO want to look into CBT. If you have Audible, the Satterfield Great Courses CBT module is one of the best I’ve found. I think you would love this.
Thanks for this, I’m going to borrow liberally from your suggestions.
Cheers!

Thank you Derek, another though provoking post. I've just started journaling since just the beginning of year and found it already incredibly helpful. It made me write about some difficult situations, which after reading back over a week later, gave me some wonderful insights which I don't think I would have realised without journaling.

I was encouraging my brother to do the same and I haven't been able to articulate why I've found it so useful in such well written terms as you've done here. So, thank you.

Perhaps a quick question (and apologies if someone has asked this in their comments below). Before I started, I was trying to figure out whether it would be better to write it in a physical diary, or on a computer. Whilst I see more merits technically for computer use (readability and able to search), I switched after the first day from the computer to writing out manually on a 'page per view' A4 diary. Although it takes a little longer, I found the whole writing process a little more cathartic. I'm always on my computer and it made a change switching to the physical form of writing and I get some pleasure from the visual form and flicking through what I've written. It's a standard, A4 page per view diary.

I just wondered whether anyone else had any thoughts on this? Whilst the central point is of course writing a journal (in whatever medium) perhaps, perhaps the chosen form may contribute to its' 'sticking' power?

Thank you once again Derek for your wonderful posts. Always such a joy to read and explore.

Claire

I used to journal, but fell out of the practice. I pick it up from time to time, but then let it go. Another inspiration to re-start and keep the flow.

Anaïs Nin's diaries had a powerful impact on my life. I had always envisioned myself keeping a record of my entire life. Then life got busy.

25 years ago I spent 3 years living on the streets, traveling around the country trying to become a famous artist. I wound up converting it into a hypertext version with different threads (Thoughts On...). If you ever feel bored, you can read it here: https://musespace.com/book/html/preface.html

Someday I'll get it published. It remains, for me, one of the most powerful sets of memories in my life.

Thanks for the reminder of why we do it and the nudge to pick that thread back up again.

I have had a journal one for the last 34 years I'm 55 now. I recommend it!

Thank you Derek. I like the idea of having separate "thoughts on" journals. If you had to assign a "thoughts-on" label to your daily diary, what would it be? In other words, how do you distinguish between the content that goes into the daily diary and what is strictly "thoughts-on" related? In reviewing dialogue in comments, it seems like there are a few questions to this matter and you touch on it as well in a response - but it still remains a little unclear to me.

I like your approach to categorizing your thoughts/writings. I'm looking into applying that for my journaling.

Although you're not a "cloud" guy, I use Google Docs all the time for journaling.

When I have a shot of inspiration (possibly from reading a tweet or hearing something profound), I'll go to my web browser (whether mobile or laptop) and type in the following URL: "docs.new" (as in http://docs.new).

This URL will automatically open up a new Google Doc for me to write down all my thoughts on the topic at hand.

wow - this is one of your most helpful posts! Thanks!

Brilliant, as usual.

Very well explained.

Seems like an Idea best started 70 years ago (for me). Today will have to do.

"My People" is a concept I learned from my friend Randy Revelle, founder of Context Associated. Any chance you knew him too?

Thank you, Derek,
I know the value of journaling, or keeping a daily diary, and have done it off and on in the past. I just keep falling off the rails 🙁. You have presented an insightful plan and format for consistent tracking of thoughts and analysis. Thank you! I am starting up again! 😁
Kristy

I never thought of keeping separate journals for each thoughts. That seems WAY more organized for things that you want to come back to in the future. And the various topics that you keep track of is a great list to think about. I often have revelations about music or songwriting but I don't have a method for organizing these thoughts throughout time.

So thank you SO much for sharing this idea!

Wes

I love hearing from you! So inspiring! Oh, the cloud. I have been using Notes on my iPhone and somehow deleted my most recent. I guess it has been beyond 30 days and fear now that I cannot recover my most treasured. Another throwback belief that invisible capturing of creativity has its dangerous side to be sucked into a black hole.
You remind me of my love of The Artists Way and all of Julia Cameron’s books published by Jeremy Tharcher. We had a very long lunch with Jeremy and his wife Shari Lewis (my favorite female comedian with her puppet Lamb Chop) I grew up watching Shari. Jeremy however was a more recent discovery. I thanked him profusely for bringing Cameron’s books to the 🌎 world. I think he was a bit shocked to receive so much love when Shari had been in the lime light for decades. What an amazing couple❤️ Gone too soon but remembered forever. Cameron’s Morning Pages were a life changing experience.

I like this. New insight to a practice I've held off-and-on for more than 5 - 7 years. I'm currently off it, because I found it becomes repetitive, and I don't see the "huge gains" I did when I first began. Every time I come back to it, however, I always remember why I do it.

This is cool, I'll give it a shot. Thanks Derek!

Thanks Derek for your thoughts. I've been doing a daily diary and also a picture a day for years now. I look back now and realize that some of the most mundane photos are also the most significant. Reason being, is that those photos are typically of things that I've come to accept as "normal", and in my experience, "normal" constantly changes. Anyway, thanks for your insight.


Best,
Mark

I'm writing on my journal almost everyday. I have one at the office and at home, both got a security code. Hehehe...
It's very relaxing writing my thoughts. It's my form of meditation. After writing all my thoughts I feel at ease.

Thank You! Love the idea especially since I’m starting to write more in my older age! I wish I had written more down through the first half of my life! I’ll work on this better over the next 40 years!

Thanks Derek

I started keeping a daily diary on my first day of college...and I haven’t missed a day since. That was in September 1980. Yes, your calculations are correct: 38 years and counting. Always interesting —and often amazing — to look back on what I was doing and thinking and feeling at various points in my life! I like your “Thoughts On...” suggestion as well.

Daily journaling is the best! I’ve been doing it for a few years now, but have never thought of going digital until I read this. Would be much easier to always have with me and easier to reflect. I think the questions you ask yourself when planning to do something will help evolve my journaling and my thought processes, so thanks for sharing!

You may remember that I used to suggest journal-writing from all my students. Glad it has made a difference with you - and you are an excellent writer (and thinker). Hugs!

I've kept a journal on and off for the past 30 or so years. It started as an exercise in a uni course and I still use the black and white composition books.

Since then I've always thought it would help me recognize the signs of approaching depression, or mania, but those were the times I'd quit writing. It can be a good release and become a good habit, but it will always get run over by the stronger forces in your life. I wish I could have managed to write through it all, though. Memories are too unreliable whether you're bipolar or lazy or busy or a genius.

Great ideas to broaden and yet focus on what you write about. Thanks for sharing as always.

Hey Derek,

Thanks for this. I've been keeping a pocket notebook for the last two years where I track what I'm doing every 20 minutes. I deal with "Time Blindness" and have a hard time telling the difference between 5 minutes and 50 minutes depending on the activity I'm engaged in.

I've found it really helpful to keep track of what I'm actually doing with my life - not just what I say I'm doing. It also helps me have more self compassion because I can see that I put a lot of emphasis on my family over making money and that is important to me. Always trying to live my values rather than for someone else's expectations.

As a psychotherapist who is very familiar with CBT I thought I'd put a few well worn recommendations down. Please let me know if you end up reading any and what you think. :)

A New Guide for Rational Living - Albert Ellis
Feeling Good - David Burns
Creating a Balance: Managing Stress - Stephen Palmer

Thats the only way to go on.
I have been doing that since I was 9 and it is the best to keep my ideas and develop my myself.

Not always we ll be honest with ourselves but ... thats my secret

Thanks to share it with me.

Cheers

Love this. Thank you Derek! Doing it but sporadically.

I work at the computer all day so the thought of spending more time typing up a journal doesn't work for me, but I do love the idea of categorizing my entries for easy reference in the future. Wondering if a digital notebook might be the best of both worlds.

I use Evernote and Word, but I'm gathering that you use something else. Do you mind sharing what that is?
Plain text files only. I don't want to depend on any company's program. Plain text files can be written, searched, and edited with anything. It's the only thing I trust. ☺ — Derek

Hi Derek

Love this article, have been journaling daily now for 4 years and it has been extremely valuable in clearing my head and given me a better perspective on life and were I am at. The thoughts on idea sounds interesting and I will give it a go. Keeping my thoughts on a particular subject makes sense and can see value in this.

Thanks for sharing

Love this post! I have kept a journal since I was about 5. (starting with the help of my Mom.) That journal sadly is burned. Yes, I said, I burned it when I was 10 after my older brother read it with his best friend (and my crush! mortifying for a 10 year old!) Oh how I wish I still had that journal. Anyway...I have continued journaling and using better hiding places for them (I hope) during my teen years and on. Now it's helpful for my memory, making decisions, tracking habits, de-stressing, songwriting/ideas and noticing patterns with my behavior. Love the idea of separating into topics. Mine are on paper and a bit scattered with topics, but I've finally started adding an index to help me find important passages. The best thing about this Monday was seeing your email in my inbox this morning! Thank you for highlighting this topic to help reaffirm this habit.

Derek, For years I've been using an app called Cognitive Diary to aid me to process in a manner similar to what you've discribed. It has links to resources to help me get a deeper understanding & clarity when I feel the need for that. You brought up an important point about having access to a history on archive. So I checked the app setting and it does allow me to backup the data. Though I never thought to do that. I still "jot" thoughts on paper and make text notes, but I'm not nearly as organized as you are. But until now, it did not occur to me that I can actually approach the subject of "organization" in my journaling. You are so good at pointing things outs even when they are hiding in plain sight. Thanks for all you do to help others.

Sincerely,
Tina

I both admire your discipline and wonder how you can take the time to do this reflection daily. Thank you for sharing some of your findings like writing a thought you think is new but you notice you recorded it a year ago. And that we make decisions based on our beliefs of how we will feel in the future, but when reviewing entries over time there is no evidence that we will feel the way we project that we will. You are a unique and fascinating guy. I am a 63 yr old man thinking of retiring from a sales career that is unfulfilling. I want to be free to do whatever I want. And want to encourage people and mentor them to overcome fear and doubt. I feel like you are free and doing what you want and are having a fulfilling life! Awesome!

why separate files for the "thoughts on"? seems like one massive file would be way way better for searching later...I made ONE .txt file and copied all your thoughts-on categories as headers for each set of thoughts. Your categories are excellent. love it.

What a great share Derek. I really loved it. I keep my diaries the old fashioned way- in hard copies bound in beautiful covers that I store away. I have diaries going back to high school; a long time ago.. One day I discovered those by mistake and starting reading them. I was in my 30s at the time. I had to ask myself who is this person? The tone of voice was like someone else completely.
You sound very organized on this topic. I am not so much. Rather I write down my thoughts and dreams, hope and desires, emotions and perceptions in a more general way.
I like the idea of sorting these out by topic.
All the best,
Lynn Fishman

Thank you for sharing Derek! This article makes us all crave to crank-up our own diaries now! You always have the coolest ideas man. Thanks again for inspiring me and countless others on the planet!

Trey:)
http://www.WhiskeyChild.com/SomeWhereOutHere

I made a big change in my life after starting a diary.
Started it by asking "Who I am?"... and answering.
"What I am after?"
"What do I have now?"
"Is what I am doing taking me closer to what I am/want?"

Great stuff.

I first heard about the positive side of journaling from Steffen Sagmeister. Tried it occasionally for 3 years or so.
I noticed that I need to journal when I am unhappy.
Haven’t done it for some months now which is a good sign for my state of mind...

Thank you Derek. Have a great day.

Hey Derek,

Thank you for posting this. Useful indeed!

I meant to journal for a while and your post made me start today. If it brought you so much value, I’ll just do it for half a year at first and see whether I’ll feel the same.

Did my first entry after reading your post about a situation that happened just beforehand. It had a relationship component. In such a case, where your daily diary touches topics you have a separate journal on: do you take those thoughts over to that journal as well? Or do you just search your diary in addition to the journal, if you’re looking for something particular?
Yes, if in my daily diary I start writing about a subject I have a journal on, or should, I'll copy it over there and elaborate in that journal. (Then in my daily diary usually say “go see ThoughtsOn/NewZealand.txt for today”) — Derek

Here it goes:
1/28/2019
Day one of diary. Inspired by Derek! LOVE the guy! ...

Wow, yours is a beast!
I can see a mindmap of files, interesting stuff
I probably won't come back to this comment to read it, and it will be displayed for all to see in this raw state - in some ways the opposite of writing in a daily journal. Food for thought.
The world could use a lot more sincere journaling people
Thank you for sharing your reasons and methods, they are very motivating!

Thank you man. I was just thinking about doing this.

Greetings!

Thanks for sharing but was helpful. I use to journal and stopped, but will start up again tonight.

Tushar

That is a great idea, I have been doing it for just the third year now.
thanks for the idea trigger, sometimes I just moan about people that create agro for me and others.
Wj=her are you hanging out now, had your first email when you were down under where I am.
best wishes. ☺ <3 ☺ A.

Literally what you're saying is the basis of most personal development and coaching programs. Awareness, thoughts, questions, and a slight detachment. Would love to chat with you more at some point. You can find out more about me at benjamin-ritter.com and liveforyourselfconsulting.com. If anything piques your interest please reach out!

Derek--

I like the idea of a daily journal but it is difficult to discipline oneself to do it every day (or even the next day). I have attempted it once or twice in the past and it seemed more like a chore I had to do rather than a true expression of what I was feeling. I have revisited many of the songs I have written over the last 40 years and they do provide great insight into what I was feeling at the time. From high school anger at my parents about something silly or longing for a pretty girl in class (that I never had the guts to ask for a date :) The stressful times in my life where I overcame hardship or grief. These I was able to express in song and lyrics. I even amaze myself how "deep" I was on some things at a very young age or a moral stand that I still am content with in my later years. There are songs of love for every girl I dated (and married) over the years as well as The Girl I Never Knew. In reading these song lyrics I do enjoy knowing what I was thinking and feeling at the time. So, in a way, I can say that my "Song Journals" has been a similar concept of examination and reflection that I truly value after all these years. RC

Love it. Have you ever used Slack? I was just thinking that would be a good way to organize your “thoughts on”. I just added a #regrets to my Slack workspace. Like you said though, I’m not sure Slack will be around in 50 years.
Hell no. I write offline, intentionally no WiFi on my laptop, in plain text files only. No companies, no cloud, no services needed. — Derek

This came at the optimal time. I've used a journal before and found it helpful, but it felt too much like a chore like I was pressuring myself to write too much. This way seems much simpler, thoughtful, useful and sustainable. One suggestion is perhaps to use an app or software that is more helpful to organize the journal (I don't want fifty wordpad files) but then back it up to plain text.

I started “Bullet Journaling” at the first of the year created by Ryder Carroll. He calls the “Thoughts On”, “Collections” pretty much the same principle except he pens his thoughts. I’m looking forward to putting this into practice.

What about journaling via a spreadsheet, so it can be sortable, e.g. by topics?

Here's one I just created, inspired by your post... anyone can copy it by clicking File > Make a Copy...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mCj9bt-BJsE7QGbdDspElEQlLM2jPPzHf0KjNm1n5y4/edit?usp=sharing

Once you copy, you can add whatever columns are important.

I have a system of handwritten notes, business ideas and thoughts on life and a blog I do that is similar to these ideas. I call the files I keep, "The Raven Files", lol. Because, I am known as "the raven" as a nickname, since ravens are my favorite animal and my musician name is, NevaMore, from the famous Edgar Allen Poe poem.

Thanks Derek!

This came at the most opportune time. I had been invited to become a coach for Tony Robbins and had been anticipating my start date of February 4th. However, this morning I open the email from the organization and was told that the next coaches Academy wouldn't begin until the end of May. Of course, I had already scheduled rooms, food, and other ancillary things in order to participate for 10 days in Los Angeles at Unleash the Power Within. Needless to say, I was mightily disappointed!

Now, after reading your brief email I am sitting down late in the afternoon at a very unusual time for me since I generally write in my journal as part of my morning routine after waking, and I will take your guidance and make some notes to myself, share my feelings and thoughts, and get clear on what my next step will be.

Best of the New Year to you!

Ron

Thanks for sharing, Derek. Your schedule (writing a bit each night, and making it up the following morning if you miss a night) sounds good to me, so I'll give it a try.

This part especially resonated with me: "Sometimes I think I have a new thought on a subject, so I open up the file and write it down, then afterwards I see I had that same thought a year ago and had forgotten about it. If you care about your thoughts, keep them."

I've done this before too, and it always humbles me to relearn that I forget my thoughts, even those I thought important enough to write down, and I forget them so completely that I don't even recognize them when I read them later.

Thanks so much for this and your other essays. I’d love to hear your thoughts on parenting. Was there a moment when you knew you wanted to be a parent? How much depended on a partner? How did you navigate the conflict of such a big decision?

Cheers :)

j
Sorry but this article is all I feel like saying publicly. The rest is too private. — Derek

Thanks Derek.
Alan De Baton has a “decision dice”. You roll it, and it has six perspectives to answer or query from. (Death, parents, enemy, courage, etc)
I roll it as a prompt to my current topic. Example: I’m writing about my next painting/design + what would my mom or dad want to in a painting? Or, if I were going to die, what would I paint? If I felt courageous what would I paint? Etc

Fun surprises. Your friend,
Laurel holmes

4laureleaf
Read about Brian Eno's “Oblique Strategies” too. — Derek

Derek - what great advice! I keep a business/work journal & a private journal, but the idea of writing on specific topics that you can easily refer back to is fantastic. Thanks for sharing!

Excellent! I really like the “Thoughts On” concept. I write daily, but haven’t ever used that lens. I will start this evening. Thanks Derek!

Interesting and enjoyable. You are much more organized and structured than I and I admire that.

I keep files on many similar topics but rarely write in them.

I do journal daily and my journal is more of an intention setting tool.

My first entry is a stoic quote of the day.

My second is 3 things I am grateful for.

Third are the 5 pillars of my life philosophy which are

Amour fati- (embrace everything )

Be impeccable
Take nothing personally
Don’t jump to conclusions
Always do my best

I close it off w 5 Spanish phrases I am committing to memory.

I find that by writing every morning I set the tone for the day which in turn sets the tone for weeks, months and years.

Some time I would like to hear (or read) your thoughts on writing.

As a struggling author I would like to learn from someone as accomplished as yourself

Aaahhh... the habit of daily journaling. I love the simplicity and specificity of your suggestion. Put the date on it. Tag the most common topics (thanks for courageously sharing yours - in alphabetical order - love it!) do it at the end of the day, next morning if you miss it. Keep it simple and real, the mundane might be the most valuable down the road. Great to hear your voice. You’ve crossed my mind several times over the past few weeks. I regret not taking your advise many years ago and sharing my process of becoming in the moment. And, although i’ve Written much over the years, my notes are scattered across many boxes and many moves most without dates. A reflection of the chaos I was surviving. I’m more settled now. Today is a new day, in a new inbwhat feels like a new era of my life. Perhaps it’s tome to molt another layer of stuff, create space for new life. Use your fabulous daily journaling specific to begin again. There is no time like the present 1/28/19. Today I release the regret. I’ll add dates from here on out. My future self deserves more joy and ease. Yes, I’ll Cheers to that! Happy New Year Derek Sivers.

Good one, Derek!

I just came across your name again in Greg McKeown's "Essentialism". This journal article was especially good.

Since I tend to have vivid dreams each night, I have started keeping a journal of them when I wake up.

Happy writing!

Thats so awesome!

I started writing a title for the day right next to date and time. It's not supposed to be a "big thing", or to make it seem like every day deserves a title like a book or movie. It's just a way to think about a remarkable event in the day, something that stuck with me. Only after doing this for a while I noticed that forcing myself to summon the day in one short sentence has become a powerful habit.
It's always fun to glance at the day's titles. It's for me only, it wouldn't make much sense to others, but I think it has been a positive discovery, and it's my 2 cents to you!

Thanks for sharing, I'll start having a separate file for "thoughts" as well!! Loved it!!

Hah, so surprised to see this land in my mailbox since coincidentally I've been working on an Android app which is specifically for that "Ask yourself questions, then question your answers." purpose. It's at customjournalapp.com

I truly believe that in the future we are going to think about mental exercise (yoga, walking in the woods, journaling, meditation, etc.) similar to how we think about going to the gym (or exercise in general) now.

Instead of asking if you've been working out (or suggesting that you should). They will say "hey, you look like you need to take a mental break, go for some meditation or a media cleanse". Journaling is an excellent way to reflect and "work out the mind"

Great article; it just may have convinced me to start keeping a journal. My only critique is actually more of cautionary words: that Erika and Carla are cool with being included on the same list ;)

I've not yet committed to a daily journal but I have and using a "thoughts on" journal for a couple of years now. I use my Gmail account and send emails to myself using the subject head to designate the topic. Comedy writing, recipes, and happiness are just a couple of my headings.

Thanks Derek, another joyful reading!

My question: How often do you review your past notes?

for me it works only as a mind purification. Just imagine the volume of the notes you accumulate after 10 years, are you going to re-read each note at least once in your lifetime? please share more of your experiences for reviewing your past notes.

Thank you!
Mehdi
Just when I need to. Reflecting back on a relationship, for example. Was I as happy as I remember? I go back and read the daily entries. It's often surprisingly different from my memories. Or if I'm thinking on a subject like investing or getting a dog, I go back and look at all my past thoughts on it, looking for consistency or not. — Derek

Thank you, Derek!

Carlee Smith 2019/1/28
Wow, this is Great. I think I have three Journals, that sit by my bed. I rarely take time to write my thoughts. I set many Goals, and have Accomplished more of them, then I ever thought I would; at 56.
Your e-mail is an inspiration, to make time; just do it.

The complexity you go through to simplify! People journal, but you - you can’t just journal. You turn it into art, a subject of study. Delightful to get a glimpse of your journaling structure. Something I’ve wondered. Thanks for sharing. It’s inspiring.

Thank you for this Derek! You articles always seem perfectly timed to inform something I am grappling with.
I have kept a journal of random thoughts intermittently for years on paper. At the end of last year I started keeping a daily journal on stoic principles, by anticipating challenges for the approaching day, asking myself how I may best behave in the situation then later reviewing the successes/failures of the day. This was useful. I agree that questioning helps clarity and personal growth.
It's easy for me to become very outcome driven so I decided this year to let go of outcome goals, focus on processes and clarify my values.
I like the idea of the categorised thoughts journal and reviewing the thoughts later. I imagine I would have more thoughts on my highest values and so this will help me identify these and observe how they evolve over time.
I think it is time to go at least partly digital! Thank you

Where do you keep your entries? On your Laptop? Do you have backups?
Laptop, yeah, but I back up nightly to a USB stick + remote servers in two different countries. ☺ — Derek

Thoughts on regrets is a wonderful idea,thank you.
Btw, yes, it's really frustrating to have some sort of epiphany on a subject and then realize you had it already years ago and forgot about it. It happens to me on a regular basis. :/

I've been keeping a diary habit for about two years and then I've stopped.

I never questioned this decision, up until today.

Now I understand what I've been doing wrong - I've been writing each Morning. I wrote about what I felt like (mostly), and what I want to do/achieve throughout the day.

But evening journals seem far more interesting now when I think about them.

I'll have a lot of things to reflect on, and the journal will be far more than the usual "I feel optimistic this morning..."
Dwelling on feelings is great, sure, but much more so when they're incorporated into a larger whole - otherwise, it's just trying too hard to write about how you feel.

Thank you for this!

I have always wanted to journal but never gotten around to it. I will now change that. I would love to be able to read what my thoughts were 10 years ago, especially when I feel more and more that memory cannot be entirely trusted, and not to mention all the moments lost in time which I would have liked to read and learn from now.

Thanks for sharing, Derek.
I'm a big fan and admirer of your person and work.
Have a nice day.
Martha

Hello Derek, A bit late but Happy New Year, and thank you for this article. I had thought I was the only one who practised this discipline as I'd done this throughout my working day in Industry to assist me in my works documentation. I still have Diaries going back six years or more. It's a great article for those who have never contemplated the idea of the exercise.

Brilliant ... I'm fascinated. Thank you. Be authentic, please

Nice line of thinking! Writing down thoughts as views, questions, answers can be quite beneficial for better understanding of the outside as well as the inside. Do you do / Have you done any autosuggestion process using writing exactly before sleep in order to connect to your subconscious mind?

Health and smile! :)

Been writing a journal since the 1980's. At times I will go back,read them and notice where I was at a particular time in my life and how I was able to overcome difficulties.

I'm a bit old school and have been using marble composition books.

Hello Derek,

Writing in journals for over 30 years has been incredibly helpful.
Sometimes I go back and read one, and realize my memory was completely different than what I wrote.

Question on what you wrote:

First, you wrote some of your questions here:
“...I ask myself what I hope to get out of it, why, and whether there are other ways to get what I want.”
(Very helpful)

Then you wrote:
“I answer with my initial thought first, but then question it with skepticism and consider different perspectives.”

Could you help me understand better what you mean by ‘question it with skepticism’ and share some of those questions and/or an example of the skepticism?

I appreciate you.
🙂
Have an excellent day.

I don't journal regularly. The act of writing in a journal feels cathartic but then to go back and read some of the entries would make me cringe. Maybe that's the point?

Long time reader, first time replier.

Thank you for your thoughts on journaling.

I’ve been journaling about work. What I’ve noticed is that it really helps with documenting and revisiting the challenges and learnings of my day to day. This has helped with addressing the key selection criteria’s of jobs that I’ve applied for and even answering questions in interviews.

Nice to hear from you again and hoping all is well and good since your last contact.

Regards
D

Thank you for your great actionable insights! Digital diaries have been distracting for me as well if not plain text. I tried Evernote and get hung up on formatting. I really like your idea on separating out into topical categories so you can track those specifically over time.

Thanks again for sharing,

Michael

Hello Derek, brilliant post as always.
Paper vs digital. If using digital, or thinking about switching, how do you suggest we separate the "thoughts on Journal"? For example, one word document for a normal everyday journa, and then separate words docs for the diff topics?
Thanks

Hi Derek,

Thanks for a great article again. I really appreciate your work, you are one of only a few people in the cyberspace that have inspired my path and way of life quite a lot. Just to note, I am a software developer, musician, and author, so I find so much in your writings.

I just wanted to share with you that after 12 years of daily journaling I've also found a very simple and effective system, and a few months ago I've turned it into a free journaling app for Mac called Reflection. If you'd be interested to check it out, please visit my website https://jocius.net/reflection or use this App Store link directly:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reflection-personal-journal/id1441459828

It resonated with me so much when you mentioned keeping everything in plain text format when using digital journals. My app does exactly that, it is designed to keep all journals for decades by storing everything in Markdown format, directly in the file system.

Thanks again and best wishes!

Martynas

Mark Hurst's book Bit Literacy advocates for future-proofing through defaulting to plain text. The idea wound up affecting me profoundly. Thanks for amplifying the importance of this in your post and comments. (And yes, I also very much appreciate the main point of the post as well :) )

This was a great read.

I really liked the idea of keeping thoughts separate and re-examining them later.

I mostly write in journals to hash out an idea that I feel is valuable but is also difficult to understand or implement.

I daily journal in the morning, and it's amazing how my memory works. I forget huge chunks of time, but when I read about a day years ago and I almost put myself in that day as if it was yesterday. I am going to start using the 'Thoughts On' suggestion, but I use Evernote now. I would like to use .txt; however, I also like to easily search. 'What was the name of that restaurant, we went to with our neighbors?'....the simple search helps my memory too.

I struggle to write a journal. I don't know why,maybe I don't think I have anything important to write, maybe I'm lazy or maybe I'm afraid. Its something I would like to do as I've read many books and journal writing is up there as the thing we should do. Maybe I need help.

What if you read books and listen to podcasts on one of your writing topics? Do you ever add some of your book notes to your “thoughts on” subject notes — if they’re on the same topic? Or are they best kept separate?
Very often! “Read an interesting idea in a book today, about _____. That got me thinking…” then I continue from there. — Derek

The "Thoughts On…" text files is a great idea/solution. Essentially, like a blog category. Instantly adopted into my plain-text journaling system. Seems so obvious in hindsight.

Regarding daily journaling, after many years of fussing with various daily journal solutions, I discovered one that works great, with some slight modifications I've made. I've shared the details on my blog:

https://georgecoghill.wordpress.com/2018/01/01/the-one-line-per-day-one-page-plain-text-daily-journal/

Essentially, a single text file, with one line per day summarizing the significant events of the day (even the mundane events). The key is that it's designed with Future You in mind as the reader, rather than Present You as the writer. Easily skimmable, easy to grasp context of a range of time.

My post goes into plenty of detail on it all, including some great apps: check out both the 1Writer and Drafts apps on iOS, as well as the nvALT app on macOS. Perfect for this sort of plain-text journaling.

This one reminds me of how helpful my diaries are in remembering certain thought processes I've had over time and how to stay on track. I personally find gethermit.com to be excellent for this.
Thanks!

Always very helpful. Derek, you're a gift to this world.

I just started a journaling group on Facebook, called Tumbler and Write. Shared this post too. Thank you. I really needed this boost.

Great post! When it comes to lots of notes on lots of topics, I remain a fan of programs like Notational Velocity (http://notational.net/) because of "Incremental Search." If you find yourself spending more than a few seconds to find a topic or something you recall writing about previously, this solves that problem. Having kept this collection of text files for years, I've lost count of how many I have but it really doesn't matter. I can keep making more or increasingly, combining existing ones to make less.

About asking yourself questions when feeling conficted:

There's an intriguing method of dealing with internal conflict. Imagine the personification of each side of the conflict and let them have a discussion (eg the "you" that wants to travel vs. the "you" that wants to be sedentary).

I've found out it feels surprisingly good. It lets you solve inner problems without the feeling of being judged by yourself because you become a simple spectator instead of the victim.

Cheers,
Aleix

Derek,

I love the idea of journaling and note taking. It propels me into something which I naturally do (excessively) already.

2 things I've been struggling with about journaling:
. it seems to me that note taking makes me less mindful in general and changes the way I experience life. E.g. when I read about a great concept in a book and instead of enjoying the book and maybe further elaborations of the concept I interrupt my flow of reading to take a note. The same thing happens when I experience something noteworthy in real life. I immediately think: "Oh, I have to write this down later". Like in Quantum Mechanics, the fact that I'm taking notes changes the way I experience things and how I interact with my environment. Do you sometimes also struggle to find the balance between taking notes and being mindful about the current moment and just enjoying it?

. I find that my latticework of thinking models (thanks Charlie Munger) progresses over time. Therefore thoughts I had some time ago simply don't matter anymore to me today because I had a more limited choice of models to think about a problem. When I read about older thoughts I'm proud that I have developed in the meantime but I can't solve current problems, conflicts with past solutions. So isn't it therefore better to document the outlines of my thinking models and update them once a month instead of writing down raw thoughts?

Would love to hear your thoughts on my thoughts.

Thanks for putting great content out!

Manfred

Always look forward to you emails, thank you. I can not find TextEdit on my IPhone, I found several apps but I guess that would be outside sources as you mentioned? I travel for work every other week and prefer not to carry a laptop. Any recommendations for using iPhone for journaling while traveling? Thank you.

I should clarify sorry, I use Evernote now. I would like to have a seamless use of some form of TexEdit on my phone so they sync maybe? Not sure if that’s possible. Thanks again.

Hi Derek!
Long time no see! But since reading this brilliant article, it doesn't feel like that long anymore :)
About writing a diary, I know it's helped me greatly in the past, specifically asking questions, answering and then questioning again.. but I have found that sometimes it's really hard to do that - the digging deep and it often stops me from consistently keeping the habit of daily writing. I'm trying to tell myself, just 10 minutes a day and since I've just told you that, I'll make sure I do some tonight! But generally, do you have any tips/another article about how to be consistent with habits, especially when they're things you don't really like to do at times but know they're good for you?
Thanks again for writing such a brilliant and validating (the importance of daily writing) article, I hope to see you guys again soon!!
Malavika :)

this is awesome brother! thank you for this. I began implementing brief journaling and writing down 5 things to be grateful for at the end of the day. I had a streak going when 2019 began (maybe through the 20th) but then fell off the discipline of it. Your future self thanking you fo doing this idea really resonates.
much love.

Derek
Great post as usual. I have had five major breakthrough's in my life, that really pushed me forward. Four of them came about through journaling. Definitely great advice. I don't journal every night, but usually four nights a week at least.

Thanks Derek!

Thanks Derek, Self analyses is a great helper. I have started my diary again when you sent this.
Best wishes,

Cesar

This is great, I will try to apply this technique for my sketchbook since I tried to only draw for a year.
Why do you think there is not an english word for Schneudferge?

Hi Derek!!
When I have time...I especially love to sketch, paint and write poetry, song lyrics, stories or thoughts in a book full of empty free space!! It is a beautiful personal artform all in itself!!
So great to hear from you Derek!
Rachel ☺

Thank you for the idea of grouping thoughts based on the topics.
This horizontal scaling will improve my efforts greately!

I have small input from me regarding tools, you are spot on on the topic of using as basic system for note taking as possible, plain text text files are my choise as well.

Regarding archivisation there is a very good protocol designed for software engineering called git. Quite famous implemention being -> https://github.com/.
It allows you to synchronise your files, from local machine, to very poweful infrastruture of Git for free in a private manner.

The interface is easy to learn for basic usage.
I would ask a friendly programmer from your environment, explain the needs, and train it with her/him. This way you are buying into very powerful tool which will be here as long as software is produced.

Great article Derek. Brought a smile to my face. I've just add a recurring reminder to do this at the end of every work day.

Do you use some kind of reminder? I have a physical journal that i use for a gratitude journal but sometimes there is so much going on that i will notice months go by before i sit down and write in it.

Derek, do you ever think/worry about who else might read your personal journals either now or some day down the road? Do you sensor your thoughts a bit because of this? I noticed you have ‘Carla’ as a topic. If you want to vent about her, (for example) do you worry she will see it and then vent less? On a side note, my mom has written religiously in a diary EVERY day since 1975 and now has volumes! She says she wants to burn the all before she passes away and they fall into the wrong hands. I hope she does not.

I do this. But your idea of organizing is a great upgrade. Thank you for sharing. Have a splendid day.

Great post and thanks again for sharing. I really like the idea of specific “thoughts on” journals as a way to better catalog your thoughts and keep building each topic. I like the idea of tracking regrets as well. I’ve heard other people do something similar with keeping life resolutions based on those regrets.

I’ve been journaling for the past 10 years or so on pen and paper on about a weekly basis. I’ll usualky fill up a moleskin journal each year and then go back and read it over at the end of the year to identify patterns, insights, etc. A lot of times, when I didn’t have anything specific to write about, it has a similar benefit to meditation in that it slows things down and keeps you in the moment. Agree with what you said about the additional benefits for emotional and intellectual development for sure.

May have to experiment a little with bringing my journal from paper to the digital side. Both are fun. Thanks again for sharing!

Hi Derek,

Great post. Someone else recommended ahhlife, I use http://dabble.me which is also an offspring of ohlife, which closed. (Ohlife did give plenty of notice for backing up and migrating, fwiw.)

One of my favorite features of the model is the automatic surfacing of prior entries:

> 1 year ago you wrote this...

I started journaling on their website so that I could see 1, 2, 3, ... years ago.

Suggestion: You might experiment with some programmatic surfacing of prior entries. When I was thinking about it, I thought that maybe 4 weeks, 8 weeks, ... 52 weeks would be interesting. (Noticing similar days of the week was pretty helpful.)

Question: what do you think about trying to avoid screens in the time before sleep? I've been trying to do that and I feel like it helps improve my sleep a bit. Maybe move the journaling to the end of my workday? I suppose it's a tradeoff, if it relieves the pressure of thoughts in your head, those can disrupt sleep as well. If willing to take the time, maybe write out at night, and then type up in the morning.

I've practiced journaling on and off for close to 20 years. It has been a therapy and it's helped me think. I love your idea of having one ThoughtsOn file per subject. I have a question and a suggestion:

Question: how to edit my files from a phone, for example when I'm outside? How did you do it at the airport. I'm using a Swiss DropBox-like (pCloud) to store my text files.

Suggestion: when writing daily, write about 3 things.
1) Lesson learned: something you have learned this day. This is a way to invite the beginner's mind
2) Magic moment: think about an event, a moment that was magical. It does not need to be big, quite the contrary. This is a way to see the magic in your everyday life and away from believing that it must be big stuff
3) Personal victory: think about something you did or didn't do, a moment when you said yes or no, you stopped something fruitless of started something useful. This is way to go toward self-validation and away from the search of public appraisal.

Hi Derek, I really enjoyed this. I have strugglled with maintaining the habit of journaling in the past for various reasons. I’m fairly good about building to-do lists when I’m feeling overwhelmed but haven’t made good use of journaling per se to date. Based on your advice I think I’d benefit greatly from keeping a “Thoughts on” journal. I think about A LOT and those thoughts are not always linked. Is there a software you prefer for keeping Thoughs on journals? Or, Do you simply create a folder for each topic in your computer files? I look forward to your response. Thank you.
Ps: I read from your book notes often and recommend them even more frequently. They’re incredibly resourceful for brushing up on past reads or finding new ones. I hope you continue to share them. :)

Thoughts on Derek's post...inspiring, timely, motivating.
Yes, CBT like in replanting mind "seeds."

Especially appreciate the blissful simplicity of this part: "If you care about your thoughts, keep them."

Thanks, Derek ☺

What a lovely perspective on a practice I once had. You've inspired me to get back into it. Thank you for sharing!

Nice idea, Derek!

Although I have not been able to do a daily dairy, I keep my musical ideas notated...

Best,
Gong Qian

It seems to me that if a young (or not so young) man or woman (or other) wants to someday "pull a Derek" by being smart enough to post on a blog, then a good place to start would be a journal. (Or maybe a blog)

If like me you are an "oral learner" then you could talk with folks, and then go home and write it down, saying it silently, and by doing so nail new thoughts down.

And hey, to answer a commenter above, I myself don't panic about capturing every thought that flies by (but if I did then I would carry small file cards in my pocket) because when I journal I am in an altered musing state, and thoughts that had flown by earlier fly back to me again.

I keep thinking of this post, Derek. I've always wondered how keeping a journal has changed my life. Is it a better story for remembering the pen is my hands, as they say? Here's hoping!

I think of my blog posts as a journal entries, but with a point -- to be useful. Which has, in turn, made the journal entries veer toward what will be useful to look back on -- things I've learned, and so much laughter. Which eventually meant so often skipping the journal and going STB, "straight to blog." If it's helpful to me, it might help someone else. Here's hoping!

Given how many different places I share stories -- in letters, in the blog, on my radio show, on Twitter, and so on -- I think I'd go crazy with the different versions of a journal being discussed in the comments. So in case it helps someone else, I just date journal entries and leave it at that -- almost the way you'd file snapshots by date.

And finally, a journal becomes such a treasure chest! A while back we started sharing our daughter's best one-liners on Twitter as #TheKaOfKatie. I can report with just this one hobby, our family's probably exceeded our lifetime quota for laughs. Katie was in college when we started it, and she approves everything we post. We often then quote those lines back to each other for months! It makes us appreciate even more the fun we've had.

I could write a book, eh? But for now I'll give you the comments section back.

Thanks, Derek!

Hey Derek,

Thanks man! As always, love your thoughts.

Cheers,
Johnny

Great article,thank you for sharing.

Thanks for sharing you process, Derek! You continue to inspire me to dig deeper and self-optimize. I love the way you think and write.

I love this! Thanks friend. 💖🧚‍♂️

This is the fourth time I've come back to this piece. I find it disturbing. Disturbing because I don't want to hear it. I don't want the extra work involved with maintaining a journal. Of course it's my choice, but disturbing because the advice is too good to ignore. So there you have it.

Hey Derek,

Thank you for being so inspiring!

Avrilx

Hello Derek how are you?Thank you very much for posting this new article. I liked it very much and I think it is very important to follow your advice. Your article that I scored so far has been the one where you encourage the musicians to accept all the invitations and always be aware of the movement in which he lives.
I'm a big fan of your work. Thank you very much.
Marcos Ariel

Yea I should of kept one

Don't use the cloud? Admittedly, I run a cloud consulting practice, but...the cloud has a level of availability and reliability that you can never, ever match at home. If you really want to archive your notes - print on acid free paper, seal in a air free package. Keep out of sunlight in a safe place that won't let them get stolen, burn in a fire and you won't forget.

There are a number of free cloud options for things like this. Odds are that one or more will either fail or get bought. Use a variety of these options to lower the risk. Your objective is to avoid the single point of failure. Storing this at home on a spinning hard drive, SSD or flash drive is not going to avoid that risk.

Hi Derek, thank you for your post. I also tried to use topic journals to capture my ideas. I found out, that I am good at generating ideas, but not so good at organizing and revisiting them. So I had a lot of subfolders and double entries. Do you also have subfolders in your categories and do you have any system to stay organized? Thank you and greets from Germany.

Thanks for sharing this! I love the idea, although it sounds a bit intimidating from consistency perspective.

I read Rich's comments on electronic vs paper, and I have some follow up questions. You said plain text file, so do you just open it plain in some text editor, or is there still a special app you use for this? As far as saving goes, you mentioned no cloud, so do you just have one external hard drive that you constantly update with these diaries? Thanks again for sharing, and if you have any other insight or recommendations for tips to get started, I would very much appreciate them!

Thanks Derek...
It was a good filter for my daily journal.
Cheers

Solid Derek!
Here's a gift from me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmxru6it_n8
Perhaps you can write about it...All the Best-tim

I've been keeping a journal for over a decade, with the exception of a few dry spells. One lasting a year, another lasting months. I very much regret not continuing during those times, the reason being stress and work. But that's when it would've been most helpful in retrospect. So learning from how I feel about the times in my life I can't accurately reflect on, has only furthered my efforts to journal.
I like your idea of the "Thoughts on..." I recently added a "One Thing" to write down at least one takeaway that I've had after reading a book, listening to a podcast, or a night out with friends. I heard that idea on a podcast and have taken to it.
Thanks for the email, Derek. They are always useful.

What are your regrets?

Thanks Derek, great read. How do you organize your main journal? 1 big honking text file with 20 years of thoughts in it, or do you split it up somehow? Also, do you use any specific search tool to search across files, or just what your OS provides?
Actually I keep every day in its own separate text file, named YYYY-MM-DD.txt but I'm weird like that. I use grep in the shell. — Derek

That does help, perfect timing! I guess it will always be perfect timing for someone. That was me today, thanks!

I find it super interesting that these are linked together (and yes, I know because it is sorted alphabetically):

Addiction
Airports
Alcohol
Ambition

Taking out Airports, do your thoughts have any connection between Addiction, Alcohol, Ambition?

GREAT

This is the best thing I have seen in your writing. It is honest, direct. You share your own experience.

I have operated a text-file journal continuously for 25 years, that I call the "log file". It began as a method to file information I learned into a single go-to place. The information is either contained within the single file or the file contains a pointer to another file or web page. I enter terse text that grows the file size at a rate of one megabyte per year. I record interesting info and ideas on post-its while I am away, and transcribe into the log file when I return to my computer. I also record future activities in the same file, and fill in details when a future date becomes the present date.
The information helps me make mental connections, and facilitates a deeper understanding and much more complete recollection of topics. I frequently search the log file in order to clarify recollection of past events. At age 67, I observe that the log file shows the reality of the passage of time, compared with seeming to pass more slowly. My theory is: the older brain forgets past activity, which compresses my conscious memory.
I note this is comment number 222, which is my favorite number!

Thanks Derek, got a lot of value from this. The times I have written down my thoughts I found it really cathartic if nothing else.

thank you for all
I benefited a lot from this
https://bit.ly/2DFFxKH

I can't thank you enough for sharing these gems of wisdom. Truly life altering! If you could please help with this question - there is no autosave in Microsoft NotePad. If you didn't save for a bit of time and the computer freezes or crashes, the information is lost. Do you use an auto-save program?

I loved it. I'm trying to keep up writing a blog and sometimes I just blank out or get lazy. I think keeping a diary/journal will definitely help. Also, you are right about writing even when there is nothing extraordinary to write about. Who knows where it may lead to later on.

Thanks!!

Hi sir, I would just like to briefly thank you for making this and posting it on Twitter. By some strange coincidence today I found that my phone s calendar has a feature which will set time aside each week for you to do certain task's. I happened to put in 'write journal' as I am fond of reading/writing but find little occasion to do the latter. Then I happened out of pure boredom decided to search twitter for people with the surname sivers(3 including me and you) where I came across your profile and accidentally clicked this link. I found it very helpful and it inspired me to write about more than I'd originally thought so thank you! I do not know much about you or the work you do but I am now inclined to look into this further. :)
Cool! Thanks distant cousin! ☺ — Derek

In "The Black Swan" Taleb had a comment that history books always distort information because writers are corrupted by their knowledge of the outcome. If you want to know how the events have really happened read contemporary journalists. He was referring to the work of a World War II journalist, before he got edited.

With your journal you are your own journalist. Thank you for helping me to make this connection.

Victoria

Great points! I do keep a diary but it’s not a daily or even weekly ritual. I write in it whenever I feel like it- when something significant has happened or when I simply want to dump my thoughts or make an important decision. But after reading this I feel motivated to make my diary writing more regular
Just curious, do you use a digital diary or a physical one?

(Follow up from my previous comment)— If physical, how do you approach searching through the diary? (As you have mentioned here - https://sive.rs/ox1)

Couldn't agree more about plain-text!

For on-the-go iOS plain-text journaling, I use Textor https://www.macstories.net/reviews/textor-the-ios-equivalent-of-textedit-integrated-with-files/
And on my computer, I use jrnl http://jrnl.sh/overview.html

I really like your idea of the "Thoughts On" entries as well, will have to start that...

After having a mini existential crisis behind the smiles this weekend for my 37th birthday I decided to do a few things- firstly transition myself from being a 'hands on' guy by starting out learning to code, secondly re start my journal, third get some CBT.

I have no idea why I headed over to sive.rs- I just like the way you write and I remembered you from when I was first looking into doing things with computers as my future plan.

This post is crazily relevant. I see you live in Oxford UK now, I work in Cambridge. It would be weird and awkward if I bought you a coffee to say thanks.

Thanks for sharing. Really enjoyed the very practical tips!

Excellent article!

I write my diaries in text format and store them in git. You can get a free, private repository on GitHub and BitBucket.

Keeping the diary in Git has the benefit of a "free backup".

I started doing this many years ago - and now that I am retired it is neat to study the thoughts and feelings of the 'me' that lived 30-40 years ago. It is amazing how we shed our skins and move into new ones as we progress through our lives. And I realize now that though I am not that person anymore I can still go back and visit him occasionally. Have a great week

Thanks for posting this advice about keeping a journal. I've always wanted to but never had the discipline to keep it up. (Then there was the formatting, handwriting, storage, structure - mechanics of it that overtook the doing it.)

I love the 'Thoughts on' list. THat's like something I would do - exhaust the territory then eval the list for pearls.

Thanks too for the Bo Peabody article (what brought me here.) I tell an entrepreneurship class I teach about it and put the 'would you rather be lucky or smart' question on one of the quizzes. (Every student gets it wrong - it generates quite a conversation!) I frankly forgot some of what you wrote down. I'll add more to my quiz to make is seem more thoughtful and rational. Bo must really be a smart guy :)

Looking forward to reading more of your stuff.

Thanks again,

Kim
Indianapolis

Great post! I have a bunch of old docs that aren't organized by topic, but wish I could get them that way!

Though you recommend plain text, I am building a platform designed to merge journaling and goal tracking, so it handles this pretty well (it's called WeAchieve - www.weachieve.io). I setup a "Thoughts On" activity that can then have any number of note fields on the various topics that I can add to whenever - from web or iOS app.

Sorry if this seems like an ad - just a founder trying to build software to help people achieve more. Plus, it's fully free, so hopefully it's more of a PSA ☺

Ben

Reread it again on the road. I put your Diary key words in one word file a few months again. And today I just add 20190412 Marriage. Thank you for this good post.

What do you mean by “if digital plain text”?I ve started writing on my IPad notes(thanks for the inspiration)but that’s iCloud..
Just make sure you can export it and save it somewhere, so if Apple deletes your iCloud account, or you switch away from Apple devices, you still have your words. — Derek

I am single - age 55 - and I've lived alone almost my whole adult life. Ok there are my 2 cats who might resent not being mentioned. ;-). I've had a great life - lived in 7 states and had a great career path.

I've kept a diary since my aunt and uncle gave me a
lock and key one around age 6. There are so many times I wish I had someone to talk to - and my faithful journal is always there! I write my hopes!dreams and I do a lot of processing and problem solving there. It's like a best friend - increasingly important in these days of increasing loneliness where folks communicate more by texting than voice to voice communication. We all need to be heard and journaling is a great forum. Thanks for your article!

Hey Derek,
Read today's Daily Stoic and clicked through to reread your article.
Was impressed by your practice/methods when I first read it and then again today, such that I set up a file and plain text docs to start today. The thoughts-on & questions sound especially helpful.

I've kept a daily sketch-note journal for the last 10 years. It's to remember but also because I love lettering - words/letters as drawing/graphic/images. I'll always do this and this digital practice will be a good one too. Thank you for writing. Trust all is well and you're settling into life in England. -S

How true, and how valuable your post is! Thank you for sharing this. Journaling about your day promotes vivid recall and solidifies the ephemeral nature of our lives.

I started last year and found I went into an area of my life I had built a false narrative around - my marriage and my relationship with my wife. In starting the journal I started to peel back the falsehoods that I was living through. It gave me the strength to address these issues and now I am not in that marriage, I've started a new life and feel I am on the journey to becoming me for the first time ever. Sadly, I put the journal aside as it was very painful and opened the wounds I had been living with for years. I chickened out - I am buying a new journal next week (not today as I am sick with a nasty cold, otherwise I would be at the shops) and will start again and make a daily journal my habit going forward. I like the physical act of writing, and will buy a few- one for the main subject of my life and another for the extra subjects. Thank you Derek. I hope Oxford is working out for you. Regards. Phil

I wish that younger me would have gotten this advice. I believe that we can learn a lot from ourselves. Do you keep your journal manually or electronically?
I type manually into plain text files on my computer. ☺ — Derek

I feel that everyday I am busy and realize that so many years pasted but I don't know what I am really doing. I check my computer there are many folders which I started one time and forgot continue next day. I guess the reason why I feel so frustrated at the moment is that I started many things but nothing accomplished. I am to busy with trying new things. It is time for me to look back and concentrate on today. Like you said writing diary clear our mind. That is what I need most now. Thanks for your article.

I've been writing journals for as long as I can remember many of them were written long before computer/digital came along. I have boxes and boxes filled with journals written on simple notebooks and fancy journal books. Now as I'm getting older I wonder what will happen to them when I'm no longer here...

I appreciate the idea of a text file, but I began mine as a google doc called "Mem," which lives on my Firefox bookmarks toolbar. Then I can just click on it from any platform. A text file could get lost, or I could not have access to it. Aside: Years ago I tried to create a mindmap of all my hyperlinks, which had become chaotic. It was an interesting exercise, but by the time I had organized an old set of links in the mindmap they had lost immediacy for me.

Thank you so much for sharing this Derek! The pressures of life and the constant noise around us these days makes it hard for me to keep all my thoughts straight anymore. I like thinking through big problems but have been feeling overwhelmed.

I've started physical journals (bullet journal since that's what everyone else does), but I find that it's sometimes limiting to my expansive imagination and thoughts. I like your approach of keeping separate topics to file away so that as thoughts come in, there is a place to put them. Almost like Marie Kondo-ing of the mind. I like this system as a way of being able to know instinctively what to do with your thoughts as they come up.

I also love this line of questioning you mentioned. I've been doing that as well lately and I've gotten used to the fact that it sometimes feels like I'm just talking to myself -- but who better to have intellectual conversations with if no one is around?! :)

I would love any tips on how you do this across devices (e.g. if you don't have a computer with you). What is a system for having text files that's shared across devices so it's accessible on mobile and desktop? If you have any pro tips, I'd love to hear it! Otherwise, I suppose I can take notes on the phone then port it over to my computer as a text file later.

Thanks so much again for sharing this system!
Shelly
I use the email app on my phone if I'm away from the computer. I email myself then add it to my diary/journal later. — Derek

I like this.

Has anyone found a way to implement this ion an iPad? I have used Microsoft OneNote in the past but simply having a plain text file makes a lot of sense to me. If anyone has a good system, please share!

How I handle this topic - the story is to long for a comment.

To the iPhone / iPad users. There are apps out there, the problem is, you are not independent from the developer. To use Notes or the Reminder app from Apple works but then things are not private as it is synced using iCloud. To keep things in plain text the app Textastic is a way - it is basically a payed code editor but provides plain text. The most problem is, you can't link plain text and pictures (why should a modern digital diary / journal not contain pics or movies). In this context another interesting point is, that many people already run their life journal on Twitter / Facebook.

Awesome article and tons of great comments! I love me some plain text and have been slowly trying to move away from "vendor lock-in" with things like Evernote, various to-do apps, and various cloud services.

So, I saw where you answered a question with:

"Hell no. I write offline, intentionally no WiFi on my laptop, in plain text files only. No companies, no cloud, no services needed. — Derek"

First of all... NO WIFI?? How the hell do you survive without constant access to the Internet?? LOL!

Anyway, further down you mentioned you back up to a couple servers in different countries. Is your backup strategy home-grown or do you use an actual cloud-based backup service?

This is my biggest concern with getting away from cloud storage. I use two laptops and two phones (work and personal/business). I like to be able to access everything from all devices and keep everything in sync. Kinda hard to do without the cloud. There are things like Synchthing I've been playing with, but it's certainly not as convenient or easy to use as the likes of Dropbox or Google Drive.
I just use rsync (the built-in unix command) to backup to my different servers I've set up around the world. So yeah, home grown. But the biggest thing is I don't try to sync between devices. I only use my phone for talk/text/maps. I do all my writing and important stuff on one unix computer. — Derek

Hi Derek!
I like the "thoughts on idea" concept. Going to give it a try.
My son is doing much better. It took a girl finding an interest in him and giving him the love he has been looking for.
Frank

These are excellent thoughts.
May I adapt this article and share it on my LinkedIn?
I love your plain and easy writing.
Happy Summer Holidays.
Yep! — Derek

Hey, Derek,

I like your "Thoughts On". I've been keeping a journal for a long time, but I don't have a section like that. I'll borrow it. Thank you!

Journalling was how I gathered "data" to justify to myself that I had to leave my marriage. For days and months and years I had a recorded-in-real-time log that provided me an accurate narrative about the relationship and its progression. It was indeed the best choice.

So yes. Regular "data collection" about oneself is invaluable. I second this suggestion. :)

thanks a lot sir...though busy as a mother with no house help and actually waiting for my JO and actually be employed...
i'll do it for my future self...
i'll try to keep a journal of my daily thoughts & activities...though it may not be long with few sentences, but i'll do it.

What have you learned about CBT till now? please recommend any resources!

Are you using digital for both "thoughts on..." and daily diary? Your stuff's (some of them) fan. Thanks, and God bless you sir!

Hi Derek,

one of my best friends is reflecting all the time. In fact, at the age of 73, he is still not over his childhood, with no plans for any tomorrow. Me on the other hand keep myself so busy every day, that I hardly give my past a second thought. Though I have to admit, after becoming a father almost eight years ago (I‘m 66 years by now), watching my daughter grow physically and mentally brings back memories of my own childhood, that were lost, (or so I thought). Maybe it‘s time, to do what I did a long time ago: write down little bits and pieces of my daily or at least weekly doings and thinking.
It would be the right thing to do, I think. So thanks for sharing your thoughts on this subject
Have a great time in Oxford

Best

Maik

Hi Derek
I am new to your blog. It has been a wonderful discovery.I liked your this post a lot, particularly, the idea of "Thoughts On". This is something I will definitely try in the near future. However, I would love to know you thoughts on weather it is essential to write diary everyday, as frankly speaking not all days I will want something to write. Secondly,(I know it is not related to this post) can you share your strategy and process of taking notes from the books.
Best
Akash
You should write daily because it's the best way to look back at this time in your life. Then you'll know what you were most often experiencing. Bored? Frustrated? Satisfied? Etc. As for book notes, see this. — Derek

I've been keeping a journal for 18 years now. I have a few dedicated files for specific subjects, but I tend not to create very many of them. Instead, I sprinkle tags within [...] throughout my notes. This allows a note to be cross-filed, which is occasionally useful. More usefully, I only create a dedicated file when I find myself searching for a specific tag a few times. Tags seem to lie, in a deep way, at the intersection of chronological (blog) and topic-oriented (wiki) organization, and they help me avoid agonizing over what file to write something in. Often I don't know ahead of time what I'm writing about. The tag shows up halfway through, or a year later.

Tagging the journal is a very useful idea. Thanks for sharing it.

I have come to prefer paper due to the several computers over time and not knowing how to collect all my stuff in a good way. Plus things disappear and I am very physically focused and want to know where things are and can put my hand out and touch something. My children would have a hard time sorting out all that I have written either in the cloud or various hard drives where I had someone help me preserve things. Nothing lasts but I write for my future self not my children and I need to find things easily and I am happy most with papers. Your words have helped me immensely, much love to you always.

org-mode is where it's at

This is something I've been thinking about (and enacting) since you posted it in January. I wrote some thoughts here:
https://clerestory.netlify.com/feelings/

One question I have is, do you think feelings are important or meaningful? I don't really think that they are. And yet I still feel that you're right that we should record them because of the unreliability of memory.
Yeah I think feelings are very important. We're not robots. See the Elephant and the Rider metaphor. Our emotions, the elephant, is ultimately in charge. So it's good to keep track of how our emotions have responded in the past and are likely to again. — Derek

I have been journaling for years now and don’t know how or why I started and have wondered whether I was doing it right and throughout the years have found articles and resources like this one that more or less show me I’m not doing it wrong. Journaling for me has been a way I decompress and vent so that I don’t “puke” if you will on other people because it used to be that I felt I always needed someone to hear me out and although DO have people I can confide in I no longer depend so much on others to be there for me. I love that you have different categories and will be doing that myself now; one file is going to be for my dreams and hope they come to pass looking back sometime in the future. Thank you and God bless.

Thanks for the amazing insights. I discovered the power of plain text files a few months ago and it has changed everything.

There's no better way than to own your own files. For all the non-programmers who might read this. For great organization (while still owning all of your files) I recommend QOwnNotes or Typora.

It works amazing with Markdown (.md files)

I use them both together. If you know HTML and CSS it's going to be an even better experience, but it's definitely not essential if you don't.

Owning your own files is amazing, if you post your work online, writing with markdown will save you so much time!

Good Luck!
-Santi

Hi Derek,

I'm motivated by this idea, to keep different journals for the topics we most often think about. One of the journals I started is for my daughters. What they did that day, how they make me feel, bits of wisdom I want to share, I also ask any close friends or family members if they would like to write in it for them.... I started it because I was worried something would happen to me or those who love them and my children wouldn't know how loved they are, even (especially) in the little daily acts. Have you done something like this for your kid? Would you?

Meghan

I’ve kept one since 1982 (sixth grade for me), not surprised it’s evolved from “what happened today” to many of the same things you note. Like your “Regrets” I have an “I apologize to/for...” section. Sometimes it’s fun to look up what I did exactly five years ago, ten, twenty, etc, to see the growth, change, evolution, what seemed important then vs now. You are making me think about format now (text) since I have pictures inserted throughout (I use MS Word). Another fun thing I do is go back and note historical events, favorite music and movie release dates, etc, adds more context. And occasionally I’ll go back to key entries and write my thoughts about it now (in different font, color, with current date noted), again the perspective and context thing. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the topic of journaling!

Your very short form of writing lends well to creating habits. When I see: "Start habit by reading sive.rs/habit" there are no feelings of "this will take too long" and I just dive in.

This topic is much longer than your normal writing and my memory of how concise your normal writing is pushed me through. I'm sure you engineered it this way.

I've amassed a series of journals for over the past year, which includes a daily diary, a handful of topic journals, and a "compost" heap. I've tried keeping diaries in years past without success. This year, however, I decided to step away from digital. Instead, I embraced a pencil and a pile of soft cover journals. For me, this one small change made all of the difference in the world.

I thoroughly enjoy the feeling of writing with a good pencil--the balance, the weight, and the tactile pleasure of feeling the graphite grip and glide across paper. That, and I've started to incorporate sketching as it makes sense to do so. As a result, I've now captured my thoughts and rolled them around in ways that I would nave never otherwise done.

At some point, I do want to digitally archive this content. I'm still pondering the best way to handle this. For now, I'm deeply satisfied with my results over the past year. So much so, that I thought I'd share my own experience with others. If you have a desire to write and capture your thoughts, try alternative mediums.

I have a similar workflow, but I’m finding it doesn’t aid in lateral thinking. Many of my best ideas come from adjacent topics that aren’t obviously related. I really like what [Roam](https://roamresearch.com) is doing. I wish I could replicate this style of quickly linking forward and back between text files.

Have you seen anything text-based like this in your travels? What do you do for lateral thinking?
Looks like HTML, like a Wiki. In my text files I just say (to myself) “see OtherFile where I wrote more about this today” — Derek

Yes, Roam is kind of like a Wiki—it's focused on the process of recording ideas and managing their relationships to each other. The unique things about it are:

1. When you link to an idea, it automatically creates a backlink so you can see where else an idea is referenced

2. Each page, and even each paragraph (they call them "blocks") has a unique UUID so links can be fine-grained. You type a slash command ("/block") then start typing some of the text in the paragraph you want to link to and Roam will automatically link and backlink (and, if you want, embed the source text). The result is a just text file with Wiki-style links; it's the behind-the-scenes automation that's fascinating, making it super simple to link ideas to each other.

3. They have a fancy graph of ideas 🤷‍♂️

To me it's the speed of navigation between documents/ideas, and being able to see text of what links back to what I'm writing about that provide some interesting possibilities for lateral / networked thinking. But alas... like always, it's an online cloud tool. I wish there was an offline text-file version.

Nice article, thank you Derek!

I like especially your essentialism. I like simple yet powerful things too, for example the idea to use simply your filesystem to store your writings.

I'd like to share with you a couple of tips:

- use Dokuwiki as interface to your files. It doesn't require a db but works with text files organized in folders. So you have the benefit of keeping your toughts organized in a solid way and a nice wiki to render/tag/search over them.

- as regards essential tools: I use Vim as editor. I recently discovered that there is also a nice plugin that make more pleasant writing: https://github.com/junegunn/goyo.vim

Really great stuff (as all your other posts Derek!) on journalling. I have one question however : where do you keep your 'thoughts on' writing? It seems you have a lot of topics and it would be a bit difficult to keep track of all of them on paper. I ask this because I like writing pen on paper and liked your 'thoughts on' suggestion.
Thanks.
Just one folder on the computer, with one text file per subject. — Derek

Your article has helped me a lot! Thank you, Derek! From Vietnam.

I never thought of this.. brilliant idea.. definitely I ll follow u...
Thank u so much for sharing..

Hi,

I tried a lot of different methods on trying to journal and all of them felt like a failure. Writing physical journal felt like a huge pain and on my travels I kept forgeting to take it with me. Notes apps got cluttered quickly and I tried bunch of them: notes on iphone, simplenotes, notion, google keep, etc..

Reading your article I decided to give it another go. This time I think I found great solution that works for me: I can enter note in two ways, either phone/tablet through github or on local machine. This way I always have one local copy of my notes and one in the cloud. I build simple website, that converts .md files to html pages and once finished writing them on my computer I just push it to github and vice versa. If I created new entry through github I just pull copy from repository to my computer every time I am about to write.

I thinkveryone, but what I wanted to say is that if your journaling method do there is no universal method that works for doesn't work now, it's not you, just try different method as journaling is such a great thing to do, it helps to clear ones mind and brings all the memories back then you read it.

Hope everyone is having a good time

You are more organized than I am ... my writings go from a legal pad, to Attorney general and BBB complaints, emails that get filed, music gear that I photograph, catalog and occasionally video record if they are either totally awesome or totally blow chunks, docu-vids I do when we go to events, and letters to the editor.

Well, it's summer. As a music teacher and musician I have a bit more time to do this kind of thing. During the school year though, not so much. But hey, I'll give it a try if only for a while and see if the new routine sticks! Thanks for the idea and encouragement!

At #179 Manfred explained that he changes his book experience by stopping to write notes. I take notes myself, but I have never done so while I was reading.

When I read, I read. Later, when I journal I can talk to myself to pin down what I was reading, and be flipping pages to note stuff. That way I am reading twice, and thinking about it in order to write.

Like a college student during class, I feel no pressure to note everything. If there's too much, I will use point form, and go back and think more about it later. There is an optimum nice pace for journalling, "it takes what it takes". Going twice as fast won't lead to twice the value. That's like thinking you can sleep faster.

A day without reflective journaling is like a day without sunshine. Or as they say in Spain, like a day without wine.

Thanks for your lovely post and sharing your way of doing it!

Here's the system I currently use:

Infrastructure Requirements - Paper Journal System: Daily -
-2 Pieces of White A4 paper
-1 Pen
*

System/Format:
(First batching done in am of the day - I usually do this after exercise in the morning or before my morning work)

- Date - Upper left hand corner
- 3 Grateful (Here I write three things I'm grateful about)
- 3 Things that would make today Amazing (Here I write three things I want to focus on doing or accomplishing that day)

(Second Batching done in the pm of the day - I usually either do this after work or in the morning of the next day)

- 3 Amazing Moments (List three amazing moments from the day)
- 3 Learnings (Three things I learned from today, if there was an outcome that I didn't like I will sometimes write about it and reflect on how I would approach this situation in the future if represented with a similar situation. Often though the learnings are pure learnings and don't need to be tied to my behavior modification).
After this in the top Right hand corner of the sheet I write a numerical value for the day quantifying how nice of a day it was for me emotionally. Was it an incredible day ---> +2 - Was it a totally shit day ---> -2. It's only for me, I can be as picky or not as I want.
Often under the numerical value for the day I'll write basic rundown of the day.
- Will also document if I completed the 3 things that would make today amazing tasks

^

After this I flip the papers over and write the date on the opposite sheet on the left hand upper corner of the page and 1 on the Right hand corner of the page. Then I write for 3 pages longhand about whatever is coming up for me.

~

Organization of Papers-

I have 2 papers for each day that I keep in the computer part of my work bag when I am working and I travel with white sheets that I then integrate into the main stacks when travelling. I fold the sheets and make a small packet from them and work up from day 1-15 and 16-end of month for each month so each month will have 2 packs of sheets.

For Miscellaneous notes I usually write these on white sheets of paper that I transfer into Evernote on a work batch day. I am currently changing this system as I integrate non me workers into the equation on the data input side of things. (Also, I like your system Derek and use of plaintext and may likely use some derivative of this. I enjoy the cross referencing feature from Evernote and being able to match idea sequences from different note topics when there are common keywords. )

After 3--6 months of this on a quarterly or half yearly basis I do a batch day and either photograph everything or scan everything (especially if I have access to a big scanner). At this point I have a digital copy but the input side is missing.

I'm preparing to send these to a virtual assistant for the data input side of things. I will use a spreadsheet format for data input and for subsequent analysis and quantification of former me to be nice and help future me with some insights about past me :)

Hope this is useful!

Here is a picture to help explain the structure of all of this -

https://edwardcolemiller.weebly.com/journaling-system.html

Post Scriptum Comments:


*(The comment is a natural add on to the previous considerations and also responds to the asterisk * from after the first comment - Before moving to the current system I tried doing everything on a computer. At first I wrote everything out in a type of excel sheet. This didn't resonate with me and I didn't enjoy the experience of doing this. After this I threw some money at the problem after seeing a friend of mine play with his Surface Laptop and tried to create a written note that would incorporate all of the elements while still having the experience of writing. This did not work because often when travelling I either didn't have a computer or it was back at xyz place while I was at abc place. Sometimes I would also be far enough away that I didn't have a charge anymore and couldn't charge the computer. If not completely in nature I've found it possible to ask for a piece of paper and a pen almost everywhere in the world from the richest to the poorest places and so even if I lose my pen and paper this format has been accessible everywhere I've travelled or been in a more stable way. Usually when I move to a new place I go to a cheap store and buy one block of A4 paper. It doesn't have to be A4 it can be any page of paper circa 20cmx30cm. It can have lines or not or be colored or not. Also from my trials I noted that I enjoy the tactile experience of writing and the physicality of it as I etch my way, stroke by stroke down thought paths.)

^ I use the basic format from the 5 Min Journal in terms of daily prompts without the part on affirmations. I integrate this with some of the daily note taking habits from Jim Collins (Jim + Tim on the Tim Ferris Show talks about this and how he catalogues his days and time)as well as Jim's Scoring system for the day -2 to +2.

~ Daily Journaling comes mainly as a practice for me from the Artist's way by Julia Cameron. 3 pages of whatever comes, no right, no wrong.

I love this article. But I find myself oscillating between the compulsion to document my life and the overwhelm of feeling like i spend more time documenting my life/ living in the past than actually living. Thoughts?

I have been experimenting with different ways of doing this. I started with a physical journal, moved to Google Docs, and finally moved to Notion because it provided some amazing features to play around with notes and link them.

But this post, and some of Derek's writing earlier, has got me thinking about the impermanence of these platforms... Notion has had a few outages in the recent past. It's not Future-proof. Plain .txt files are minimal, but they don't let you create your own "Personal Wikipedia" of interlinked notes.

I'm trying out Obsidian (https://obsidian.md) now. It stores files in Markdown format (a bit like .txt but allows for more formatting). The files are stored on your computer and the software just gives a clean UI to work with the files and link them.

That's the hardware part. For a good system of taking notes that promotes the creation of new ideas, I recommend Zettelkasten (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten). The book ["How to take smart notes" by Sonke Ahren](https://www.amazon.in/How-Take-Smart-Notes-Nonfiction-ebook/dp/B06WVYW33Y) makes the case for the system and gives a practical way to integrate it with your existing workflow. It's great for writers who need to retain what they read and combine this information to create new ideas.

Thanks for your post Derek! I'm getting a lot of value by going through the archives.

I read this article a few months ago, and bookmarked it on my browser. But I just started to write today on Google Keep. I think Google Keep is the most convenient for me because I can write using my mobile phone and also laptop, as long as I have access to my Google account.

Anda at #284 asks for thoughts about the time factor. First, I don't know. Second, I know you don't learn from being blue, from thinking too much about negative things. So that time can be cut out.

Third, it's probably enough to capture the feeling of the day, because when you read it years from now the feelings will come back, like the feelings around a remembered book you read decades ago, when you re-read it now. In my case, I write with a semipermeable membrane around my writing space, allowing in positive more than negative. The negative bears no fruit.

Number three can be done with surprising conciseness, like when you own a digital camera but only take a few worthy pictures, as though you were saving precious film. Concise is from the Latin "to cut," so just cut out a few souvenirs from your day.

Fourth, we know when we are going "down a rabbit hole" too much on our tablets because when we eventually stand up we feel hollow. I don't know about tablets, yet, but I know that for journals I always avoid any hollowness. Maybe that is a learned skill, to be concise and stop writing in good time. Anyways, it has been many years since I stood up hollow from my journal.

In my case, I write on paper so no topic pages, not for the near future, because I already know as much about my thoughts as I can bear.

[Tiddlywiki](https://tiddlywiki.com/) is a great tool for this. Not quite plain text but self-contained html file. You can then tag your journal entries and make the topic journals automatically.

Great post. A real treasure.

Inspires me to start.

(Writing appears to be your condition for making initially imprecise, incomplete ideas whole.)

im not clear on what the organization of this looks like.

Is there any possibility that you could direct me to an existing how-to video or description (or provide a 30 sec loom.com screen capture video of your recommended set up)?

I've read your more recent posts on how you have two lines at the top of each journal entry, so is this just one long ongoing text file for multiple entries?