journaling 101
why i keep a habit of journaling, how to get started, best notebooks and pens, and some more prompts
I get a lot of questions on how I journal and why I journal for people who want to get into it, so I thought I’d make a guide about it as a part of my 101 series!
While it may be habitual for me, I understand that some people may want to start but not know where. Just a disclaimer that journaling is different for everyone, and this post is specifically personal to me! But journaling is such an important part in my life and I have been keeping one since I was really young, so hopefully this can provide some sort of inspiration.
why do i journal? what do i journal?
Two week ago, I did an interview for an Atlantic article about how I use my notes app. My notes app tour went viral on Tiktok twice and for some reason, it interests a lot of people. I was asked by the interviewer if I use it for any personal purposes, and my answer was no. My notes app has always been for relatively impersonal and academic topics, mostly for planning and list-making that I want to add to while I’m in between tasks.
My journal, on the other hand, is pretty much a ‘catch-all dish’ in notebook form. I write everything, from my feelings to big to-do lists to planning for my novels. I think there is something so tangible and meaningful about writing things out by hand, so I try to write out anything personal in my journals instead of typing them. I am not a very sentimental person, but I do think there’s such a great sentimental value in having these as a record.
Whenever I look through my old journals, from ones back in elementary school to ones in college, I feel like I’m able to physically feel my character growth and see it in a linear timeline. I went through phases—a dear diary phase when I was seven, an overdramatic phase where I exaggerated everything that happened to me when I was eleven, and a Kafka/Plath phase where I tried to make everything sound as poetic as possible when I was sixteen. Now, I just write things down the way I think them in my head.
The box with my journals has become my own little library archive, and it’s one of the things I treasure most in life. I obviously don’t often reread recent or specific (traumatic) entries because of self explanatory reasons. But I do love flipping through entries from a decade ago to a very mundane day and seeing what I was doing on June 15th, 2009.
My journals are a way of archiving my thoughts at that time, but also useful for processing them. I have a bad habit of intellectualizing and rationalizing every single thought or thing that happens to me, so much so that I’m always hyperaware of my every thought. I also repress emotions as the first line of defense (because I sometimes think my emotions get in the way of being productive—not in a toxic productivity way, but a ‘I need to get this done by a deadline for my job’ way).
Journaling for me, is a remedy for that. Every day after I wake up, I grab my journal and I write a long stream of consciousness of everything that is going on in my head. I feel like this helps me empty it for the day, so my brain feels less full. Even if I rationalize and examine every thought in my head, writing it down on paper makes it feel less abstract and more concrete. This allows me to just write it out and stop thinking about it—in essence, I am trying to trap all of my worries in my journals, like a metaphorical cage.
In between classic diary entries, I write down anything that comes to mind. From story ideas to things I want to cook that week, I fill my pages with things that only feel important to me. I don’t necessarily journal for ‘self improvement’ (as many self help books tell you to do), but to ‘brain dump’—empty out all of the thoughts and ideas in my head so I can fill them with new ones.
I like answering a short prompt before I actually write down any thoughts because I think it’s just a really nice way to start a morning. I write these out at the start of every month. Here are my September daily journal prompts for reference:
how to get started
Over the years, a lot of my friends have asked me how they can get into journaling. I think two things are imperative to consider: habit and purpose. Getting in the routine of journaling often, and wondering how this habit will benefit you. I know a lot of people who are certain that journaling is detrimental for them, and a waste of time. We all process our thoughts in different ways, and writing them out might actually exacerbate worries or make thoughts spiral into them.