It’s one of those things I’ve never talked about with other people, the most I’ve really been exposed to journal keeping in pop culture is Doug Funny. People don’t talk about their personal journals.
Ever since I was a teenager I’ve sometimes felt compelled to write about major events, and over the years this has become the habit of keeping a journal that I write in almost every day, and sometimes I go back and read old entries. “What was I doing this time last year?” I also sometimes keep notes or such intentionally for future reference.
So, if you keep a journal, do you go back and read it? Why?
The closest thing I have are my online profiles from Reddit and now here. And yep, I do read back on my conversations for the most part as it’s the closest thing I have, I suppose.
While it doesn’t quite fit what an actual journal is, it is interesting to read back and remember what my state of mind was or what I knew at the time I wrote what I did. Of course, like anyone else, I run the full gambit from being insightful to being stupid.
I did use another profle for when I quit drinking. I used it as an actual journal to document what I was feeling and what I was going through. So, it helped me and I think it helped others that read it.
I don’t know if my journaling is the same kind of journaling you’re thinking of. For me, it’s kind of like a log of scientific experiments. There’s various problems that I’m trying to work through, and I’ll keep track of how I’m doing relative to those problems in my journal along with whatever solution I’m trying to implement. Figuring out whether something helps or not relies on going back and reading old entries to find trends.
I journal to process thoughts, feelings, and problems, so I often go back to try to help me “figure things out.” It’s a double-edge sword sort of situation. Like it really lays bare the fact that certain problems I’ve made zero progress on over the years, but on the other hand, it’s helps me realize other places where I’ve made way more progress than I would have thought.
If you’ve ever seen the Black Mirror episode where they’re able to record their memories and play them back, it can be a little like that. An argument with the wife? I can pull back every. single. time. she’s done “that” before. I think that’s probably not good.
Anyway, overall, when I come away from reading past journal entries I tend to feel a lot more calm and humble.
I can’t, it’s in secret code (my handwriting is atrocious :)
But like others said, it would be good to take up the habit again. Plenty of things going on in my life where I could benefit from a little reflection.Sometimes, although I usually don’t write that often, unless it’s a dream or something emotionally significant since that’s what my therapist recommended journaling for.
When I look back on entries it’s usually to revisit a dream a/o interpretation, or thoughts about/experiences I had with people who aren’t an active part of my life anymore
Does syslog and journalctl count?
Absolutely. Sometimes I’ll just pick a point at random and read forward or back from there.
I’m a Thelemite, and journal writing is kind of a big deal in our religion. Not only do I review my own journal for insights about myself, but I also occasionally have other trusted Thelemites take a look at it to give me feedback. It has been one of those tools that I originally thought wouldn’t be useful, and then turned out to be invaluable.
That isn’t to say that I journal constantly though. Sometimes I’m good and do it all the time, but then I may go several weeks to months with nothing. Remembering to write tells me something about my mental state, and not writing also tells me something about my mental state, and all of that is a useful tool to understand yourself better.
The times that my journal has become fuel for my own self loathing, I have found it useful to talk to other people about what they’ve been writing in theirs. Once you take a peek into another persons interior world, you realize that we all have our own struggles and all fail sometimes—that realization, that you are no better or worse than anyone else, can be extremely powerful.
For anyone who is interested and doesn’t know what Thelema is, here is a useful link. There are dozens of us! Dozens!
https://www.thelema101.com/intro
And 93’s to my fellow weirdos who do know what it is.
Yes, usually with
-p 3flag.I started keeping a daily journal about 10 years ago. It’s helpful for tracking what I worked on as well as various health issues. I skim through it once a week before talking to my therapist and read all entries from the past year when I need to prepare documentation for my annual performance review at work. I’ll grep through the whole thing occasionally when I’m trying to remember when some particular event was. (I don’t do that very often, but it is handy when I need it!)
I typically track:
- current date for the entry (both in the file and as the file name)
- date and time I wrote the entry
- when I went to bed
- when I woke up
- health issues (if any)
- what I worked on (professionally and for my hobbies)
- places I went (if anywhere)
- significant conversations (particularly if there’s something I need to follow up on)
- what I’m watching/reading/playing/etc.
- anything else that seems noteworthy
I keep my journal in plain text files named like YYYY-MM-DD.txt. Right now it’s all in one big folder. I have it in version control and back it up to various places occasionally. I’ll probably split it so there is a folder for each year eventually.
I started doing this after someone came up to talk to me and I realized that I’d recognized him from a particular place a few years earlier but could not for the life of me remember his name!
Do you notice any advantage on journaling?
I have tried started journaling be never stick with it. I do it 1 day, 2 max, but then stop. I wonder if there are any proven benefits. In your anecdotal experience, do you recommend journaling?
It’s been most helpful to me for tracking work and health issues like I said. e.g. being able to say specifically “I wrote the software for A,B,C,D,… and also did E,F,G,H,…” in my performance review instead of forgetting half of it. Reflecting on how many days I’d listed health issues was useful for getting myself to seek professional help instead of just sleeping walking through life as well; still working on that, but having the evidence there I can say things quantitatively like ~25% of my entries (923 days out of 3623 logged) include “tired”, “exhausted”, or “unproductive”… Life isn’t supposed to be like that.
I had a bit of trouble getting started initially, but forced myself to do it for a couple weeks until it became a habit. For me it’s part of winding down towards sleep now; not doing it feels like not brushing my teeth.
It won’t solve your problems for you, but it can help you see them if you have them, and having an auxiliary memory to brain dump into is also nice since you don’t have to keep everything in your head. I recommend anyone who can get into the habit do it; I wish I’d started sooner.
Thank you for the in-depth reply!
I will give it another go!
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Seldom unless I want to revisit or check something specific. I think journaling is more about digesting things than documenting things.
I’ve definitely done that, just started writing or typing just to process something. Though I also do a lot of brainstorming and planning in my journal.
I rarely do. My life has been such to give me little incentive to go through it in any degree again.
Post journal clarity. No thank you.
I don’t keep journals but I do read some of my old whatsapp chats from time to time. Helps that I still have mine from 2013. Just a fun way to look back at what was going on in my life at that point in time, or to see how my relationships with people have changed over the years.
