Our Love/Hate Relationship With Journaling

How to Develop a Consistent Journaling Practice

I recently went back to a journal I kept in 2005. Oh. My. Gosh. Seeing yourself in the past that way is like watching a black and white movie where you are the featured star. It is such a trip down memory lane. I am so glad to have these entries to look back on, and glad that I found a way to create a journaling practice that works for me. In order to do that I had to loosen my idea around what journaling is and what it means to be consistent. I had to remind myself that I make the rules. 

When many of us think of journaling, we think of a process where we write down all of the events of the day: what happened, who was involved, who went where, what we wore. It can feel like a lot, and keeping up with something with that level of detail every single day can feel daunting. 

There are many ways to journal beyond keeping a daily account of your life’s events. Here are five ideas for other kinds of journaling:

1. Process Journaling. You can utilize this form of journaling when you are processing the way something made you feel or something that is troubling you. You can use your journal as a space to work through the discomfort around what you’re experiencing. 

2. One Sentence Journaling. Part of what can feel overwhelming about journaling is being preoccupied with how much you’re saying in a given entry. Using this method allows you to summarize a day or an experience in a single sentence, and it doesn’t have to be anything complicated. Your one sentence could be, “Today was amazing when I discovered that the donut shop around the corner has sour cream donuts,” or “It sucked today when I wore my favorite shoes and stepped in a puddle of water and my socks got wet.”

3. Video Journal. Beyoncé did this in her Homecoming special. She would just turn her camera on and talk. Sometimes this is referred to as vlogging because there are people who produce and share this content, but you can do it just for you. You can be the content creator of your own life. You can turn the camera on with the intention of keeping it to yourself. 

4. Voice Recording. If you don’t want to look at your face while you’re talking, you can just record your voice for whatever length of time works for you. It can be a stream of consciousness, it can be you venting, or you can be talking about something specific. 

5. Journal Prompts. When I get bored with journaling, I grab a few journaling prompt books. There are tons of these kinds of lists available online as well (and at the end of every Nedra Nuggets newsletter). Journal prompts give you a starting place when you’re not sure what to write about, or you don’t know where to begin. 

Consistency is tricky. In my professional opinion consistency is any regular interval of time. Once a day, once a month, once a week, all of that is consistent. It doesn’t have to be frequent, it just has to be something you can stick to. If you can take 5 minutes a day to journal, great. If you can journal six times a year, great. But don’t quit journaling just because you can’t commit to doing it everyday. 

A lot of us have journaling trauma, because at some point in the past someone found and read our journal, and we don’t feel comfortable writing on paper. I have been keeping a digital journal since about 2005. I have a journaling app and I use the Notes function on my phone. One of the things I love about Notes is that it has a separate password from the one I use to unlock my phone and it’s completely random, so it adds an additional layer of security. 

The important thing to remember when journaling is that it is for you. It is yours to write and no one is judging it. It is not for public consumption. It is a way to reflect, and keep track of who you are, where you’re going and what you’ve done. It’s your life story. 

Journal Prompts

What is a method of journaling that has worked for you?

What are some things you need to do to be more consistent (in your own way) with your journaling practice?

Journal Recommendations

In Courage: A Daily Practice for Self Discovery, by Alex Elle. Available on Amazon and Bookshop. 

Repeat After Me: A Workbook for Adult Children Overcoming Dysfunctional Family Systems, by Claudia Black. Available on Amazon and Bookshop.

The Book of Myself: A Do It Yourself Autobiography in 201 Questions, by Carl and David Marshall. Available on Amazon and Bookshop. 

Burn After Writing, by Sharon Jones. Available on Amazon and Bookshop. 

The Set Boundaries Workbook: Practical Exercises for Understanding Your Needs and Setting Healthy Limits. Available on Amazon and Bookshop. 

A Few Things That Caught My Attention

• Black Women Can Be Diagnosed with ADHD Too, by Jasely Molina, in The Cut.

• How Not to Help a Friend in Need, by Tara Parker-Pope, in The New York Times. 

• The Gilded Age. This show is about high society families in New York in the 1900s and how they established their family legacies. It’s really interesting because a lot of these families still exist, but this show talks about their beginnings. It’s really good. You can watch it on HBO.

• 6 Ways to Strengthen Your Relationships in 2023, by Catherine Pearson

• Are You Truly There For Your Cup of Tea on the The Way Out Is In podcast. This was suggested by the wonderful Alex Elle. It’s about the practice of drinking a cup of tea, and it is amazing. If you’re a tea lover you will especially enjoy it. You can listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you stream podcasts.