Alright, got my timer is on 40 minutes. And, 3, 2, 1, off I go…
So, today I wanted to write about journaling which is something I have developed as a skill since the beginning of this year and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. The ROI is immeasurable man! For some context – every time I say ROI I basically mean that the returns for how much I invest in terms of time or money. In this context, journaling is an activity with such great returns on the time invested. That said, I don’t actually spend that long on it. I do it every night for around 15 mins and it’s more than enough time!
What do I actually write about?
Well, I use a template which contains 3 sections:
- Morning Dump
- Highlights
- Night Dump
- Things I’ve learnt
And it looks like this:
You can probably make out most of the information though, for the sake of explanation – the morning dump is where I write down all of my thoughts, plans and ‘adventures‘ I plan to work on for the day. The highlights section actually contains the tasks that I want to work on throughout the day. Then, the night dump is for when I am about to sleep and I write about what I did in the day and what adventures I ventured on as well as some interesting information I’ve picked up during the day. Lastly, I write down things I’ve learnt throughout the day. And yes, all of this takes just a mere 15 mins. I’m going to repeat my point that I’ve mentioned in the past few blogs again – if you don’t have 15 minutes in your 12+ day, you’re lying.
So my simple journal goes like that.
Memory
I have discovered many interesting things that have come out of journaling. One of the main things is the fact that I remember a lot more about each day and the various incidents that happen. It does seem obvious but when you try to journal at night and you try to remember what happened in the day, it’s not so forgiving for the brain. At least for me. I have to pay a visit to my family member to ask about a few of the things I have trouble recalling.
Conversations
Another point that stems from this idea is the ‘family member visit’. I am talking to my family a lot more by simply asking ‘when did the amazon delivery come’ or ‘what time did we go to tennis’. These simple questions open up a domain of complementary questions which expands into a full-blown conversation and that’s what I love! Thanks to the journaling, nowadays, I am speaking to my family members a lot more! Going back to the above point.
So as I remember more of what happened each day, I can easily use conversation starters or recall specific events because I have taken that minute additional step to write it down. And writing helps man! Which is why you should start journaling!
Improvements
Another thing I have found from journaling is that I can easily identify things I need to improve on and it’s ingrained in my mind. I found, from over 60 days of journaling, that certain days are not good and you just wish you could improve particular aspects of that day! And don’t worry, everything can’t be perfect! So the days where I discover particular improvements(almost every day), I write it down! And again, thanks to the journaling, I am able to recall those points even a day later! It’s actually miraculous what writing things down can do to us!
A relatable example I had with this was when I wrote down that I should speak to my parents a lot more instead of being stuck to the screen. Instantly the next day, anytime I spoke with them, I tried to proliferate the discussion duration by contributing more thoughts and questions.
Another example is when I spent much of my day on my own in a separate room just watching videos and I vividly remember writing that I should study next to my dad so that I can bother him with questions as soon as they strike my head.
These examples are just a few of the many situations that I have encountered in the past 60+ days.
Stress Reliever
Another benefit I’ve had with journaling is that I am able to relieve stress right from the get-go! As I do my morning dump in the morning(duh), I spill out all of my thoughts in my brain onto a 2D screen with a string of characters. This flushes my brain’s contingent thoughts away and vacuums all the important information away in a clean and compact way so that I can focus on actually doing my tasks for the day rather than worry about all the thoughts that are hanging onto my ‘brain cells’.
Time Management & Planning
I vaguely touched on another benefit above which is how journaling assists me in planning my day. In my particular journaling template, I write down what I want my ‘highlights’ of the day to be.
I chose this word carefully because I don’t want all work in there! I want to also actively choose to play a video game or watch a video or go out for a walk. So by using the universal term ‘highlights’ I get to fan out to both work and play.
So once I’ve written down my highlights in the morning, I treat it as a checklist that I have to accomplish for the day and it greatly assists me in managing my time and planning throughout the day. All it takes is a sheer 2 mins and it saves me large chunks of time.
What do I write on?
I have 2 possible tools(Roam and Notion which I wrote more about here) which are excellent, although, I chose Notion because it has the option of using templates built into the software, hence, I can seamlessly add the template and work on top of that for each day.
Hopefully, I gave a glimpse of the various benefits that are attached to journaling. What are you waiting for? Get started!
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