Keeping a Journal Without Getting Overwhelmed

A journal is not a literary project. It is a place to put things down so you are not carrying them.

Most men who attempt journaling abandon it within a fortnight. They begin with ambition (long entries, careful reflection, a sense that they are doing something important), but by day four the entries have shortened, by day eight they feel like homework, and by day fourteen the journal sits unopened on the bedside table, radiating a quiet accusation that its owner has neither the energy nor the inclination to answer.

The problem is not discipline. The problem is expectation, for you have been told, by people who sell journals and by people who have never missed a day, that journaling should be a daily practice of deep self-examination. This is aspirational nonsense for most people and an active deterrent for the rest.

Write when you have something to say. Skip the days when you do not. A journal that is used three times a week is infinitely more valuable than one that was used daily for twelve days and then never again.

What to write is simpler than you think: what happened, how you felt about it, what you are thinking about, what is bothering you, what went well. You are not composing an essay; you are emptying a pocket. The sentences do not need to be good. They need to be true.

Keep it short if short is all you have. Three lines is a journal entry. One line is a journal entry. “Difficult day. Argued with Tom. Not sure I was wrong but not sure I was right either.” That is enough, and that is a man processing his life on paper instead of in circles inside his own head, which is a considerable improvement upon the alternative.

Do not reread your entries compulsively. The purpose of writing is the writing itself, the act of translating a feeling into words, which forces a precision that thinking alone does not achieve. If you reread later and find something useful, that is a bonus; if you never reread at all, the benefit has already occurred.

Buy a notebook that does not intimidate you. Not a beautiful leather-bound volume that demands beautiful prose, but a cheap notebook, one you would not mind ruining with bad handwriting and half-finished thoughts. The lower the stakes, the more likely you are to use it.

Begin today. Not with a plan. Not with a system. Open it and write one true thing. Tomorrow, write another, or do not. The journal will be there when you are ready, and it is patient in a way that very few things are.