Journaling Just Works

I've realized that I rarely look back at past entries. Journaling, for me, is a way of processing what I'm thinking about and feeling in the present, so I try to let it flow out of me with zero planning or rereading. I'm wondering if anyone here refers back to old entries when writing new ones, or even uses old entries to analyze trends over time. What do you do with the longer view?

We’re now 516 members! A warm welcome to all of you :)

The idea with this Weekly Thread is to encourage people to participate more by sharing a theme. See that as an invitation, nothing more and you’re more than welcome to comment about anything else related to journaling, or to start your own thread while ignoring this one.

This week theme: Where do you journal?

Do you like to write your journal at home, comfortably installed on your desk or maybe on a couch or in the bed? Or do you journal everywhere you go? And how? Do you do it on your phone, or in your journal (that you carry everywhere you go?) or maybe in smaller notebook?

I started a few years ago. Sometimes, I had a dream that I wanted to remember and so I started writing it down. I also drew sketches of the places I dreamed about.

In fact, writing about my dreams is how I got into journaling in the first place. It was only a year ago that I decided to also start a "regular" journal.

Do any of you also have a "dream" journal?

It's not our Weekly Thread (I will post it in a couple days, like every week) but I just replied this in another thread and thought it might be worth sharing with you guys. I also invited the OP to join our community. Hopefully, they will. A short summary, to give you some context: the OP was worried that they can't keep on writing in their journal and asked for advice. What follows is my reply to the OP reply to my first comment. The whole thread can be read here.

It's a bit long but I see so many (young or not so young) people being blocked by that perfectionism shit (I also had to fight against it, mind you). Let me know, if you think this has little to do with our community or if you think it's ok and feel free to add your own remarks and suggestions:

One thing I’ve discovered about my mentality is that, I’ve developed a perfectionist perspective/mindset

Perfectionism is the enemy of creativity, which journaling can be considered a form of but that’s true of any form of writing. Perfectionism will often be used as an excuse to not finish/publish a text. I learned at a very young age to say to my own perfectionism to fuck off. Even for simple stuff like commenting here on lemmy I’m OK with publishing posts/comments in English (which means that they contain even more mistakes than they would have in my native French), I’m ok with mistakes and I can always edit the ones I see later on. I’m also ok with not having a fully articulated expression of what I really want to say (for that you would need to read and me to write in French). And that’s true for any other published work, not just here on Lemmy (I may have been writing for a living, younger).

As far as I’m concerned, I consider perfectionism one of my worst enemy. I see it as my own fear of realizing I’m far from being as good I imagine I am ;)

After reading your insight, maybe I’m sensing a change in my perspective. A positive change. Maybe I can LET GO of the feeling of failure and move on…

So glad to know that!

Don’t be afraid (really) to try letting go of that perfectionism. Worst case: it won’t help you. But if it does help you, you will never regret getting rid of that shit feeling.

A warning before you try anything new: you need to be prepared, like be OK in you head, like for real because it’s the most likely outcome, with the idea that you will fail at doing it, that will fail the first time, and maybe the second time and maybe more. And even if you don’t fail, you may be ok with doing something great either. That’s not an issue. That’s how you begin. That’s how anyone begins. Trying to get rid of that shit feeling of perfectionism you will indeed fight years-long education and habits. It’s not just an on/off switch so be ok with that ;)

We now live in an age that hates failing and is in absolute adoration before perfectionism(at least as much as it is in adoration before money). That is the most stupid thing ever conceived; And it is even more so for all the kids that are being taught that. Because, simply put, failing is essential part of leaning. I would even say failing is the only legit way to learn anything that is worth learning.

How did you learn to walk? By walking a marathon or running a sprint like some athlete or was it by falling on your diapered toddler bum one clumsy step after another, over and over again? Yeah, not that brilliant but be assured that was the exactly the same with me. How did you learn to write? By writing poetry that put to shame dear Shakespeare at your very first attempt? Or by making a shit ton of mistakes, and by writing each letter clumsily one at a time, and then, after years of practice, by realizing you were indeed able to write your first (but still rather poorly worded) real sentences? So did I. And I experience that with every single language I learn(ed), even more so with non-Latin languages. And how did you (maybe?) learn to kiss, and more? Don’t tell me you were at the top of your art from your first kiss, and that you were a perfect lover the first time too because I certainly wasn’t (and, decades later, still am not ;)

Failing and then trying to understand how and why, and how to avoid repeating the exact same mistake, is at the core of learning and therefore should be at the core of any quality teaching too. Not telling kids they’re perfect and all they do is amazing. That’s bullshit. Alas, it’s that bullshit that is now the norm. Heck, teachers in schools nowadays are even afraid to give poor grades to students as that could be traumatizing for the kids… forgetting that’s it’s the sole purpose of giving a grade: to assess the level of assimilation of whatever the student was supposed to have studied. Sad state of affair out of which the real losers here are those students that don’t learn essential knowledge and skills anymore. They’re the ones that are being screwed up.

Sorry, for that rant. It’s something that worries me a lot to watch so many younger people being frozen by the fear of failing despite being at the very age where they should happily be taking so many fucking risks and be daring of trying the most stupid shit. I also worry a lot realizing those younger ones are very quickly becoming unable to read and write, or to do simple math. Meaning they aren’t able to learn and understand much by themselves, and less and less able to communicate whatever thought, emotion, or idea they may wish to share.

To get back to your situation: your journal is not a work of art that will end up exposed in art galleries nor in a museum, maybe you will do stuff that will end up exposed and studied, no one can predict the future, but they should not be your journal. That journal is one of the tools in your toolbox with which you will do what you want with your life. It’s also a work in progress. Use it, abuse it, experiment in it, break it as often as you feel like it. In a few decades, when you will look back at your old journals, you will be happy you have tried (and failed) so many times at so many things. And I’m willing to bet you will be happy to have kept a record of all those failed and imperfect attempts of yours ;)

Why a WT?

We’ve a steadily growing community—we’re now 494 members! Welcome to all of you :)—but we still lack momentum.

The idea is to encourage more participation by sharing a weekly theme. This just an invitation and you’re more than welcome to comment about anything else (related to journaling), or to start your own thread ;)

Also: do you think we should do something to celebrate the 500th... if we manage to get there?

This week theme: What do you do you when you finish a journal?

Do you have any special rituals, or do you just start a new one?

Obviously, the question concerns pen and paper journalers more than digital users but don’t hesitate to comment as a digital user too! Explain us how you manage switching app (or if you don't switch and only use one, like I used to do when I used DayOne), or if you lack the emotion of finally filling the very last page of a notebook and starting a new one? Or if there is no emotion associated with that?

Edit: once again, I used my non-admin account to post this weekly thread. Silly me. Feel free to petition and demand a less amateurish admin if you feel like it's needed. I won't protest :p

What is this WT?

We’ve a steadily growing community—Welcome to our 18 new members since last week, we're now 483 total!—but participation is growing slower.

My idea is to encourage people in participating more by pushing a weekly theme. It’s an invitation, not a mandatory theme. Feel free to comment about anything else related to journaling, or to start your own thread ;)

This week theme: If by journaling it you could change one thing in the past…

News aren't that great and I thought it might be an interesting way to reuse a classic sifi theme. So, if by journaling it, writing it or skecthing it down in your journal, you could change any past event, not something global like an election, a war, some castatrophic event, or anything like that but something directly linked to you daily or to the people close to you.

1. Would you use that power?
2. What would you change?

From the feelings you have written about, to a cool little doodle you did. And if you do share, with whom and why?

Are you a beginner, or are you considering if you should start a journal? Ask all your questions here. Are you more experienced? Feel free to share tips, tricks, pictures of your journal, anecdotes. Anything related to keeping a journal is welcome in this weekly thread.

Why a WT?

We’ve a steadily growing community—we’re now 465 members! Welcome to all of you!—but we don’t have that much active members.

My idea is to encourage people in participating more by pushing a weekly theme. It’s an invitation, not an obligation. Feel free to comment about anything else related to journaling, or to start your own thread ;)

This week theme: Is your journal analog or digital? Both? Or something else entirely?

Are you more of an analog or a digital user? Do you use both without any hesitation? Do you use a dedicated app like, say, DayOne, or a word processor, or a text editor, something like MS Word, LibreOffice or TextEdit?

Do you have an app you love to use? That helps you journaling?

Disclaimer: don't you dare question my amazing illustrator skills. This is a perfectly fine illustration for the weekly thread, one many pro news outlets would envy us :p

Are you a beginner, or are you considering if you should start a journal? Ask all your questions here. Are you more experienced? Feel free to share tips, tricks, pictures of your journal, anecdotes. Anything related to keeping a journal is welcome in this weekly thread.

Why a WT?

We’ve a steadily growing community—we’re now 456 members, twenty more than last week! hi & welcome to all of you!—but we don’t have that much active members.

My idea is therefore to encourage people in participating more by pushing a weekly theme. It’s an invitation, not an obligation. Feel free to comment about anything else related to journaling, or to start your own thread ;)

This week theme: Nothing is working out

What do you do when stuff aren’t working as expected? Do you journal about them? If so, how? Do you use your journal as tool to try to better understand what’s going or is it just a way to record the event and keep track of them?

https://magicpuppies.glitch.me/home

upon the birth of Moana, Sun, Bear, and Raya, I am starting to record the history of Lana, Misha, and pups. It is a great feeling. Basically, before I started doing this was prehistory and now there is a record of history. I bet alot of you know what this feels like. Now pics and stories are saved and revisitable.

Dont worry contains no ads, monetization, google analytics, any of that. It's pure; like a sacred thing should be. I have one page to add entries and another to see them.

Anyway, what u think? :)

Are you a beginner, or are you considering if you should start a journal? Ask all your questions here. Are you more experienced? Feel free to share tips, tricks, pictures of your journal, anecdotes. Anything related to keeping a journal is welcome in this weekly thread.

Why a WT?

The community keeps getting new members—we’re now 436 members, hi & welcome to all of you!—but we don’t have much active members.

My idea is therefore to encourage people in participating more by pushing a weekly theme. It’s an invitation, not an obligation. Feel free to comment about anything else related to journaling, or to start your own thread. You can also let me know if you don't like to see a Weekly Thread. I won't be mad ;)

This week theme: I (don’t) care about my privacy!

Digital journal often offers some way to encrypt our entries, analog journaling not so much. Anyone opening a journal will be able to read it which can lead to some sad situations. But even if that journal was stored in a safe, or in a locked drawer, seeing us journaling may draw attention and raise questions form friends, SO, children, and even from the cat or the dog!

Do you worry about that? How you deal with the privacy of your journal?

I’m very happy to report that I have yet again updated the community sidebar with a link to a brand new community.

[email protected] is

a community for stationery users and lovers. We talk about pens, fountain pens, notebooks, planners, pencils, mechanical pencils, markers… and in general about everything we use for writing, journaling or drawing.

It’s great to see more communities around interesting topics. And this one obviously is. Well to analog journalers/writers among us at least ;)

Are you a beginner, or are you considering if you should start a journal? Are you more experienced? Feel free to ask all your questions here, to share tips, tricks, pictures of your journal, anecdotes. Anything related to keeping a journal is welcome in this weekly thread.

Why weekly?

We have a steadily growing community and we’re now 418 members! But we don’t have that much active members (which is fine, don’t get me wrong). My idea with the weekly thread is to encourage people to participate and to hopefully give it more visibility. It also makes it simpler for lazy-me to regularly publish new content ;)

If it needs to be said, you don’t have to post your questions, discussions in this weekly thread. Not at all. You also don’t have to talk about this week’s theme. It’s just a trigger or an invitation you can completely ignore. I would even encourage you to talk about anything else, as well as to start your own threads.

This week theme

Do you journal about all the shit happening in the world, far or nearby, or is your journal more intimate?

Welcome to our new members!

The Weekly Thread is the place for everyone to share content and ask questions. Are you a beginner, or are you considering if you should start a journal? Ask all your questions here. Are you more experienced? Feel free to share tips, tricks, pictures of your journal, anecdotes. Anything else related to journaling is welcome

This week theme: What’s worth journaling?

I regularly read on the Reddit journaling sub—no doubt we will soon be able to read as much interesting conversations right here, in our own Lemmy journaling community ;)—people complaining that they don’t have an interesting enough life to write about it.

Neither is mine. And That’s fine. For me, events don’t matter much, it’s how they impact me and how I perceive them.

What about you? (I will share some details about my uneventful journal in the comments).

I updated the sidebar to add a new ‘Notebooks' community, a place to, I quote,

Share your collection, use cases, note-taking methods, pens, and accessories as you see fit.

You are welcome to share your journaling here too. Anything involving a notebook is welcome!

[email protected]

Obviously, I'd rather see journaling content posted around here, a dedicated community, but that's absolutely fine to do it anywhere as long as it encourages people to journal more; to talk more about how they do it, and at least as important, if it encourages newcomers to give journaling a chance.

We have no excuse anymore as we now have our dedicated journaling community, a fountain pen one, and now also a notebook community. Maybe we should have one dedicated to the humble but so useful ballpoint pen/gel pen too ;)

This week theme: Are you an addict to stationery?

Are you a beginner, or are you considering if you should start a journal? Ask all your questions here. Are you more experienced? Feel free to share tips, tricks, pictures of your journal, anecdotes. Anything else related to journaling is welcome in this weekly thread, don't hesitate.

Edit: I forgot to welcome new subscribers. Like, really what was I even thinking?
So—let's all pretend I did not forget—welcome!

Welcome to all our new members—hi!

You're beginner, or you're simply considering if you should start keeping a journal? Ask all your questions here. You're more experienced? Feel free to share pictures of your journal, tips & tricks, anecdotes.

This week theme: Do you like your journal pages to look perfect?

Anything related to keeping a journal is welcome in this weekly thread.

A warm welcome to our new members. There is not a lot of activity going on on the surface but our numbers are steadily growing (351 this very morning!), which is neat!

This the second issue of our Weekly Thread, where anyone is welcome to post pictures, questions, anecdotes, suggestions, tips and tricks, your latest great find, absolutely anything related to journaling (at least remotely)

Did you treat yourself with some fancy or not so fancy office supply? Or maybe you're testing out a new journaling app or workflow? Did the dog ate your brand new journal or chew on your new Montblanc fountain pen? Anything else, more or less serious?

Are you a beginner or you're not sure if should start keeping a journal? It's a good place to ask any question ;)

So much this (link to Reddit).

Don't worry about not looking great, or clever, or whatever you consider a flattering image of yourself when you read back your journal in a few days, months, years, or decades—yep, I'm that old.

That's fine. No, that's great.

Believe me, no matter what, as long as you wrote honestly about it (not in the sense of writing some supposed indisputable deep truth, in the sense of honestly writing what you were thinking and feeling back then, at that time, no matter how silly) it's worth it and it will be worth reading back.

You have no idea how dearly I miss my old journals were I wrote about my first true love, as a little boy, and later about my second true love, as a young teen. And also, no matter how unflattering it is for me, all I may have written about my many crushes and my countless failed attempt at flirting. Thinking about it, I must have been in love every single day at that time and it must have been a real pain for my best friend who endured all of it—we're still best friends all those years later ;)

Some forty+ years later, I still remember V. wonderful blue eyes and how she smiled and her eyes too, and how badly I wanted to impress her. And how fucking terrorized and excited I was the day I rang her door, completely out of the blue, because it was the last opportunity I could ask her out. I was 14, I had long hair, flowers in one hand (like, really) and my face was tomato red. I still remember how stupidly I smiled when the door opened to let her dad out. He was about to leave for his job, wearing his... cop uniform. He looked at me for more or less an eternity, and the more he looked at me the more I was dying inside.

You can believe me when I tell you that, he was not happy to meet me, and that V. and I did not end up getting married :P

Post pictures, questions, anecdotes, suggestions, tips and tricks, your latest great find, anything related to journaling in this weekly thread.

Yep, I'm still trying to find a way to encourage more people to participate, so feel free to use this thread, or obviously to start your own ;)

I updated the sidebar with a new (new to me, at least) community called 'Web Revival' that wants to be "A movement focused on capturing the creativity and openness of the early Internet."

[email protected]

At first glance, it's not strictly a journaling or writing related community but I think it's intimately related (and very interesting) as it's very close to what motivates many of us in keeping a journal—the ability to make events/time/thoughts truly ours and not just things we're remotely looking at.

Blogs, that used to be called 'online journals' you know, personal websites, Small Web, small forums (like the communities, here on Lemmy) and so on made exactly that for the Web. They made it our Web. Not just a product we're allowed to consume. We made it and its content.

All those things that once were popular and are not so much nowadays—I'm exaggerating, they're still popular? Well, maybe but allow me to ask this: how many of us go check our respective profiles when we participate in a discussion, here on Lemmy, and when we see that there is a link to a personal blog or whatever how many of us do click the link? Yeah, I thought so ;)

All those small personal spaces made the Web a unique place, so highly personal and so rich. There was need for an algorithm and we had none. This space was slowly invaded and pillaged by corporate bullshit and money, like mold growing staining everything with ads and marketing. Ruining every single thing they touched.

Humbly, I used to be active in that pre-corporate Web, my first website dates back to the mid 90s, if not earlier. So, it could very well me being old and nostalgic but when I stumbled upon that new community it almost feel like when I open to write into my journal—a nice and comfy place, home.

I dearly miss that Web. Exactly like I miss receiving and writing personal letters handwritten or not, what matters is that they're personal, instead of emails or messages—says the exact same guy that has been not writing back to a very special letter he received way too many days ago! I really have no shame ;)

Once again, let me know if you don't think this community is related to journaling. I hope I made it clear I think it is but I also don't own our community and I'm open to discussion.

Have a nice day, and maybe go have a look at that community? [email protected]

The question doesn’t mean much if you're a digital journaler as you probably already have a synced copy available on your phone. But for the analog journalers out there this can mean mean the difference between having a journaling and having... lost our journal. Every single page of it.

There is no such thing as syncing and rarely any backup of our notebooks. So, carrying it everywhere we go is a real risk.

I don’t carry my journal with me because I know I will lose it. That's a scientific fact based on personal experiences (way too many of them) of losing a lot of things, from my keys and countless umbrellas, up to a brand new laptop (yeah, that's me, and would you believe it when I went back to get the laptop back it was not there anymore) as well as, you guessed it, my journal.

So, my journal stays at home.

What I do carry everywhere I go, outside as well as from one room to another in our apartment, is a pocket notebook of some sort and a pen where I quickly write stuff down. I don’t try to write great literature not even full sentences, it’s merely a few key words and symbols that have zero meaning to anyone but me and that work (wonders) as a reminder when I’m back at my desk and I write whatever I was thinking about when I jotted those down in that pocket notebook. And that small notebook, I don’t care much losing it.

For years, I used to get those free but real handy small notebooks with a tiny but decent ballpoint pen attached to it, from the pharmacy next street. It was their gift around New Year, knowing I quite enjoyed them, they would let me pick a bunch of them (not enough for a whole year but still, that was nice. This year, they gave me a... pencil pouch. It's an odd pharmacy, I suppose ;)

I never kept a journal consistently because writing my thoughts felt like giving anyone access to them, and thus, I felt pressured to write like an eloquent Socratic philosopher just in case anyone DID read it.

An interesting discussion on r/journaling about being honest, or not, in one's journal. And how the OP found it to be tiring.

What do you think?

And do you lie or simply make yourself look better in your journal, just in case some would read it?

I tend to agree with the OP. But, I also understand that desire to please and to be liked (and to not be judged) just in case someone would read that journal, even without our consent.

I also think that when one stops being honest in their journal there is a very real risk to lose interest in journaling altogether. Which I would not want to happen.

I did lie for a while in y journal, openly I mean. I called that being 'hypocritical' but it was only me lying to myself and to that hypothetical and very unwelcome reader. It did not last long, it was during a very challenging time with a lot of self-doubt... not that long ago as a matter of fact. I stopped doing that soon after I started as it was exhausting and not very helpful. And not fun at all.

Also, there are much simpler way to tell lies to an audience. Being an actor or a politician are two obvious ways of doing it. Or be a writer and write (or sketch) stories in which you lie. Not all stories are lies, but many are and that's perfectly OK.

Stories are great as in them one can pretend absolutely anything. And they're also much simpler to share than a journal, if that's what you're wanting to do. I mean, beside traditional publishing in books or magazines there are many places and communities one could share their ~~lies~~ stories to an audience more willing to believe them ;)

I see quite a few new members have joined our small community in the last few weeks which is great! (Edit 16th Dec: we passed the 300 members!)

A warm welcome to every single one of you!

I was wondering if you would be interested in post where everyone would be able to present themselves in a few words if they wanted to, maybe share a little info about themselves and their journaling habits or why they're considering journaling?

No obligation, obviously, and nothing too personal should probably be shared but here it is.

If the discussion gains enough traction I may pin it as a permanent welcome post and an invitation to new members to introduce themselves. If it doesn't, well so be it.

I will introduce myself in the comments, read you there ;)