There’s this box I’ve had for the longest time in my room which I call ‘The box of memories’. It’s like this little time machine where I keep things from the past which have sentimental value to me or are linked to a memory that brings me joy. Things like old notes from my high-school friends, letters, photos, flyers from a specific trip or adventure, tickets to my first Bruce Springsteen concert with my dad, or to the premiere of the last Harry Potter film, among other random bits and bobs.
Since some of you have hung around here for a while now, I’m going to open up the doors of this personal time machine and tell you what else you’d find in there: journals. Tons of them. In fact, through the years I’ve had to keep on sizing up this ‘Box of memories’ because it was impossible to keep fitting them all in there.
I’ve been a journaling junkie for as long as I can remember and I can’t think of any period in my life where I haven’t had in my possession some sort of notebook on which to dump my thoughts. Even nowadays, in my current flat in Amsterdam, there’s still a designated spot in my room where I stack my journals, at least five or six of them just in the past two years.
I’ve always been a bit of a nostalgic, and I’ve always loved writing, but I think the real need that I’ve always had for journaling comes from the fact that I have always felt the need to declutter my mind from an overload of thoughts and feelings and organize them into something that I could extract some sense from. I guess it’s my way of listening to myself and unburdening.
Without even noticing, all these years of journaling have led me through a path of self-awareness that I didn’t even know I was walking. But I realize now, that developing a habit of putting my thoughts, emotions, and feelings into words has significantly helped me know myself better. So I wanted to write a short article on those and many other benefits that I have gained through the years with this simple practice of journaling because I think that you, as much as I do, might find it beneficial as well.
1. Declutter your mind
In the era of multitasking and information overload that we live in, where our heads are continuously filled with clutter, journaling can become an incredibly freeing practice to introduce into your routine.
We always seem to have a never-ending list of to-do’s that we have to keep track of in order not to fall behind. Plans, appointments, birthdays, deadlines, meetings… And well, unless you are like Mike from Suits, there is only so much our brains can retain.
As my father used to say, “You’re better off with a short pen than a large memory”.
Your head might forget, but paper won’t.
So we annotate anniversaries here, appointments there, meetings in our google calendars, and ideas in our smartphones, just to make sure that we will have a source to go back to, for our busy heads to remember. However, by the time we want to go back to that piece of information that we so smartly wrote down in the past, we don’t even remember where to start looking.
“Ugh, I know I wrote this down, but where?!”
But it’s not just tasks, appointments, and meetings that clutter our minds. It’s also feelings, emotions, reflections, and ideas, which we sometimes end up holding onto for far too long. Sitting in front of a blank page and manually writing down what’s in your head helps you gain clarity over your own thoughts and gain perspective (about yourself, about others, or about a certain situation).
In addition, some people have trouble opening up to friends or family about what they are going through, which sometimes leads to bottling it all up and can end up eating you from inside. Nothing good comes out of that.
In such cases, a journal can be like a great friend you can always share your deepest thoughts with, without having to worry about unloading weight on them or feeling judged. It’s your safe space to let go of what’s weighing you down and gain clarity over it. It’s almost like a form of therapy.
Almost. By no means am I suggesting that journaling should substitute any form of professional therapy. But I do believe that it’s a great mechanism to unload the burden and overwhelm that our busy little heads sometimes deal with, as well as to gain clarity over the noise.
2. Mindfulness
Although this word gets thrown around a lot these days, very few actually practice it. Most of us live with our heads either somewhere in the future, fantasizing or worrying about something that has not happened yet, or in the past, thinking about why things turned out the way they did or wishing we could go back to an idealized moment.
It’s hard not to have our heads preoccupied, when we are surrounded by continuous stimuli, and overwhelmed by floods of information on a daily basis.
Being present nowadays doesn’t ‘just happen’. It’s something we need to make room for and pursue intentionally. Go out for that morning walk and enjoy nature, lay down in your bathtub with some relaxing music, or take a few minutes to sit down with a cup of tea and write in your journal.
When you journal, you are present. All the noise, devices, screens, and notifications are left behind for you to be fully connected to your thoughts and let them flow freely from your mind, through the pen, and to your page.
All you really need is just 10-15 minutes a day. And everyone has 10-15 minutes a day. If you don’t make the conscious decision to pause and dedicate time to yourself, the rat race will just go on and on, and you’ll probably continue to spin on the hamster wheel until you burn out.
When you open your journal, you automatically unplug. There, sitting in front of your blank pages, you can actually manage to stop the floods of information and stimuli, giving your mind the time it needs to catch up. Things become less of a blur, and you can finally examine your life with greater clarity.
The simple act of writing by hand draws your mind into the present moment and helps you disconnect from the hectic and buzzing world moving around you to start looking inwards instead.
And going within is essential in order to successfully manage our outer world, which takes me to the next great benefit of journaling…
3. Increased self-awareness
We hardly ever take the time to connect with ourselves and look within. In fact, I’d say self-awareness is probably one of the most underrated types of knowledge these days, while its absence actually being one of the main sources of our problems.
Journaling helps you embark on a journey of self-exploration, which empowers you to have a better understanding of yourself and therefore, make changes and work on issues that might need some improvement. The point isn’t to strive for perfection, rather identify those areas that are blocking us from being happier and better aligned with ourselves and others.
Self-awareness is a critical ability to help you reach higher levels of job satisfaction, healthier and better relationships, as well as to better manage your emotions. Luckily, self-awareness can be cultivated and practiced, and journaling is a great tool to do so. It will help you evaluate how your values, passions, and goals fit into your current environment and circumstances and identify cues and ways on how to align them better.
4. Better productivity, clarity, and prioritization.
Do you ever feel a little overwhelmed by a never-ending multitasking spiral? Like your focus just keeps being directed towards way too many different directions. Combining your responsibilities and obligations with your dream projects seems too much to juggle and even though you’ve been trying to be more invested in them, you still have no progress to show for it. Sounds familiar?
Many times the reason this happens is that we waste our time and energy on unimportant things without even realizing it. And those are two very valuable assets that we shouldn’t be spending just anywhere. Instead, we can choose to organize our lives in a way that helps us redirect our focus towards the areas that truly serve us and support the life we want to live.
For example, one of the journaling tips that has really helped me remove distractions is to always note down my top three priorities for the day. This helps me have a clear view of what is most urgent and therefore needs to be taken care of before anything else – like smaller or less relevant tasks – which should be put on a halt until those priorities are ticked off.
Planning, tracking, and designing your life around a system that works for you and your goals can positively impact your productivity and help you stay motivated, and journaling is just the perfect tool to make you accountable for it. Crossing out tasks and checking out boxes, as well as putting into paper your vision and most ambitious goals can help you materialize them and make them more real.
When something is written down on paper, it becomes harder to ignore. If you do, those pages will always look back at you with slight disappointment, almost as if they said ‘Hey, did you forget about us? We’re still here!’ giving you a little extra push to stick to the promises you’ve made to yourself.
In addition, when you start logging your progress on paper, your journal automatically becomes a tracker that can provide you with an honest picture of how well you are performing according to your desired plans and therefore, allows you to identify if you need to make any adjustments, as well as to evaluate if you have stagnated in your progress and if so, why.
But besides helping you gain clarity over how to organize your time on a daily basis, journaling can also be a great way to have an overview of the bigger picture. By looking into your log and past notes you can easily see where you are coming from and, by organizing the present, you can plan better for the future, which you can hash down into more achievable goals that can turn into smaller daily tasks.
So in essence, journaling can also be incredibly advantageous to help you materialize your dreams and big-picture goals into smaller daily tasks that you can accomplish by becoming more productive and learning to manage your time better.
5. Time-machine
Lastly, probably one of my favorite perks of having a journal (or better said, two dozens of them), is that it’s like having your own little analog time machine. I love to reminisce on the past and go back to memories that I hold dear in my heart. And although scrolling down my phone’s camera roll can be a great trip down memory lane, nothing compares to reading the pages of my old journals where I’ve described in vivid detail how specific scenes, moments, and events of my life made me feel and what they’ve taught me – to all the many versions of ‘me’, actually.
Because that is another precious thing about the practice of journaling, that the continuously-evolving individual you are is also reflected through its different developing phases along those pages.
So it’s almost like stepping onto a time machine and revisiting old versions of yourself. You have access to the way you used to perceive the world, the way you talked, the things that were most valuable to you at the time, what kept you up at night, what you dreamt about… and can look back at them with perspective and a completely different mindset some years down the line. It’s a great way to find your way back to yourself as well as to realise how far you’ve come and the progress you’ve made.
So as you can see, your journal can be your time machine, your planner, your to-do list, your personal therapist, your diary, or your dream project’s roadmap. Whatever you decide to make it, I can guarantee that you will surely reap great benefits out of your journaling practice.
If you’re new to journaling and are not very convinced whether it’s something for you or not, I suggest you get your hands on a journal these holidays to start experimenting with it and check out this article I wrote on ‘How to use the basics of bullet journaling to design a life you love‘. Make it your own, see how it adapts to your needs, and fall in love with the wholesome practice of journaling.
Happy journaling!