The Illusive Discipline of Journaling

My Herculean task for this year.

If I were Sisyphus, my insurmountable task would be keeping a journal daily. As much as I’ve always wanted to be able to be consistent about it, I never last longer than a week in my attempts. All of my journals from overseas trips are incomplete, some even ending mid sentence. After I graduated college, I had my best attempt at journaling, but this was simply because I had a good routine of poetry writing that meant that I would reliably write just a sentence or two daily for later reference. My iPhone Notes app has hundreds of phrases saved, but long-form journaling has completely evaded me.

Lately, I have picked up the attempt to journal again. I read that journaling can be a successful replacement for mindless online scrolling, and it seems much more realistic to replace the internet with something else, rather than to simply attempt to eliminate all scrolling. While I’m only at the beginning of this attempt, I have set a few guidelines for myself that I’d like to share.

Journals do not need to be diaries.

Looking back, I think my biggest struggle with journaling has been feeling the obligation to record everything I do each day. I cannot bring myself to do it because I simply don’t do anything interesting most days, so I don’t think to write any of it down. If I want to remember something, I can write it down, but “dear diary” entries are not a journaling requirement (nor that common in regular journalists, I would warrant). 

Writing down half-baked thoughts leads to fully formed thoughts.

As a stay at home mother of a one year old, the majority of my time is spent without any dialogue with others. This solitude inspires internet scrolling in an attempt to feel connected with people in the outside world. However, I have found that I can lose myself entirely in journaling just by writing my thoughts and allowing a stream of consciousness to guide my writing. Last week, I found myself looking at photographs of my trip to Italy and missing the life there, and spent a full forty minutes writing out what specifically I loved about Italian life and culture. Not only did I feel like I had properly indulged that yearning, but it also motivated me to make us multiple extended dinners that we ate while discussing classical music and literature. Not only did my passing thought become sufficient to fill full pages, but it also led to my favorite moments of our week, in which we spent quality time together as a family, completely unplugged. It’s refreshing to write out the things I most want to talk about with someone, because it either fulfills that need or serves as a reminder of what to bring up the next time I see someone.

Lists are good and satisfying things.

Some days I have begun journaling by simply making lists: thaw hamburger, give Klaus a bath, do the dishes. I’ve listed out what music we listened to during the day, handwritten in my grocery lists, written out a list of things to discuss with John when he gets home. However, my favorite so far is a list of March goals. Hannah and I and our two best friends used to write lists every summer in high school, and then every day we picked a different thing on the list and completed it. We didn’t choose difficult things, but we still challenged ourselves on various days. As I look back on the lists now, they bring back all the delight of childhood summers: read a whole book in a day, drink nothing but water for a day, make a smoothie, camp out in your basement, cook a scenic breakfast and eat it outside, send a jumbo letter. My list of March goals began in a sophisticated manner (start garden seeds, update family calendar, sort through three storage boxes) and morphed into a list of fun things I want to do (plan our anniversary trip, call my best friend five times, get together with friends for coffee). Not only did it give me joy to write out the list, but it also provided lasting excitement for the month to come that I can look back on anytime. 

Pages do not need to be filled every day. 

This time around, I am forcing myself to be alright with a partially empty page. This prevents me from feeling burnt out or resentful of journaling because I have nothing else to say or write, but cannot stand the white space staring up at me. I’d much rather be able to someday page through a notebook that has something on every page than have twenty journals that have densely packed pages in the front and are entirely blank for the rest of the book. I also hope to sketch in it and have other friends sketch in it if they’d like, and I’m basking in the freedom that comes with letting go of a perfect layout.

My journal is two weeks old and it already has inkstains and water droplets in it, and crumbs from Klaus’s lunch that have somehow wandered between the pages. Maybe this summer I’ll press some flowers in it, or take it to the pool so it smells like chlorine. I’m sure some days I won’t have much to say, and other days I’ll write pages, and I hope that looking back on it once it’s finished will bring me as much joy as it has to begin filling it.