I don’t journal to document my life but to organize my tasks.

There are different ways of journaling.

I think it can help process some feelings as you’re defining things before you put them on paper instead of everything being a nebulous mess. Also, if you want to retrospectively understand what happened, the journal can help you establish a timeline and causes and effects, right? I’ve never done it but it’s probably helpful to some of us.

A dear friend with a neurodivergence explained her journal to me as cue cards for different places, emotions, and experiences she’d had.

Much like a great dream, most of the memories would turn to smoke without a written pointer of what it was she’d done that day.

It’s a daily list of reminders

I don’t journal to document my life. I journal to get my thoughts out of me. Expressing something can be cathartic regardless of it’s veracity. It doesn’t have to make sense, be interesting, or fun. The act of writing can clear your head and let your honest feelings come to the surface.

I don’t go back to read what I wrote. The act of writing is enough.

I use it as a way to voice my thoughts and emotions that I cannot express otherwise. I primarily write poems for that.

For me it is not about documenting my life at all. It is about processing very strong emotions (negative, positive, neutral?) that I can’t move on from.

Here are all entries in my diary:

2025-07 The Pornhub Hoody
2025-01 Debating K
2024-10 The criteria
2024-10 No Encounter
2024-10 A Pawn in their game
2024-08 What a Wash
2024-03 S The Aftermath
2021-06 T admiration 

Note the names are abbreviated with just a letter in the entry itself too. In the moment it is often too hard for me to write the actual name. I have removed the exact date but I don’t think the titles are too sensitve.

I review my entries like once a year and it is still very hard to read some of them. I think remembering the past is very importnat. It also shows growth, improvement and development.

Older ones are sadly lost to time. I think it really helped me improve myself a lot.

I never force myself to write them. I write them when I feel I have to. It also keeps the number low and the impact high ideal for a yearly review.

Some have blocks of dated commentary at the end. I never edit existing writing though. Once it is written it is frozen.

You write because it organizes your thoughts better. Every other reason I feel will not sustain the effort.

Shamelessly pointing to the journaling community: !journaling@sh.itjust.works. There is also a great introduction in the !nanowrimo2@feddit.online community.

I journal mostly because I like writing and the ritual of sitting down (usually with a hot chocolate) and thinking about what is going on inside my head. It’s like someone asking “how was your day” and you tell them. Sometimes nothing special, sometimes a lot and sometimes you think it has not been much, but once you start it all falls into place and the thoughts and emotions start to come up. I don’t do it daily, but multiple times per week.

There are many ways to journal. You can use prompts, if you are unsure what to write about. It can be more shallow, like what has happened during the day. Or more deep to explore your feelings. Some like to track what’s going on in their life and it’s actual closer to a logbook. But that’s fine as well. It has to fit for you after all and will probably change as you go along and get more comfortable with it.

And, to be honest, sometimes it’s a good excuse to buy that pretty notebook I saw in the store…

It’s cheaper than therapy.

Plus, if you can afford therapy, they’ll recommend you keep a journal anyway.

I do it for therapy. If I write it down, I don’t spend as much time thinking or obsessing over it. It also helps focus on what I really want to say instead of the jumbled mess that comes out when I open my mouth.

I started journaling when I was really stressed out. I don’t journal often now, just when I have a bunch of thoughts and want to feel better.

I’m about to restart journaling, though it’s only to cover my ass at work. I am entering a new phase of work with some known problem people who might have higher responsibility over me, so I’m doing it purely to show someone else down the line that whatever happened, I was just doing my work (as was assigned by incompetent managers).

I barely do it anymore but when I did it was a bit to put thoughts in order or tell stuff that I couldn’t tell to anyone to someone that will never read it.
Sometimes was some kind of dialogue with myself.

Nowadays is mostly for the pleasure of writing by hand and improving my handwriting or as an excuse to use my typewriter.

I have been journaling for 50 years or so (started as a little 7 year-old boy and I’m now nearing my 60s). My life is not remarkable, and I don’t much tings out of the ordinary. I journal for various reasons:

• As a child, as a way to escape the… painful situation I was in
• Then, very quickly, after I realized the amazing power writing was giving me, to outsmart my mother and his need to control me.
• Then, journaling had already become a habit. I just do it (or don’t do it, some times for very long period of time I will not care about journaling and I consider this fine too)

I now journal to put some order in my head and to keep a record of things and stuff around me. As a record, I feel no need to write long paragraphs. Heck, I even record the weather and… my mood, in a single word or two, sorry the pictures of my journals are in French (I write it mostly in French) but you can get the idea. As for putting order in my head, it depends: it will be long or short depending what I’m writing about, I don’t care provided it helps me ;)

Btw, the link I shared goes to a journaling community I’m the admin of. Feel free to join and to participate: you’re more than welcome. Even though it looks a bit too sleepy for teh time being, like I promised a few months ago, I should be able to start again investing some time in it soonish, The things that are still keeping me busy are just more demanding than expected ;)

It came with the distro