Originally published on my blog.
Journaling is unexpectedly useful. No special form is needed. A good idea is to start with a sentence about what you're grateful for.
⚠️ In this new “Daily Thoughts” series, I’m just scratching my own itch. For too long now I’ve been reading and consuming. Not that there’s something inherently wrong with that, but if one doesn’t offset that with his own producing, one often falls into the trap of staying a consumer.
If you think you know something, or want to learn something about yourself, try to explain it ‘on paper’. Personally, I think best ‘on paper’, and it’s been a while since a wrote a post. So, I’ll start small (and build up a habit of daily writing again) by sharing a thought daily. I’ll use this as a retrospective a year from now.
Dear readers, feel free to chime in with your thoughts on my thoughts (so Meta; which is popular in its own right these days).
Top comments (2)
This sounds interesting! Maybe you don't want to repeat the same paragraphs every day, but rather let the daily sentence stand out (and probably prevent blog and search engine algorithms misunderstanding your daily articles as duplicate content).
Gratitude journaling is a good idea that also helped me to focus on positive aspects of life, and as a developer, I also like to note "today I learned" which I do in an actual notebook on paper and use it as an inspiration for technical writing. I don't learn something new every day (I don't have to) and I don't do journal notes literally every day, but regularly. Another idea is to also write down the negative stuff, not to read it again later but to get it out of the mind and regain focus more easily.
Hey @ingosteinke,
Thanks! That's actually a good point, and I've adapted it in today's entry: Consistency.
Your other points are spot on as well - I write down the 'bad stuff' too for the same reason. Also, I add any notable events that happened that day because it's very gratifying to go through these notes in the personal yearly review.