I Journaled every day for 30 days. This is what happened…

Journaling is something I have wanted to consistently try for a long time. Firstly, out of curiosity that came from seeing so many people talking about it online and its supposed benefits.

I’ve never been one for history either. I never chose it as a subject during my education. I thought it was pointless, but later regretted this when I realised how the same mistakes are repeated over and over and the benefits of studying the past. So naturally journaling appeals to me from that point of view. Recounting your past events and learning from them. Having an accurate source of information so you can see how you were feeling emotionally and physically at different points in time and the events that led to that state of being.

I’m a notoriously slow and messy writer. So, when I installed an update on my phone and Apple’s new journal app popped up I was intrigued. I can journal quickly, attach pictures and even log locations.

Straight away I set out with the aim to journal every day for 30 days. It didn’t last long! But it should have. It only has to take 5 mins. But once you get writing you want to keep going.

So having created 5 journal entries thus far over a period of 1 month (wow randomly is 1 month t to the day since I started it!), I am going to make a few adjustments to help me stick to it:

• I’m going to trial a few different templates with specific topics and statistics for me to write down.
• I’m going to trial journaling at different times of the day.
• I’m going to piggyback journaling off the back of an already existing habit I do every day to remind me to do it.

On the fly lets make my first template the below (I can evolve this as I go and look back):

Summarise the main events of the day in 4 sentences:

Biggest achievement of the day.

Biggest worry or difficulty of the day.

Did I exercise.

How was my mood today (positive/neutral/negative).

How were my energy levels (high/normal/low).

Biggest thing I’m thankful for today.

Rate the day out of 10.

Naturally, I will start journaling in the evening. It seems to make the most sense given it’s traditionally a recap of the day just passed. I don’t expect this to change, but I don’t want to assume this is the best time to do it. People think planning the week should be a Monday or Sunday, but I did it on Tuesdays for ages as it suited me best at the time.

The habit I am going to piggyback off the back of is washing my face before bed. That’s pretty much the last thing I do, before getting into bed and reading a book. Probably the last time I want to have any screen time and something I do every day.

What Do I Want to Gain Out of This Process?

As with anything, it makes sense to set some goals for what I’m hoping to achieve here. Firstly, I think it would just be nice to have a scrapbook of my life to rejog my memory and look back on whenever I want.

I think it would be really handy as well to help me remember certain things I may have forgotten, or strategies I put in place at work or in my personal life that I can’t remember how I did.

So Goal Number 1 is:

“Create a scrapbook to look back on, that can accurately show me what my life was like on certain days and I can use to help me remember key events and tasks I completed”

I’m also very interested to monitor my health – both physical and mentally and see if I can retrospectively draw any conclusive links to actions taken and my physical and mental states.

So Goal Number 2 is:

“Obtain an accurate log of my mental and physical state for future reference”

Lastly, given this is a planning blog and I believe time management to be one of the most important factors in living a life you are happy with, I will track some metrics around time management. I think part of what I would like, is to find things that have eaten up my time and see if looking back there are main trends and thus automations I can implement into my life. Or efficiencies I can implement.

So Goal Number 3 is:

“Track rough hours spent on the endeavors and habits I consider most important. Use these metrics to look back and find any ways to create more time for myself through automations. Use these metrics to enhance my planning process. Use it to analyse if I spend my time effectively.”

I think I will leave it there for now. I will see If I can set up my template in the journal app (no idea if that’s possible) and then I will check back in 2 weeks to assess how it’s going at that point. See you in a fortnight!

Reflecting and Results:

So it’s been a while since I started Journaling. Have I don’t it every day? No Have I done it most days? No. Have I done it most days in the recent past? Yes!

I’ve finally got into a routine with it and it’s becoming less of a chore and more enjoyable. I’ll be honest I did not keep the goals I Set for myself above in the front of my mind throughout this process. In fact I forgot about them completely. But that’s ok, because my template should have done this for me if it was any good.

And on reflection I can definitely say goals 1 and 2 were very successful. When I look back at all my apple journal entries I can certainly accurately look back at what my life was like on certain days and help me to remember key events and tasks I completed. I’d go a step further to say that it also detailed the most important interactions I had with people that day, good and bad, and why they were good or bad.

It’s also given me a few priceless moments to look back and laugh at.

Goal 3 I did not successfully achieve. Whilst I can get a fair idea of what my day was like in terms of hours split – especially one Saturday when my whole day was taken up by a work issue! – in general this information was not as detailed as would be useful.

I can look back in my task management app and fill in the gaps, but that’s a lot of effort. Note to self: I should see if I can analyse hours spent on tasks within a specific category in tick tick over a given time period.

Arguably goal 3 is the most important so I know I’m going to add some things to my template off the back of this to help me track this more effectively. Here’s what my new template will look like:

Summarise the main events of the day in 4 sentences:

Biggest achievement of the day.

Biggest worry or difficulty of the day.

Did I exercise.

How was my mood today (positive/neutral/negative).

How were my energy levels (high/normal/low).

Biggest thing I’m thankful for today.

Rate the day out of 10.

Rate last nights sleep out of 10.

Hours spent on Power of planning:

Hours spent on work:

Hours spent with friends or family:

As I went through the process of journaling over the last month I added ‘Rate last night’s sleep’ as I wanted to see the effect sleep had on my day. It turned out to be more important than I gave it credit for. And I don’t think I’ll be sacrificing sleep to get an extra task ticked off my to-do list after seeing the effect it had on my mood and energy levels.

Whilst finishing this blog post and analysing the impact journaling has had on me, I am adding the hours spent metrics. This is something that I can hopefully use to show me when I have a period of stress at work, a period where I’m really focused on my blog, a period where I’m not spending enough time interacting with other humans, and to see the impact this has on me.

I don’t think I’ll be adding anything more to the template as it’s already a lot to fill out. I’m finding as I go that one of the biggest benefits journaling has had for me is clearing out my mind. I’m finding a bit like Dumbledore’s pensive in harry potter. I really didn’t expect it to have that effect. But just writing what I want in the ‘summarise the main events of the day in 4 sentences’ section of the template I am finding I want to write more and more. And so I do, until I feel like I’ve got it all out there.

That wasn’t part of my goals, to clear my mind that is. But it certainly is a major benefit of Journaling. My mind is at peace before I sleep and it puts the days actions into perspective. It’s almost a similar effect to meditation.

Will I Carry On?

I will definitely try to carry on. I’ve journaled 7 of the last 8 days and am learning a lot about myself, my life and how certain things affect me and the people close to me. I didn’t expect it to have the impact it has done. Similar to starting this blog where I am able to get my thoughts down regarding time management and look back and improve – it’s having the same effect.

Has Journaling Helped With My Time Management?

As mentioned earlier, the view of where my time has been spent is very high level. The new metrics I have added to my journaling template will hopefully help provide this in more detail which I think will further the impact that journaling has on my time management.

Rather than show me opportunities for automation as I had hoped. I am finding instead that Journaling is putting things into perspective and showing me just how short the day is, and how important sleep and health is vs getting tasks done.

At the end of the day we need to enjoy the process of doing things. Not just the endorphins we get form ticking another item off our to do list. It’s also helping me to put stressful situations into perspective – especially in the work setting.  At the end of the day none of it really matters at all.

I think that’s the biggest thing journaling has given me. Sight of what’s important to me, and helping me to put events that seem like huge events or inconveniences on the day they arise, into the perspective of a month timescale, and hopefully as my journaling evolves over an even bigger timescale.

So to summarise, if you think you have an unhealthy attitude to time management and you are one of those people that rushes around and doesn’t have time to eat their lunch – I think journaling could be of massive benefit to you.

I am still hopeful that journaling will also help me identify areas of my life that can be automated, saving me time, but I am still waiting for this to be the case. But I’m now putting more of a focus on this going forwards and will report back in a while 😊

Leaving it there,

Cheers,

Alex