Tag: journal tips

Jot Down Your Laughter, Reread Later

Sometimes we need a laugh. Sometimes it helps to have a list of the situations where laughter is more likely to happen. With this we can revisit those times of pure mirth or recreate those circumstances to give ourselves a new laugh. Your journal can help in this endeavor.

For one week, write a quick note about what has made you laugh. If you can remember to do it immediately, that would be great. If you have a mobile device or a pocket notebook on you all day, jot down the moment. Otherwise, try to recall at the end of the day what made you laugh.

Jot down the circumstances, location, who was there (if anyone), a certain type of film, a certain performer, a certain type of book. What seems to have triggered the laugh? Was it a joke? Was it a pratfall? Was it that other people in the room were laughing?

For example,

“The baby giggled when we played on the living room carpet today. I found myself laughing as well.”

OR

” I finished that autobiography from Mr. John Doe just now. It was largely sad, but when he referred to members of the invasive press not by their names but by types of insects, I chuckled a bit.”

OR

“After the water runs in the kitchen sink, turn off the faucet. There is still a bit of water in the faucet spray hose. Press it. A spritz comes out. I laughed every time I did that today.”

Over time, you will see a pattern of the types of places and spaces conducive to laughter for you. You can use this list for nostalgia or to recreate the patterns that made you laugh in the first place. However you decide to use your list of laughter, I wish you…

Peace,

Deborah

An Executive’s Journal Prompts for Success (Journal Writers #7)

Robin Arzón is the Vice President of Fitness Programming at Peloton. The executive is also a journal writer. In a webinar with BetterUp (a corporate coaching business), Arzón talks about her family of origin. Her father is a law professor and her mother is a medical doctor; both moved from elsewhere to live in Philadelphia. She felt the need to become a lawyer without thinking through in detail about what she wanted.

After experiencing a traumatic event, Arzón began to question her goals in life. What did she want to do? She wanted to run. She began running marathons and ultramarathons, and made athleticism her career. The athlete now refers to herself as a recovering lawyer.

When asked how she switched careers and what motivates her, Arzón shared three questions that she regularly asks herself in a journal. She did not have time to go into detail, so I will give you the three questions with my commentary beside them.

  1. What is my “why?” — What is the reason for me to do the thing that I claim to want? Use your “NO” to protect your “YES.” You might have to refer to this in the middle of achieving the goal when reassessing whether the trouble is worth it.
  2. Why not me? – A rhetorical question that suggests that you should not doubt that you are worthy to achieve the goal.
  3. What decisions would I make if I were twice as strong, and twice as confident? — This is where the beginning of planning comes in. This is your “pie in the sky,” “if there were no obstacles” moment where you think of the life you would want if there was nothing in your way. Then take the essence of those dreams and pursue them step by step.

Arzón says that she imagines the future self that she writes about in her journal as a person who is cheering her on in her goals. She is forever working towards consciously becoming the future Robin; the journal helps to create the environment to know herself and achieve that future.

Peace,

Deborah

How To Journal About Walking For Pleasure

Of the many topics one could write about in a journal, a regular walk is another subject that could grace the pages of your personal book. If you take a morning, mid-day, or evening constitutional or go hiking and enjoy it, writing about the walk can be fun.

Often when you search for discussions of walking journals they are for the purpose of measuring health, (e.g tracking heart rate, miles walked, etc.) which, of course, you can do.

However, what yours truly is advocating here is to use your journal for the expression of enjoyment of moving your body. Journaling about your walk can be a way of extending the pleasure of the activity.

Charles Dickens was fond of describing walks. In The Uncommercial Traveller, the author notes the following:

My walking is of two kinds: one, straight on end to a definite goal at a round pace; one, objectless, loitering, and purely vagabond.

Charles Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller

It’s a shame that Dickens describes his less-planned walks as objectless. Wandering and filling one’s senses with the world around is a wonderful thing. Sometimes the journey is the objective.

In any case, in writing about our walks, we are in good company. It is interesting how the author distinguishes his walks. How would you describe your walks?

The following are a few more questions to get you started on a walking journal for pleasure:

JOURNAL PROMPTS FOR A PLEASURABLE WALKING JOURNAL

Do you like the area where you walk? Is it flat? Mountainous? Sandy? Residential? Public park? A trail in the back acreage?

Is your enjoyment derived not from the location but from the movement of your body? Or some other reason? Why?

How do you feel about the walk? Why?

What little details give you pleasure?

Do you walk alone or with a companion? The baby? The dog? Why? How does it make you feel?

Do you like to walk and listen to music? How about podcasts? Is the sound a distraction or an enhancement? Does the sound keep you from feeling bored? Why do you walk with extra sound in your ears?

When you walk do you think of other things, such as what you will have for dinner? Describe what you think about during these moments.

While you walk, do you produce ideas planning the next day? A few years from now? If so, what are those plans?

Is there a certain pair of shoes you enjoy using? Describe them. Do you walk barefoot?

If you art journal, could you illustrate something from your walks? How about printing an image of the area from an online map?

Do you take a camera with you on your walk? Do you take photos? Include them in your journal and use them as memory prompts.

Is there a preferred path? Where is it? Why do you prefer it?

Do you not think of anything in particular on the walk and just enjoy whatever stimuli you encounter (wind, rain, snow, the sight of squirrels)?

Is your walk scheduled and clear about its destination? Do you wander more?

Do you take food or beverage on your walk? Why? What is it?

Is it a leisurely walk or more brisk? If it might take longer, do you sometimes opt for a picnic along the way?

————

Walking can be fun. Perhaps we can capture the pleasure of walks in a journal.

Peace,

Deborah

Skipped a Day of Journaling? Feel Like a Failure? Here’s a Thought.

If you have the habit of writing in a journal daily, but you have skipped a day or more and feel like a failure, here are a few tips. (If you don’t feel like a failure, that’s great. This might not be the article for you.)

    If you find yourself missing your daily writing habit, especially if it starts happening often, reassess why you write every day.

    1. If you write every day for discipline reasons, if you write to give yourself the habit, then you might need to address what interrupted your flow yesterday and how we can eliminate this problem and give you the uninterrupted time you need.

    —Do you write at a busy time of day when everyone wants something from you? Then it might be time to write before everyone in the house awakens, or after everyone goes to bed.

    —Do you normally write in long paragraphs and you knew you wouldn’t have time for that so you did not write at all yesterday? Next time, write a sentence or two. Stick to your routine, even if the result is not ideal on that day.

    — Did you not feel like writing yesterday? Why? That might be a topic to explore in today’s journal entry. Do some freewriting (i.e. just write whatever you think about a subject) to get to the root. e.g. I know a person who could not figure out why she was not writing every day. Eventually, she stopped writing altogether and felt like a failure until she began to freewrite and discover why – her parents were always strict. In trying to create a daily habit of journaling, her inner child felt oppressed again, too many rules. After that revelation, she decided to write whenever she felt like it, and began to enjoy the process of writing, even if it wasn’t every day.

    — Do you give yourself the best possible chance to succeed at daily writing by making it easy to do? If you keep your journal where it is easily accessible for you, you are more likely to do it. e.g. There is a person who keeps a large journal propped open on his desk. Every time he passes the desk, he is reminded to write something.

    2. If you write every day to brag that you write every day, then I cannot help you. This sounds like a form of perception management that is best discussed with a therapist. I wish you the best.

    3. If you write daily because you enjoy re-reading your entries, then perhaps retroactive journaling might be the way for you. The following tips are best if you have a space all laid out for the day’s entry and just did not write in it so it is blank.

    — Write yesterday’s missing journal entry so that you can have the information. The data is still fresh enough in your mind the next day; jot it down and back date it.

    — Write yesterday’s activities in today’s journal entry. e.g. “Yesterday I went to the store and bought a bushel of apples. Today I am trying out an apple cobbler recipe.” If you do this, then you can use yesterday’s blank space for doodles or art.

    —You might not have written in a paper journal yesterday, but there might be a trace of you from that day in some other media. Did you take a photo yesterday? Put that in the journal and back date it, using the image to prompt your memory.

    —Let’s say that the day that you skipped journaling is farther back than yesterday and you cannot recall what you did or how you felt. Look at the search history on your mobile device or desktop. This will give you a glimpse of what you were thinking that day. Did you search for paste in your area? Will that prompt the memory of making a papier-mâché dog? Look at receipts (paper or digital). Did you fill up your gas tank using a rewards card? Was that the day you took a trip out of town? Write about it.

    — Let’s say that you cannot remember what happened that day, or you would rather not recall what happened that day. Then write in general terms about how you have felt lately, as opposed to activities on the specific day. You can write about your latest music playlist, a particular movie genre you have explored lately, a thought that you’ve ruminated over for a while, etc.

    Ultimately, don’t berate yourself about missing a day of daily writing. Grieve the loss of the time you could have spent journaling, if you need to do that. After that, find your way forward.

    Peace,

    Deborah

    How to Write Book Reviews in a Journal

    Before Goodreads.com stole my heart and made my book reviews easy to search and find, yours truly would write book reviews in a paper journal.

    I realized that my book reviews are more frequently written when I think I’m helping people, so they needed an audience. Goodreads provided that audience.

    The problem with writing book reviews online on someone else’s website is that they can shut it down and your reviews no longer are available to you. Before that day comes, I plan to retrieve them from online and print them in a book.

    Of course, when I would review a book in a paper journal, there was no need to worry about someone shutting it down, nor plugging in a machine, nor checking for battery life on a mobile device. One could just open the journal and write.

    Whatever your reason for reviewing a book, whether for yourself, or for others, or a bit of both, the following tips might prove useful.

    While Reading the Book…

    • While reading the book, enjoy yourself. Let it wash over you. Note the parts that excite you, surprise you, bore you, etc.
    • Depending on how thorough you want to be in your review of the book, if you don’t mind writing in the margins, you can keep some notes there. Yours truly is known to argue with the author in the margins. I tend to remember those parts of the book when I do.
    • You can also deploy a variety of bookmarks to return to a page to recall a quote you want to include in the review. If you don’t mind slight residue, sticky notes might help you return to the various pages of interest for the review.
    • Once you’ve reviewed books for a while, you start to recognize the highlights that you usually discuss in your reviews. Review notes might become unnecessary to recall what you want to say.
    • Caution: When reading books becomes all about the review you’re going to write later, reading can become a chore that is all about “getting it right,” whatever that means. Under such circumstances, one might stop having fun when reading. If this happens, take a break from reviewing and just have fun.

    Organizing the Book Review Journal

    • The headings for your book reviews can be as simple as Today’s Date, Title, Author, and Review. Keep space in between each heading, leaving the most space for the Review.
    • However, if one is inclined to greater detail, one can include quotes that stand out to you, publisher, date of publication, ISBN, date you started reading, date you finished reading, etc.
    • As with any of the list journals, writing the same subject headings down every time might prove tedious. Consider printing out the subject headings and pasting them onto the journal pages ahead of time.
    • There are any number of ready-made book review journals on Amazon, Etsy, your local bookstore, etc. They save time on the subject headings.
    • You can create different sections in your book review journal and seperate the reviews by genre or other differences. E.g. Reviews of fiction can be written in the latter half of the journal and nonfiction in the front.
    • Another way to organize is to alphabetize the journal to write book reviews in order of book title or author’s last name. E.g. Space your journal into sections such as A through D, and only write about novels from Lynn Aaron to John Duke in that section.
    • You might create different journals for different genres and save yourself the time of sectioning off your genres in one book.

    Reviewing Audiobooks

    • Reviewing audiobooks can be a difficulty for those of us who listen to them while doing something else, like washing dishes. We might not always recall what we liked about it in detail. However, if you can pause the audiobook when a thought intrigues you, and ruminate over it for a while, you might find that the most important parts of the audiobook will be readily accessible to your conscious mind when you are ready to review it in your journal later.
    • Consider an audio journal for reviewing audiobooks. For instance, if you are listening to an audiobook on your phone and have an intriguing thought, switch over to the voice recorder on your phone and record what you think. Push pause on the voice recorder and resume listening. Rinse and repeat until you are satisfied.

    However you choose to organize your book review journal, have fun with it.

    Peace,

    Deborah

    Essentials for Writing in a Journal

    Author Bonnie Morris shares in the book Writers and Their Notebooks a few essentials for writing.

    The author is speaking from a place of journaling while on the go, but this list can work for many in general. Let’s take a look at it.

    Essentials for writing:

    • “Pens for every coat and knapsack and handbag that you own.”
    • “A…loyalty to your brand of instrument: Bic, Biro… fine-point, crayon. And mechanical pencil, too, for the creative engineers among you.”
    • “Ink. Choose colors that won’t fade; this is your stab at immortality, if you can handle the thought of great-grandchildren or grad students reading [your diaries].”
    • “Real paper, creamy, heavyweight, spiral-later, if you wish, you may certainly transfer journal entries to a cold and blinking screen. But the paper in your lap permits your moving hand to caress both pen and surface, a workmanship format centuries old, irreplaceably intimate….”
    • “A writing place and time, a favorite nook or bench, a willingness to create writing space in chaos, solitude in crowds—the ability to write in jail, on subways, during revolutions, at rock concerts, in bed.”
    • “If you like, a tape recorder and a camera rounding out the sounds and sights, interviews and images that collectively inspire you to capture or describe your life.”

    This list is of Morris’ essentials. As with anything, take what works for you and toss the rest. There is not usually a one-size-fits-all situation.

    Peace,

    Deborah

    Cruise Ship Journaling

    Cruise ship journaling is a special type of experience. Your hotel is traveling for you. There is no need to pack and unpack at each new place. Your journal is right there.

    PAPER JOURNALING ON A CRUISE

    Use paper schedules as headers.

    A few years ago, cruise ships heavily transitioned away from paper schedules and maps, which were once waiting in stacks on every corner of the ship, it seemed. If you left your schedule in the stateroom, you can pick up another one and remember where the art lecture is held.

    They now offer apps for your mobile devices to keep track of the events on board. However, they still have paper schedules at the information desk.

    Use the paper schedule of events as headers. E.g. Did you salsa on the 10th floor? Cut out that event from the schedule, affix it to the journal page and write about how that went.

    Excursions

    It’s up to you if you want to bring more than one journal on your trip. Some keep a large scrapbook style journal on board the ship, and take a smaller, more portable journal on excursions.

    It might be unusual to have time to journal when wandering around a port city for a day if one is the type to try to pack in as many events as possible.

    If you don’t have a moment to journal during your time off the ship, either take photos to write about later, and/or use your senses to savor the moments to remember later (e.g. What do I smell? What do I taste?, etc.)

    Places to journal on-board ship

    ~The ship’s library is rarely occupied. Gather your journal, your adhesive photos, your paper schedules, your scissors and spread out on one of the tables in the library to remember the trip so far. This is a great thing to do during those days at sea when there are no ports, no excursions.

    ~Another place to write on the ship is the back of the Lido deck during a day at sea. Why? Because it is so windy and chilly there, no one is nearby. However, you can people-watch from afar, or just be with your thoughts and fresh air. It’s difficult to write there because of the updraft, but not impossible.

    ~Strewn throughout the upper floors are banquettes with ocean views. Perfect for journaling, if you don’t mind the hubbub of people walking to and fro along the nearby pathway.

    ~At times, there are events in small rooms with small tables. Yours truly has stayed behind after everyone has left to journal a little and was never told to leave. Do this at your own discretion.

    ~Of course, there is always the stateroom for journaling. It’s nice to get up early, ring for room service, have a cup of tea on the balcony (if you have one) and write about your plans for the day.

    DIGITAL JOURNALING ON A CRUISE

    Phone app

    Cruising might be the perfect time for digital journaling, especially the digital apps on your phone or other mobile device.

    Whether onboard or on excursions, more than likely, your phone is there. Using the Day One journal for Apple devices, or the Journey app for Android, you can jot down your experience on the go while embedding images.

    One of the best things about digital journaling is key word search options, finding specific words when reading it all later.

    Another advantage to digital journaling is syncing more than one device. You can use your phone on excursions and use your tablet onboard and not need to retype or transfer your words.Whatever you’ve written is on the cloud and on both devices.

    Digital journaling is also a great option should your device become damaged or lost on vacation.

    Print your digital journal

    You can also journal digitally for the purpose of printing later.

    Create a concise photo journal on your phone or online and print it.

    These days, printing photos into hardcover personal books is fairly easy. Take photos on the cruise, then upload them with brief caption underneath to, for example, Google Photos print store, or Shutterfly.

    This professionally printed captioned photo album can become your succinct travel journal with minimal fuss. Your luggage is also slightly lighter from not carrying around a physical journal.

    However you choose to journal and cruise, have fun.

    Peace,

    Deborah

    Journaling When Your Life is “Boring”

    “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. – Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest.

    Writing in your journal regularly is not a waste of time because you are not a waste of time. Each person has intrinsic value.

    Some people might protest, ” But my life is so boring. Why should I write about it?” Is it?

    If our lives are boring then let’s challenge ourselves in our journals to go broad, or go deep, or both.

    Go Broad

    For instance, if you are tired of writing about your feelings, go broad and include something else. Write a movie review. Draw your best friend. Describe the couple at the next table and reverse engineer how they arrived there.[This is how screenwriter Aaron Sorkin practices creating characters.]

    The point is to give yourself variety to write about.

    Go Deep

    Or go deep. You are bored of writing that you like flowers. Go deeper. Could you include a photo of a flower you saw today and write it’s botanical name and its common name? Could you read a book on flowers and discuss it? Could you join a botanical society and get even more ideas?

    The point is that there are worlds beyond the surface. Explore them.

    Your thoughts, goals, dreams, observations are assets to your life. Writing them down can provide focus, appreciation, perspective, or even entertainment. Journaling is not boring and neither are you. Dig deeper or embrace more of what is right in front of you.

    Onward!

    Deborah

    The Journal Serves You (Not the Other Way Around)

    There are those who are intimidated by a journal. Some people fear that they are not doing it “right,” that there is some prescribed method to which they should adhere because a famous person writes in that manner. Some are afraid of making mistakes in a journal.

    Journals are your tools. They exist to help you reach whatever goal you have decided for your journal. You are not enslaved to the object, nor should you feel bound to a method used by a powerful or successful person if their method does not work for your goals.

    It might be easier said than done for some, perhaps, but do not think of your journal as a master or slave driver. Think of your journal as a friend, a faithful assistant who stands ready and eager to enable your desires and goals for your writing.

    Peace,

    Deborah