Should I Journal Every Day? (A Useful Guide To Daily Journaling)
Bullet journaling is thrilling when you’re a beginner and there are just so many things to do. From designing and creating beautiful spreads to tracking your daily goals and habits.
At one point, you’re bound to ask yourself, should I journal every day?
I’m sure you want an answer really fast so I’ve made this infographic that will help you get an answer almost instantly because it varies from person to person:
If you casually use a bullet journal to reference your weekly to-do list or keep track of monthly goals, then it isn’t necessary to journal daily. However, if you tend to use your journal to schedule daily tasks or write diary entries, then it’s easier to journal daily but this increases your chances of experiencing a journaling slump.
If you’re interested in attempting to journal every day because it seems enticing, here’s everything you need to know.
What is Daily Journaling?
This is the simplest way to describe daily journaling since it may consist of more than one aspect.
It is the act of journaling consistently and regularly every single day either by giving an account of your day such as in the form of a diary entry, monitoring your physical and mental health, or using a journal to schedule your tasks.
There are many ways to journal every single day but before that, let’s take a quick look as to why people do write in their journal at least once a day in order to determine if you also try daily journaling.
You’ll also be able to weigh the pros and cons of daily journaling to make a better decision and how it will affect you in case you haven’t made the decision already.
Questions To Ask Yourself
If you’re still not sure if you should be journaling every day, here’s a few things you can ask yourself:
- Do you need to make use of your journal daily?
- Do you use your journal to plan other aspects of your life?
- Do you write your thoughts daily or when you feel like it?
- Will you be using your journal to track different tasks all the time?
- Will daily journaling help you work through things?
- Does journaling inspire a positive outlook towards things?
If the answer is yes to most of the questions above, then journaling every day is something you should continue doing or try to do.
There’s not much harm in doing so, especially if it helps you in many ways.
Reasons For Journaling Every Day
Before you make a decision to either keep a journal or not, you need to the importance and how it will benefit you.
Here is a list of ways journaling can improve your life either in the present or in the future.
It will encourage you to let go of things that hold you done and move on from the past but in order to truly appreciate the benefits of daily journaling, you’re going to need to experience it to know its full impact.
Improves Decision Making
If you’ve ever had a tough time making decisions that impact your life in a big or small way, you can use a journal to discover the motive behind each decision.
It’s a way for you to learn from past mistakes or lessons learned and use them to improve the way you apply decision making in the future.
Another added benefit to journaling is that you can talk yourself out of bad decisions and look for alternative ways to solve your problem rather than making hasty decisions.
Teaches You To Maintain Habits
Maintaining habits is something I struggle with regularly but I’ve found that when you push yourself to journal daily, you’re basically boosting your confidence where it indicates to you that you are capable of completing tasks and habits for a specific time period.
Use your journal to give you that extra push in following through with habits that you set and change your thinking processes that if you can journal every day, you sure can go to the gym or read that book you’ve always wanted too.
Helps Lighten Emotional Baggage
Having a journal can also be used to explore your feelings and emotions. It’s a way to discuss the inner thoughts that have always followed you around.
Journaling can help dig deep into issues you wouldn’t necessarily want to discuss with others but it’s a way to have an internal dialogue with yourself.
As long as you have a positive mindset that you are journaling to improve yourself and let go of your guilt and mistakes, journaling can be used as a tool to help you move past these issues without bringing yourself done.
Better Self-Awareness
Another important discovery about journaling every day is that it will increase your self-knowledge and awareness.
Actions, feelings, what drives you to change and improve yourself, can all be explored through journaling.
Each new day you can use the previous day’s events and activities to change your attitude and the way you need to approach the next day.
You’ll also be able to discover new things about yourself such as your likes and dislikes, your upcoming goals, how you perceive certain things or what has changed from previous years.
Increases Gratitude
When we’re always hustling or juggling things we need to do, we tend to take many things for granted and forget how important the little things in life actually are or the people who do so much for us.
With the correct way to journaling, you can remind yourself daily to be grateful for at least one thing a day.
For example, you can be thankful that the weather is good or that you have the ability to put food in your mouth.
There are many things to be grateful for and we’re constantly surrounded by good if only we remember that they are there.
Challenge yourself to write down at least one thing that makes you grateful every single day and you’ll notice a drastic change in the way you view the world.
Records Your Life
Journaling is useful in many ways but the one thing that makes it most special is that it’s a way to record your life and the events that occur.
It’s easy to forget the good moments when we’re going through a rough patch, but when you’ve been journaling for a long time, you can always flip back to the good moments to remind yourself that your good times are up ahead and just like everything, bad times will pass.
Pros and Cons of Journaling Daily
Now that you know how cool journaling is, let’s take a quick look at why everyday journaling may be challenging at times.
We won’t go too into the pros since you already know how beneficial it is but being aware of the challenges there are to daily journaling will help you prepare to be on the lookout for pitfalls in your journaling experience.
Here’s a quick overview before we get started:
| PROS | CONS |
| It’s a tool for self-improvement | Can lead to burn out |
| A place to vent your feelings and frustrations | Time constraints and limitations |
| Improves your writing | Beware of over analysis and becoming overcritical of yourself |
Cons:
Can Lead To Burn Out
When you journal for days and months, you will reach that point where you feel tired and exhausted from writing which may lead to you quitting.
Push past this phase and look for ways to make your journal more interesting and challenging.
If you’re constantly adding new ideas and prompts, you’ll hopefully avoid feeling burnt out.
Time Constraints
It may become difficult to find the time every day to sit down and write for hours.
You may also not have enough time to explore your thoughts and feelings in detail when you need to do other urgent matters.
Set a time each day and stick to writing during this specific period or maybe add a few extra minutes to your morning routine just so you can fit in your daily journaling.
Beware of Overanalysis
As useful as exploring and analyzing your thoughts and feelings, it’s very easy to fall into overanalyzing.
This can make us feel more pressured and anxious over what we encountered, how we reacted, or just feel generally anxious about our future.
Make sure to enter daily journaling as a means of dumping your thoughts and moving on.
Get rid of that internal filter and negative thoughts when journaling or reviewing your ideas.
How To Keep A Daily Journal
1. Use A Separate Journal
The first thing you need to do if you’re planning to start journaling is that you’ll want to get a separate journal simply because you do not want to mix a personal journal with a random compilation notebook of things to do.
This journal should put you in the right mood so that you’re focused and more organized.
The type of journal is totally up to you.
If you prefer to use a bullet journal, you have the option of dotted grid paper or lined paper but any journal will do.
2. Write About Your Daily Events
Keeping a daily journal is simple and easy.
One of the best ways is to give a daily account of things you did, the places you’ve seen, who you met, and how your day went overall.
You can write about anything really even if it has to do with doing three loads of laundry or have a chilled self-care day.
Writing about your goals for the days and what you hope to accomplish or even discussing the ways you achieved these goals can be explored further either in morning or night time journaling.
Related Post: What Do You Write In A Journal Before Bed?
Journaling Prompts
Here are a few useful journaling prompts you can use to get started.
- I couldn’t imagine living without …
- What do you love about life?
- I feel most energized when…
- The words I’d like to live by are…
- I really wish others knew this about me …
These will help you to get into the groove of journaling and spark new and interesting topics to write about in the future.
3. Explore Your Feelings and Thought-Processes
There are many moments and people who will encounter that will either affect us positively or negatively and they will impact the way you think and feel.
Sometimes our own minds can be an enemy ready to tear us down.
Use daily journaling to explore how you feel about situations, what you would do to change things, or simply explore what you’d like to encounter in the future.
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4. Discover Issues That Scare You
We can use a journal to discover and challenge things that make us afraid.
Perhaps you’re feeling anxious for a job interview or work and school presentation, discuss your feelings and write down motivational talks to help you overcome that fear.
Be more positive and use this positivity to help you get through the hurdles that seem too high to jump right now until you do.
5. Dig Deep Into Past and Future Decision Making
As we’ve mentioned before, a journal can be a great form of discovering helpful decision-making processes.
It encourages you to be more creative and think of more solutions.
To remember those outcomes that worked and those that didn’t.
If there are any unresolved issues from the past, use your journal to write down what occurred, the events that happened, things you thought were correct, how you would handle a situation like this if it had to occur in the future.
Basically, with the help and process of journaling, you’ll be able to let go of the burden and feelings that have brought you pain for so long.
Sometimes, it’s a good idea to just put your thoughts and feelings onto paper, even if no one reads it.
6. Enjoy The Process
Journaling is a tool to discover more about yourself. It’s a way to destress after a long day and look forward to the next.
It’s highly likely you may not experience the benefits of daily journaling almost immediately but with time, you’ll eventually understand why it’s necessary to keep a record of your life and feelings.
So, take it one day at a time and do not obsess over what you wrote in the previous day’s entry.
Ways To Make Journaling A Habit
One challenging aspect of daily journaling is maintaining the habit of journaling.
It’s incredibly easy to skip a day (which is absolutely fine if there are unexpected circumstances) which isn’t the end of the world but do make sure you bounce back to journaling the next day.
If you want to always make sure that journaling becomes a habit, try a few of these tips:
- Choose a topic to write about (use prompts eg. What did I do today? )
- Step a timer (eg. 20 minutes)
- Find a good place where you won’t be disturbed
- Don’t edit mistakes or stress over grammar
Daily Journaling Ideas For Inspiration
Now that you know just about everything there is to daily journaling, from the benefits, the positives and negatives to even a detailed breakdown on how to start journaling every day.
It’s time to look at a few inspirational ideas from those who have been journaling for a long time.
This can be used to motivate yourself to keep journaling while also picking up some sneaky tips that journalists use to make their pages look refreshing.
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Related Questions
Is it better to journal in the morning or at night? It really depends on what works best for you. Some people either have more time in the morning to sit down and journal whereas others prefer to journal at night when it’s quieter.
If you want to journal for peace of mind before starting the day at work or school, then the morning will be best but night time journaling can better prepare you for the next day’s schedule or to let go of the day’s events.
Can keeping a journal change your life? Definitely! Using a journal to plan out your day will increase productivity and concentration. Using a journal will keep you accountable to finish tasks that you start while also leading to an increase in self-awareness to better understand the way you feel and work.
