Start a Journal

This is day 8 of the 30 Days to a Better Man series from The Art of Manliness.

Since we're rapidly approaching a new year, this seems like a good time to write about journaling. I wrote about bullet journaling yesterday, and there's a page on the BuJo website on what they call "long form journaling", which tells how to do "normal" journaling in your bullet journal.

Check out the video to see how to implement long form journaling in your bullet journal.

Here are some excerpts from the AoM article:

My grandpa, Bill Hurst, was a journal writer his entire life. His journal was quite simple. He just kept a small notebook in the pocket of his pearl snap shirts and jotted down a short description of the things he did and the people he did it with. This is something he did pretty much every day for his entire life. He also kept extensive diaries of his time as a forest ranger in the Wasatch Range. 

About 12 years ago, my grandpa took all these diaries and daily journal entries and began to write his memoir for his children and grandchildren. The finished product was a 500 page behemoth filled with stories from my grandfather’s life. Here’s just a few of the interesting things I learned from reading it:

• My grandpa met my grandma by hitting on her while she worked as a telephone operator.
• My grandpa helped pay for college by playing pool.
• He worked as a sheep herder during the summers in high school and college. He gives a very descriptive account on how castrating sheep is performed. He did it just like this.
• He has a scar from when he was hit by a car while racing his horse through the streets of his boyhood town. The horse died.
• As a boy, his family traveled by horse and buggy.

There’s more. Lots more. But while the stories are interesting, what I found more interesting was the commentary my grandpa gave on different events in his life. In these moments, he passed on some insights and lessons on what it means to be a man. My grandpa’s memoir is a treasure trove of knowledge and wisdom from a life well lived. By writing his memoir, he guaranteed that his legacy will live on indefinitely. 

But his life story would have been but a few pages long had he not kept a journal. 

There are a myriad of other benefits to keeping a daily journal besides remembering what you ate five years ago. So today’s task is to start the journaling habit.

Next he goes on to talk about the fact that great men keep journals. Would we even know about these men if they hadn't kept journals?

In studying the lives of great men, I’ve noticed a common trait: they were all consistent journal writers. Now, I’m not saying that their greatness is directly attributable to their journaling. I’m sure Captain Cook would still have been a bad ass even if he hadn’t kept a diary. But I figure, if great men like these thought it was important to keep a journal, maybe I should, too. Heck, if it weren’t for their journals, we probably wouldn’t know much about their great lives and deeds. 

Here’s a short list of great men from history who kept journals: 

• Theodore Roosevelt
• Thomas Jefferson
• Charles Darwin
• Benjamin Franklin
• Lewis and Clark
• Andrew Carnegie
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Captain Cook
• Winston Churchill
• Sir Edmund Hilary
• Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
• Doogie Howser M.D. 

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

The article the goes on to talk about why you should keep a journal. Here are the highlights:

• Your children and grandchildren will want to read it.
• It can bring you to your senses.
• Journaling grants you immortality.
• Journaling improves your health.

But how do you go about it?

Pick a medium.

Analog journals, the paper and pen variety, are what we traditionally think of when we think of journals. You can use something as basic as a spiral bound notebook and a Bic pen or something as fancy as a hand bound leather journal and a fountain pen. Just do what works for you.

This is where bullet journaling can come in, as well as the traditional diary or journal.

With the advent of computers, many people have gone digital with their journaling. The digital world offers a plethora of options to record your daily happenings and thoughts. 

Here’s a list of possible desktop digital tools in which to keep your journal: 

• Word Processor.
• TextEditor/Notepad.
• JDarkroom.
• OneNote.
• Evernote.

Evernote is a handy tool. I use it to store emails and a lot of different things.

The internet provides several options for you to store your journal in the “cloud” and even share it with other people. A few options: 

• Blogspot. 
• LiveJournal. 
• WordPress.com 
• Use Gmail as a journal.

Blogspot is what I use for this blog, although I'm considering moving over to WordPress.

Schedule a time.

Starting a journal is easy enough. Sticking to it on a daily basis is more difficult. If you want to make it a habit, just pick a time in your day for journal writing and make it a non-negotiable in your life. I like doing it at night right before I go to bed. It’s a good way to decompress and review the day’s events. But some people prefer writing in the morning or jotting down thoughts throughout the day. Just do what works for you. 

Some days you might not have the energy or desire to write in your journal. On those days, just write something. It can be a sentence long. It can simply be, “I’m not in the mood to write.” Just keep your commitment. 

I've journaled before, years ago in a "diary", but that didn't last too long. I tried BuJo earlier this year but that didn't work either but I'm going to revive it again. Although, this blog is pretty much a journal. I write about the things that are on my mind and I try to do it on a consistent basis which works out to 3 days a week of new material and 3 days a week of throwbacks and summaries of the week.

One of the most memorable journal entries I’ve come across was written by TR on the day both his wife and mother died. Instead of spending several pages outlining his grief, this is all it said:

Now that you've figured out what medium you're going to use and when you're going to write your journal, the next big question is what are you going to write about?

This is where a lot of people get hung up on with journaling. They feel like they don’t have anything to write about so they end up not writing at all. There are hundreds of books that give you “suggestions” of what to write about in your journal. Usually they’re cheesy and inane things like, “If you were a cloud, what shape would you be.” 

They do offer a 31 day jumpstart to journaling article on the website, and this one on building self-reliance too.

Just write about your day. No need to get fancy with those cute little journal prompts. Some days might be pretty routine, but other days you might be feeling philosophical or have a problem that will require you to write more in-depth entries. Just write what comes naturally to you on that day. 

This is how bullet journaling works.

And as we mentioned above, while you might think your life is boring, your great grand kids won’t. They’ll be just as fascinated about you driving a car that runs on gasoline as you are about your great grandpa driving a horse and buggy. If your life really is boring, perhaps keeping a journal will give you an incentive to take on more adventures so you have something to write about.

 I'll let you know how my journaling journey goes and I hope that you'll do the same.

Interesting days

Today - Christmas Eve and Eggnog Day

Tomorrow - Christmas and Pumpkin Pie Day

Month long celebrations:

November 28 - December 31: A Blue Christmas

Next Tuesday - New Year's Eve, No Interruptions Day, Champagne Day and Make Up Your Mind Day

Month long celebrations:

November 28 - December 31: A Blue Christmas

January 24 - Beer Can Appreciation Day, Talk Like A Grizzled Prospector Day, Belly Laugh Day and Peanut Butter Day