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5-MINUTE EXPERT
6.4.20
KEEPING A JOURNAL IT’S GOOD FOR YOUR MEMORY, STIMULATES CREATIVITY AND IT CAN HELP CLEAR YOUR HEAD BY GEOFF CARTER
eeping a personal journal can be a useful way to maintain a healthy mind. “Journaling has become a hallmark of the so-called self-care movement, right up there with meditation,” The New York Times wrote in 2018. Having kept my own journal since 1993, I can affirm that it aids your memory, improves your grammar, enhances your focus and draws out admissions and insights that you’d never share on social media. Here’s some advice on starting your own.
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They wrote it all down Many authors keep journals as a repository for insights and ideas. Here’s what some have to say about the process.
“The habit of writing thus for my own eye only is good practice. It loosens the ligaments. Never mind the misses and the stumbles. Going at such a pace as I do I must make the most direct and instant shots at my object, and thus have to lay hands on words, choose them and shoot them with no more pause than is needed to put my pen in the ink.” –Virginia Woolf
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You generally don’t need special accoutrements for journaling, like fountain pens or Moleskine notebooks. I kept my first journal on office legal pads with a cheap ballpoint pen, then graduated to spiral-bound notebooks and more expensive ballpoints, and then ultimately to, um, fountain pens and Moleskine notebooks. But that’s just me. You can start with any kind of pen and paper—or forgo analog completely and use a laptop or smartphone. Go with whatever feels natural to you, as long as it’s private and personal.
“I’ve been keeping a diary for 33 years and write in it every morning. Most of it’s just whining, but every so often there’ll be something I can use later: a joke, a description, a quote. It’s an invaluable aid when it comes to winning arguments. ‘That’s not what you said on February 3, 1996,’ I’ll say to someone.” –David Sedaris
David Sedaris (Suzanne Plunkett/AP); (Shutterstock)
