It’s one of those things I’ve never talked about with other people, the most I’ve really been exposed to journal keeping in pop culture is Doug Funny. People don’t talk about their personal journals.
Ever since I was a teenager I’ve sometimes felt compelled to write about major events, and over the years this has become the habit of keeping a journal that I write in almost every day, and sometimes I go back and read old entries. “What was I doing this time last year?” I also sometimes keep notes or such intentionally for future reference.
So, if you keep a journal, do you go back and read it? Why?
Seldom unless I want to revisit or check something specific. I think journaling is more about digesting things than documenting things.
I’ve definitely done that, just started writing or typing just to process something. Though I also do a lot of brainstorming and planning in my journal.
I did this recently. I wanted to refresh my memory on how I dealt with a personal problem several years ago that seemed to be coming up again.
Surprisingly, the details that stuck with me the most over the years were pretty different from the details I focused on in my writing at the time. I remember going through a lot of problems at that time, and I give them pretty equal weight in my memory. But my writing was hyper-focused on one or two things, while everything else was kind of in the background.
Unfortunately, the issue I felt was coming up again recently was one of those things that was in the background in my writing. So I don’t think the exercise was all that helpful for my initial goal.
Less surprisingly, my writing made me seem pretty cringe. I was expecting that, since I was looking back on a younger, dumber version of myself going through a hard time. But it’s still a bit strange. Like, I thought I was acting as rationally as possible at the time, and I give myself a fair amount of credit for that looking back on it. But when I try to read from a more objective perspective, my missteps and character flaws are a lot more apparent.
Sorta makes me wonder which of my present-day actions will make me say, “What was I thinking…” in another 10 years.
That sounds like some incredible useful insight and perspective.
Does syslog and journalctl count?
Sometimes but it’s probably like once every five years or something. I’d rather not re read what I wrote, especially if it was about a real life event.
Most of my journaling is about dreams. I occasionally go back and read old entries when I get a dejavu feeling or if I suspect I’ve had a similar dream before. It’s surprising to see how false the dejavu turns out to be, and how much I forget about what I wrote. And yeah going through all that nonsense can be a surreal/psychedelic experience lol, you don’t do that every day.
I started keeping a daily journal about 10 years ago. It’s helpful for tracking what I worked on as well as various health issues. I skim through it once a week before talking to my therapist and read all entries from the past year when I need to prepare documentation for my annual performance review at work. I’ll grep through the whole thing occasionally when I’m trying to remember when some particular event was. (I don’t do that very often, but it is handy when I need it!)
I typically track:
- current date for the entry (both in the file and as the file name)
- date and time I wrote the entry
- when I went to bed
- when I woke up
- health issues (if any)
- what I worked on (professionally and for my hobbies)
- places I went (if anywhere)
- significant conversations (particularly if there’s something I need to follow up on)
- what I’m watching/reading/playing/etc.
- anything else that seems noteworthy
I keep my journal in plain text files named like YYYY-MM-DD.txt. Right now it’s all in one big folder. I have it in version control and back it up to various places occasionally. I’ll probably split it so there is a folder for each year eventually.
I started doing this after someone came up to talk to me and I realized that I’d recognized him from a particular place a few years earlier but could not for the life of me remember his name!
Do you notice any advantage on journaling?
I have tried started journaling be never stick with it. I do it 1 day, 2 max, but then stop. I wonder if there are any proven benefits. In your anecdotal experience, do you recommend journaling?
It’s been most helpful to me for tracking work and health issues like I said. e.g. being able to say specifically “I wrote the software for A,B,C,D,… and also did E,F,G,H,…” in my performance review instead of forgetting half of it. Reflecting on how many days I’d listed health issues was useful for getting myself to seek professional help instead of just sleeping walking through life as well; still working on that, but having the evidence there I can say things quantitatively like ~25% of my entries (923 days out of 3623 logged) include “tired”, “exhausted”, or “unproductive”… Life isn’t supposed to be like that.
I had a bit of trouble getting started initially, but forced myself to do it for a couple weeks until it became a habit. For me it’s part of winding down towards sleep now; not doing it feels like not brushing my teeth.
It won’t solve your problems for you, but it can help you see them if you have them, and having an auxiliary memory to brain dump into is also nice since you don’t have to keep everything in your head. I recommend anyone who can get into the habit do it; I wish I’d started sooner.
Thank you for the in-depth reply!
I will give it another go!
My journal app has a feature for On This Day. I visit it sparingly. I have used it extensively in fits and spurts, so much so that I even added that functionality to my blog and started visiting it.
Stopped when it got too embarrassing. 😅
Which app? Is it available on Android?
Day One and yes. Though android users often complain it’s not feature complete wrt the iOS version.
I don’t keep journals but I do read some of my old whatsapp chats from time to time. Helps that I still have mine from 2013. Just a fun way to look back at what was going on in my life at that point in time, or to see how my relationships with people have changed over the years.
I started to journal about 3 months ago when my anxiety and depression started to get out of control. Sometimes I will go back and read the previous day or two to reflect on things, but that is it. Some of the stuff I wrote, especially at the beginning are too painful to go back and re-read now.
Post journal clarity. No thank you.
I’ve journalled for a few years in the form of a bunch of markdown files. Occasionally I’ll read back or search for things to help remember things I’m not recalling clearly.
With my mental health journal, no, never.
For my hobby journal, all the time! It’s neat to see how my tastes and activities have evolved, and sometimes when things get frustrating it’s good to have the reminder of why I loved doing it in the first place.
Hm, perhaps I should have separate journals…
Kept a journal for the last 20 years and I write maybe a million words a year. I don’t read old entries because I don’t have time!
Absolutely. Sometimes I’ll just pick a point at random and read forward or back from there.
I journal to process thoughts, feelings, and problems, so I often go back to try to help me “figure things out.” It’s a double-edge sword sort of situation. Like it really lays bare the fact that certain problems I’ve made zero progress on over the years, but on the other hand, it’s helps me realize other places where I’ve made way more progress than I would have thought.
If you’ve ever seen the Black Mirror episode where they’re able to record their memories and play them back, it can be a little like that. An argument with the wife? I can pull back every. single. time. she’s done “that” before. I think that’s probably not good.
Anyway, overall, when I come away from reading past journal entries I tend to feel a lot more calm and humble.
I rarely do. My life has been such to give me little incentive to go through it in any degree again.
