When people ask me how to start journaling, I always say the same thing: with less than you're picturing right now. Not three pages. Not an hour every evening. Five to ten minutes in the morning is plenty, and it's plenty because you'll actually do it.
Most people don't fail at the writing. They fail at the expectations they piled on themselves beforehand.
why I write in the morning
I sit down with the first coffee and let yesterday drift past me once more. The night is part of it too: how I slept, how I woke up. Both are still fresh enough that I can look at them honestly, and at the same time there's enough distance that I'm not stuck in the middle of it.
I sit in the garden for it all year round, at twenty degrees Celsius and at minus ten. Outside I get back to myself faster, and from there the writing comes easier. It has settled in so deeply that I wouldn't want to be without it.
The questions are simple. How did I feel. How did the day go. And above all: how did it land. That's not the same thing. A day can go well by every measure and still feel wrong, and it's exactly that gap the writing makes visible.
my three areas
Over the years this has sorted itself into three areas for me. Not because I wanted to build myself a system, but because I noticed I keep ending up in the same three places.
I'm explicitly not writing this down as a method for you to adopt. It was my scaffolding, not a suggestion for yours. When you know what you're writing about, starting comes easier.
The first is health. Sleep and exercise, plain and simple. How long, how well, what did I do. I also note what I ate and how I felt afterwards. Not to count anything, but because after a few weeks I can look back and see what actually takes my energy. With me it's often different things than I would have guessed.
The second is my state. How I feel right now, what's coming up, what's on my mind, how yesterday went. It's the part you can plan the least, and the part that gives the most.
The third is gratitude. Three things I'm grateful for. And here I do something that changed the whole section for me.
the gratitude that hasn't happened yet
I don't only write down what I'm grateful for. I also write the gratitude into the future. So not just what was good yesterday, but what I'll be grateful for once it comes.
It sounds like a trick, and maybe it is one. But it does something to how I perceive things. When I put into words in the morning where things are free to go, I notice the moments during the day when exactly that happens far more clearly. And it helps me with the things that don't look positive at first. I can accept them more easily, because I've got into the habit of looking ahead instead of only back.
what the writing actually does
The real effect isn't in the method. It's in mirroring back to yourself what's going on with you right now. While you write it becomes clear what yesterday actually was, and a lot of that you'd otherwise have let run straight past you.
And then there's the other part: you write it out of yourself. Afterwards you're lighter. That goes for the good things as much as for whatever is weighing on you right now. Both are allowed on the page. With the uncomfortable stuff especially, it's worth facing it instead of going around it. On paper it usually shrinks a little.
What takes my energy is rarely what I take it to be. Not the situation and not the person, but what I attach to it: an old repetition, a block I've been carrying around all along. I block myself more often than I'd assume, and when I write, I notice it.
the first few weeks
If you want to try it, I'd set it up like a small experiment: two to three weeks, five to ten minutes every morning. That's roughly how long it takes to see whether it holds up. If you have more time, write longer, but it isn't necessary.
I started just as small. These days I often sit for half an hour to an hour, depending on how it feels. But that wasn't something I set out to do, it simply grew that way. And it shouldn't turn into a duty either. Plenty of people try it out, and at some point they can't do without it. That's the point where it starts to work.
from scaffolding to free writing
In the beginning fixed questions helped me, because an empty page can be very loud. Mine were the three areas above, nothing more. They didn't have to be clever. They only had to take away the moment in the morning where I sit there wondering what to write about at all. That's exactly where it otherwise falls apart, and without those first weeks no routine forms. Your questions will look different from mine, and that's how it should be.
At some point you notice you're not reading the questions anymore. That's the moment to drop them. I'd even do that deliberately, because from there on it gets genuinely interesting. You're not working through points anymore, you follow what's already there. With me it has run by itself ever since.
Along with the questions, the subjects shifted for me too. At the start it was almost only about productivity, about what makes up my day. Today that's not the point anymore. I never decided it, it came out of the writing. How that went I've written down here.
a book just for this
One thing I wouldn't skip: get a book just for this. Not the notepad that also holds the shopping list. Treat yourself to one you like picking up, with a cover you like. It sounds like a side issue, but it's the difference between a task and a place you come back to gladly.
I write on a reMarkable myself. The writing feel on it is genuinely good, and I have everything in one place. For e-ink devices there are matching page grids, but a nice paper book works just as well. The one thing I write down every day is the date. When you read back later, it's the first thing you look for.
when one sentence is enough
And if even ten minutes is too much right now: one line will do. One page per date, one line per year, five years stacked one below the other. The template for it is free here as a PDF: One Line a Day. After a year, last year's line sits above the one you're writing, and that's where it starts to get interesting.
Reading back became so important to me over time that a tool came out of it. Inkward reads my handwritten pages and gives them back to me. It doesn't interpret and it doesn't give advice, it only shows what's already on the page. More about Inkward.
Starting matters more than starting well. The rest comes on its own.
