Tips for keeping a digital diary and why you should

Maintain daily Journaling doesn’t come easily to most people, but it requires less effort than you might think. It can also become a meaningful way to reflect and grow as a person.

For more than 10 years, I’ve been writing a few words every morning, and what I’ve learned from this practice has changed my life. My only regret is not starting sooner.

If you’re interested in adding a daily practice to your life, these tips and tools can help you not only get started, but also stick with it.

Why keep a journal or diary?

My diary is a tool for clearing my thoughts, recording details of my life that are sometimes useful to know later, and for reflection. However, the value of meditation only became clear after I had been writing for several years and could look at my life to see it from a different perspective.

I’ve always been very hard on myself. I don’t make excuses, and I look at my failures with horror. Whenever I go back and read a series of daily diaries from low moments in my life, I’m able to view them from an outside perspective. I can see more clearly how difficult things were, how many things went wrong at once, or the severity of a single event that I could have downplayed in that moment. This thinking has led me to be more compassionate towards myself and others. I’ve learned to cut myself some slack.

You may discover something else, whether it’s a pattern of behavior or something you want to change. Or maybe in hindsight you realize that the things you thought you wanted to change don’t need to change at all. The diary highlights all of these things.

Memory is fickle. The personal self-reflection that we do entirely in our heads is very different from what we can do with notes. In short, that’s why I’ve continued to write daily for over 10 years.

What should you write in your diary?

Start each diary entry with your date and location. Why bother if your computer or phone can add them automatically? Several reasons. First, you’ll never be staring at a blank page, and you’ll always know where to start. Second, metadata can break down over time or during file transfers, so it’s more reliable to add it manually. Third, writing the date and location in the diary entry itself ensures that this very important information can be searched.

What should you write? A diary entry can be a simple brain dump. This is what I do. Other things worth noting are major events, strong feelings, hopes and dreams.

If following one method helps you, you can try it Gratitude journal. I know some parents who ask their children at the end of the day to think “The rose, the thorn, the bud“—one of the highlights of the day, one difficulty, something to look forward to—an equally good memoir format.

How to make it a habit

My best trick for creating a new habit is to link it to an existing habit. Find a habit you already have and combine it with a few minutes of daily writing.

I journal every morning as soon as I get done coffee front. My coffee making routine is non-negotiable, unchangeable, set in stone, 7 days a week. Even when I’m staying in a hotel, I carry a travel coffee maker with me, and I write in my diary while drinking coffee.