I have been journaling regularly for the past 5 years and I cannot possibly emphasise enough how much it has helped me.
If you are reading this post, you probably already know how beneficial journaling is. It helps you work through your emotions so they don’t build up and result in bigger stuff you don’t want. It helps you to become self-aware and therefore allows you to grow in a much deeper way than you could probably ever grow without journaling.
Journaling can help reduce stress and depression symptoms, increases emotional intelligence and self-confidence and also critical thinking skills. It improves your sleep and writing and gratitude even strengthen your immune system.
However, I know it can seem a bit daunting to start and even when you journal regularly, there are always days where you just don’t feel like writing. So here are 3 easy journaling techniques I have used in the past years – for beginners and everyone who just doesn’t feel like writing.
1. drawing
So many people just don’t realise that you can literally do whatever you want in your journal.
If you don’t feel like writing, just draw whatever comes to mind; use different colours and pens and maybe put little notes in as well.
You don’t need to write straight, you can write in circles or diagonally or however you like.
It will look unstructured and in most cases not aesthetic, but it gets your thoughts on the paper and that is all that counts at the beginning.
2. mind map brain dump
Drawing a mind map of literally all the things on your mind is relatively quickly done and it brings structure into your thoughts when you feel like there are too many of them to just grab a single one.
I usually go with the categories family, friends, work, education, health and hobbies and add and subtract more, depending on which ones are actually relevant that day.
Then I look at those categories one by one and write down everything that comes to mind before moving on to the next one.
3. writing in bullet points
You don’t have to write 5 pages of coherent text every day!
If you don’t feel like writing a lot but don’t want to skip, bullet points get your thoughts on paper just as well, or even better sometimes.
With bullet points, you don’t get side-tracked so easily and just jot down what you want to get out of your head.
I usually still write 1-5 sentences per bullet point, but when using this technique, you don’t need to worry about smoothly transitioning to the next topic.
Why these techniques work
Now, these techniques don’t really provide a lot of psychological or emotional insight, but that is what makes them great for beginners.
Because they are easy, they are ideal to just get into the habit of journaling every day.
When we start something new with too many expectations, we often end up stopping after a few days or weeks.
But when you sit down each night with the intention to write just a little bit, you will find it easier and maybe start writing more automatically after some time.
I hope I could help here and I wish everyone a great week!
See you next time 🥰
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