On Journaling

It's believed that a higher-than-random percentage of successful people keep, or kept, diaries or journals.

I haven't been able to find out much about the "theory of diaries," so I haven't written much about it, but an article I once read made an impression on me. It claimed that writing diaries leads to greater accomplishment. It's said to work by improving your consciousness, and bringing into better awareness of patterns and habits that are more below the surface for most people, which in turn improves your planning and your direction in life and helps you progress. The writer's conclusion was that maybe it's not that accomplished people keep diaries; maybe it's the other way around, that the process of keeping a diary helps people become more accomplished.

Fascinating idea.

I do have to say that TOP is not a diary and it's not actually personal. As quirky and self-involved as I sometimes get, I have to say I always have the audience in mind and I am always (really without much in the way of exception) writing for others—to entertain or to enlighten or just to provide "virtual company." There's a lot of "me" in some posts, but it's always "for" you. So TOP doesn't function as a diary. In fact, I have a poor memory for what I wrote about on TOP in the past, last month or last year—so it's interesting, to me, too, to occasionally go back and scan over old posts.

As far as comments go, blog-writing is a numbers game. Only something like 2% to 4% of my readers ever buy things through my links, for instance. It's only because I have so many readers that that works. And only about 5% of my readers ever comment. That's one in twenty, though, which seems like a high ratio to me. And the highest percentage of a day's readers who have ever commented on any given single post is somewhere around 1%.

Writing is increasingly interactive (that's the real word, but I want to write "interactional," cf. "transactional"). People who write for a modern audience might want to think about "inviting" comments more effectively. I'm almost always genuinely interested to hear from readers—often it's the way that I get to enjoy my own blog! (Since I write most of the posts, those aren't so enlivening for me.) But it's a knack to learn to leave "conceptual space," if you will, for others to step in to. There have been times when I've published beautifully presented guest posts that draw very few comments. It's because they're self-contained—"sealed," one might say. They're interesting to read, but they don't invite conversation. I try to leave some open ends in posts, because I'm eager to hear from readers.

Every day in its day
But back to the Theory of Diaries. Think of addiction: the great insight of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous was to understand the pattern of addiction and turn it on its head. Addiction works one day at a time; we think, "I'll just get high one more day and then I stop tomorrow" or "I'll just get drunk today but this is the last day, then I'll deal with it tomorrow." (Remember the words in the song by Jane's Addiction, "Jane Says.") Bill and friends got the idea to use the same strategy for sobriety: it's too daunting to quit forever (the idea can be so dismaying that it causes people to give up right on the spot), so all you have to do is stay sober for one more day—"one day at a time" in the mantra of AA.

The advantage of keeping a diary or journal of your life is that it helps you keep better track of all the perpetual tomorrows. It lets you see your patterns more easily. For instance, I've been wanting to write a book. But I've been wanting to for thirty-five years. In my mind it's always something I'm about to get started on—it's an ambition that's always in the present. But actually doing it is something I always put off.

That's the kind of thing a diary helps you with—if I kept a journal, I might be able to look back and think, "jeez, I've been thinking this way since 19xx. I'd better get to it." Or "this never happens; I'd better give up that ambition." It helps track your changes, your thinking, your priorities, helps you be more conscious of actual vs. perceived progress and stasis.

For the Theory of Diaries to work, it specifically shouldn't be literary—just write down what you did, who you were with, what your top concerns are that day, what you're working on and thinking about. But be practical. Think in terms of your life and its direction—your "progress" through your life you might say.

I have a friend who kept a journal for a number of years, and when a new situation presented itself that related to a period of her past, she was able to go back and reread her journals for clues as to how she was thinking and feeling back then. That's another useful feature of a diary. It's data. A record. Mining it can help with the kind of insight that helps you to evolve and progress in your life and understand yourself better.

Another friend kept notebooks for years, in which he wrote down useful ideas, quotes he liked, reactions to art, all sorts of things—they were like creativity-incubators. I always thought it was the same book he was carrying around with him, but then in his college room I saw about nineteen identical volumes lined on his shelf and I realized he was filling up book after book. Then the time came when he stopped. But he retains the metal habits that he developed while he was journaling—he's still very good at recalling quotes with exactitude, and he remembers names of artists and book titles. It was as if his period of notebooking groomed his mind, and eventually his mental habits were secure enough that he no longer needed the physical notebooks.

Can't do it
I've never been able to journal or keep a diary myself—I always got too distracted by ideas to keep a suitably simple record. I used to joke that if I had my life to live over again, the one thing I'd do is take better care of my teeth. But actually there are two things I'd do—take better care of my teeth, and keep a journal or diary.

Perhaps it's true that the great decline in the habit and practice of writing things down augurs against this for younger people today. Nobody works on penmanship, nobody writes letters (especially on paper)—the traditional arts known collectively as "letters" are in decline and disarray. I'm even starting to see markers of illiteracy in published writing (like, "He did that perfect!"—you might have noticed that adverbs are on the endangered list). Still, I believe that to suggest writing a diary or journal is great advice for young people who want to monitor their progress in life and improve their chances for success, accomplishment, progress, and for "knowing thyself." As long as you won't be disappointed when they don't follow through, because few will.

—Mike

[TOP is on hiatus this week. This was
originally published in 2015.]

Comments

[John Krumm]

I'm a poor diarist, writing in spurts, a few weeks here and there, sometimes with many months in between. But they add up, and I do enjoy opening up one from 20 years ago. Sometimes I even impress myself with some insight or phrasing I used back in the 90's. I kept a journal in my 20's that was a big sketchbook, maybe 11 x 14 or larger, so of course I also drew stuff in it. And my daughter helped herself to a couple entries after she learned how to write, wonderful to see now. Journals are highly personal, and in most cases of almost zero interest to others, unless you happen to be Olav Haugue, famous in Norway for his 20 volumes or so.

[Paul in AZ]

When I got to the program I started a diary [I called it a journal] that I maintained for several years. I wrote the day's events every night. Periodically, I'd re-read my entries reading backwards from the most recent day.
On multiple occasions there were troublesome situations whose answer or solution I had noted days before without realizing it at the time.
It was a valuable tool .

[Jim Couch]

I have been journaling for decades. I have stack of the past journals but I rarely go back to them.

For me the real value in journaling is in the present. There is something about the kinetic act of handwriting my journal that helps me collect my thoughts and clarify, for me, my feelings and ideas. I feel there is a lot of value in the act itself even if I never go back and look at the writing again.

One last thought, the idea of 'one day at a time' works for writing or journaling as well.

[C.d. Payne]

I've been writing a journal since 1989. All about a fictional character named Nick Twisp. He's way more interesting than I am. Now writing Volume 13.

[Keith Cartmell]

On the blog writing part, being a blogger myself. I have a fairly consistent readership, but only a few commenters, even when I specifically ask for comments. I think the problem is that many people are so busy (or perceive themselves as such) that they don't want to read something long. Or they mean to come back and read it, and never do. And actually writing something down is work for some people, and thats if the browser doesn't eat it along the way.

In a bigger sense, I agree with you about the decline of writing things down, but it's worse than that. It's the decline of memory in general. People rely on their phones to remember things. Then if the phone dies or is stolen they are helpless. How many phone numbers do you actually remember?

It's probably been a decade since I wrote a letter on paper (it made my grandmother's day to get a letter), and other than getting a letter from her, I can't remember the last time I got a personal handwritten letter.

I like the idea of journaling or a diary, which are subtly different things, and my blog acts as one to some extent. The trick is to do it every day so it becomes a habit. But if you can't write legibly (which is me after a few dozen words) then it's of no use. And an electronic journal is only as good as the device and application that it's on. I once nearly lost a novel because it was written in an old application and the new ones on the new computer couldn't read those files. Fortunately the old one could still start and I rescued text files.

[JOHN B GILLOOLY]

Very interesting to read this post - probably for the second time. I was an avid journal writer from the age of about 18 through the time I met my wife.

Freshman and sophomore years of college, I summarized each semester. I spent my junior year abroad in Ireland and made a point to write every day. May of those pages were written after way too many drinks at 4am! Barely legible.

For the next ten years I continued to write multiple days per week. I wasn't actually sure why? But I felt compelled to write down my thoughts in real time. If a few days went by, the idea of NOT capturing my perspective at that moment in time weighed on me until I wrote.

Those books sit in a box in my basement. They have sat unread for 20+ years. There was a thought to burn them once I was married and then with kids. Certainly there are many stories in those pages that would be embarrassing if read by my wife or kids! The story, in the end, was that journey through your 20's, seeking a wife, a family and that next stage of life. After I started dating my wife, I never wrote again!??

I have become more comfortable with those books sitting there in recent years. I'm now 50 and my kids are 15 and 17. At his point, those stories might at least be relatable, even if still embarrassing.

I think what always fascinated me the most was how quickly your thoughts and opinions evolve. And it becomes very difficult to actually remember how you felt about something or someone at a certain time. I did write about meeting my wife later that evening. I love that I can read exactly how I described the moment THAT day. Over time, all of the edges of those memories get smoothed off, unless you have a real-time, first person record.

I think I still keep a journal, but it is almost entirely image based.

[Gavin Paterson]

Hi Mike, part of your problem with Amazon may be that when I follow a link (I’m in Australia) , Amazon requires me to sign in , which then re-directs me to the Australian Amazon site. I’m not sure, but suspect that this invalidates the original link, and therefore any revenue sharing to you? Might be an issue for all of your followers from outside the USA?

[Benjamin Marks]

I kept a journal a couple of times when I was younger. The first page of each attempt always started with an exhortation to others not to read further, making me think that there is lurking somewhere always a fear of committing one's innermost thoughts to a form accessible by others. I wonder whether less inhibited journal-istas are able to commit more to paper than I was.

The more curious phenomenon, for me, at least is the review of old contact sheets, which (given the frequency of my photographic habit) serve as a different sort of historical journal. I am finding that with certain photographs from the 1980's, I have no recollection of having made them at all. I find this very disconcerting, as I used to have a very good memory of each exposure, or set of exposures, that I made -- in fact these images served as an informal record of places visited and people encountered. But now they read as images of events that happened to someone else.

The latest version of this sense of historical/photographic dislocation came after the death of my father. I went looking for images of him in old rolls of my film. This is because once a loved one has died the number of images of them is capped and even imperfect pictures can become precious as sentiment and memory fray over time. I found photographs of my own father that I simply didn't recall taking. I wonder if journal-keepers find the same with entries they have made.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

“I do have to say that TOP is not a diary and it's not actually personal.”

Since you posted this in 2015, this is now no longer truly accurate. TOP has become very much a weekly personal journal, Mike. Relatively little content dealing with photography or photographic arts. Even camera talk is infrequent and usually in a personal context. (Ex: Your new Sony.)

Not necessarily a criticism, just an update observation. You still seem to have an audience so it works for them!

[Rob de Loe]

I certainly don't keep a daily diary -- and never have. However, I have long kept a kind of diary, with entries where I make notes about anything and everything relating to things I'm thinking about a lot.

Needless to say I have a diary for photography thoughts. The most recent entry is my reaction to an interview in a magazine with a photographer I just discovered. Some entries are about posts on TOP, my reactions, and other peoples' reactions. ;)

[Dave Pawson]

A few years journaling now, over half a million words. An early morning routine includes writing (in ink, on ruled loose leaf paper) the days date and any immediate thoughts, todo items or memories from yesterday. It soon becomes a habit.

[Adam R]

I started a daily journal in my mid-20s and kept it going for about 2 years. I can't remember why I started it but I wrote in it every morning while I drank my coffee. It was mostly records of what I did each day and its been fun to go back and read from time to time.

I started up the practice again in mid 2020 but it was harder to stay in the habit. I switched from writing a paragraph about each day to just bullet points on major things. I think part of the problem is that there wasn't much going on due to the pandemic. I finally threw in the towel on this round in Sept of this year. I'm not viewing it as a failure because I think it will still be valuable to be able to look back at even a small snapshot of this time in my life.

Right now I'm still keeping a calendar to mark trips, milestones in my son's life, and other big picture stuff to have a little bit of a record of what happened. Even at just 34 years old there's lots of things from my teens and early 20s that I have a hard time remembering so I hope that jotting things down will jog my memory later.

[Mark Jennings]

Mike, I like your new turn: fewer posts makes it easier for me to keep up, and more of them consider art.

I admire journaling. Sir Francis Bacon said something like: for conviction of mind one should develop skill in public speaking; for wit be practiced in conversation; for precision in thinking practice writing. Maybe there was another. Skill in debate develops logic?

In any case, few things confuse me more than my own first drafts.

I tried journals for a year. Too time consuming. I was too inclusive.

But for decades I’ve carried small pocket notebooks for jotting info, observations, ideas, and feelings as they come up. I don’t have a memory, I have notebooks. And when I’m confined to a rocker they’ll be a hoot to read.

[darlene]

I have kept a journal of haiku writing for at least a decade based around my daily happenings or feelings. Before that, sketch books with small scraps of writing accompanying the sketches. Some date back to my teenage life and now that I am in my early 60s, I enjoy having them. My partner has kept journals since high school and used a lot of the writing to create a biographical story with lots of adventures. They gave me a copy to read and I was delightfully surprised to read about my younger self (we met in 1982). I think keeping diaries or journals are a great gift to give oneself or to loved ones.

[Mark Jennings]

Ah! Bacon might or might not have written something about debate and logic. But he did write that Reading develops Depth of Mind.