I opened my journal two days ago and the last entry was the night before my son started Kindergarten. His last day of Kindergarten is in less than four weeks.
Of course, as a writer, I feel ashamed for not keeping up with my journaling. I always seem to turn to the journal in spurts. But that’s also how I used to write. And exercise.
But you can’t just do something when you feel “inspired.” You have to make things a habit if you want to stick with them. That’s what I’ve done with running and working out, and more recently, with writing.
Now, I’m doing that with journaling thanks to this article in Life Hacker, which helped me focus on three things to write in my journal each day. Here’s what I’ve been writing:
1. What I ate.
This is super helpful since I’m working on weight/fat loss right now. If I ever need to go back to see what worked or didn’t work, I’ll have it. There have been several times, I’ve wished I could see what I ate last summer because my body responded very well. But I have no record of what I was eating then.
2. What I did for exercise.
The first day of my “return” to journaling stung a little because I had to write “none.” It was not a scheduled rest day. Ouch. I know many of us use DailyMile or other apps to track this, but some day, you’ll enjoy looking back at this.
3. What I did with my life.
This is what the article in Life Hacker suggests, although, I’ve been writing “what I did.” I think, from now on, I will add “with my life,” because it hints at “Did you do anything toward your goals and dreams?” I don’t know that I need a record of me grazing at Costco (although, I did put that under “what I ate”!). But I do want to know that I worked on my writing or that me and my son went to the library, and read books together (which is every night, but it would be fun to keep a record of what books since his love of reading has exploded this year).
I think I will add a fourth thing…
4. What my son said.
Kids say hilarious stuff and I’m always posting my son’s quotes to FB. Those should go in my journal. Someday, he’ll love to see those.
My journal, by the way, is a real paper, bound book that I write in with a pen or pencil. Not a blog. Not a Word doc on the computer. It’s the real deal!
Do you keep a personal journal? What do you write about?