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Journal keepers of Lemmy: Do you go back and re-read old entries? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago by captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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It's one of those things I've never talked about with other people, the most I've really been exposed to journal keeping in pop culture is Doug Funny. People don't talk about their personal journals.

Ever since I was a teenager I've sometimes felt compelled to write about major events, and over the years this has become the habit of keeping a journal that I write in almost every day, and sometimes I go back and read old entries. "What was I doing this time last year?" I also sometimes keep notes or such intentionally for future reference.

So, if you keep a journal, do you go back and read it? Why?

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[–] e0qdk@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I started keeping a daily journal about 10 years ago. It's helpful for tracking what I worked on as well as various health issues. I skim through it once a week before talking to my therapist and read all entries from the past year when I need to prepare documentation for my annual performance review at work. I'll grep through the whole thing occasionally when I'm trying to remember when some particular event was. (I don't do that very often, but it is handy when I need it!)

I typically track:

current date for the entry (both in the file and as the file name)
date and time I wrote the entry
when I went to bed
when I woke up
health issues (if any)
what I worked on (professionally and for my hobbies)
places I went (if anywhere)
significant conversations (particularly if there's something I need to follow up on)
what I'm watching/reading/playing/etc.
anything else that seems noteworthy

I keep my journal in plain text files named like YYYY-MM-DD.txt. Right now it's all in one big folder. I have it in version control and back it up to various places occasionally. I'll probably split it so there is a folder for each year eventually.

I started doing this after someone came up to talk to me and I realized that I'd recognized him from a particular place a few years earlier but could not for the life of me remember his name!

[–] syl@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you notice any advantage on journaling?

I have tried started journaling be never stick with it. I do it 1 day, 2 max, but then stop. I wonder if there are any proven benefits. In your anecdotal experience, do you recommend journaling?

[–] e0qdk@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's been most helpful to me for tracking work and health issues like I said. e.g. being able to say specifically "I wrote the software for A,B,C,D,... and also did E,F,G,H,..." in my performance review instead of forgetting half of it. Reflecting on how many days I'd listed health issues was useful for getting myself to seek professional help instead of just sleeping walking through life as well; still working on that, but having the evidence there I can say things quantitatively like ~25% of my entries (923 days out of 3623 logged) include "tired", "exhausted", or "unproductive"... Life isn't supposed to be like that.

I had a bit of trouble getting started initially, but forced myself to do it for a couple weeks until it became a habit. For me it's part of winding down towards sleep now; not doing it feels like not brushing my teeth.

It won't solve your problems for you, but it can help you see them if you have them, and having an auxiliary memory to brain dump into is also nice since you don't have to keep everything in your head. I recommend anyone who can get into the habit do it; I wish I'd started sooner.

[–] syl@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

Thank you for the in-depth reply!

I will give it another go!