I have mentioned Journalling in a few of my other blog posts but I thought that this deserved a post of its own, so in this blog post I am going to talk about why and what I use journal.
So journalling is something that I have toyed with for a number of years with varying degrees of success. I used to use the traditional method of good old pen and paper (Moleskine do lovely notebooks for journalling) Which I would stick to for a weeks or so but it wasn’t until I started using an app that I really started to get some consistency.
I want to start with why I journal before covering of what I use. I only really started to take journalling seriously a couple of years ago as a tool that was recommend to me to help manage my mental health (mostly my Anxiety). At first I was a bit apprehensive as wasn’t convinced on past experience that it was really going to help me, but to my surprise it was a bit of a game changer. It was a way for me to get all the thoughts whirling around out of my head giving me some much needed headspace. It strange to think that by just writing something down could take a weight off your shoulders (or in this case mind) but it did. I found that I was able to get to sleep a lot quicker because my mind was so much calmer and in turn making me much calmer.
I do find it quite challenging to journal everyday though so there are times when I don’t for a few days. I can certainly tell when I haven’t for a few days as I can start to feel a bit on edge and like there are hundreds of thoughts running none stop. I would say that I generally manage to journal roughly 5 days a week but I am certainly challenging myself more and will be doing a 30 day challenge for September. I am hoping that by journalling for a whole month it will be long enough to form a long term habit and just become second nature.
So onto what I use when it comes to journalling. As mentioned earlier I did originally use the traditional paper journal but after watching a Ali Abdaal YouTube Video where he mentioned he used an app called Day One I made the switch. I love this app and it comes into its own on my iPad Pro with the magic keyboard, without the keyboard I might not use it as much as I always have my iPad close to hand. One of the other benefits of using an app is that all your entry’s are stored in the cloud in one place, so you don’t have lots of paper journals around the house taking up too much space. This is good for me as I can’t say that I look back on what I have written in previous entries as it more for just getting things out of my head.
There is also a lot of cool features that you can use in the app, such as adding photo’s that you have taken for that day. It also has a tracker so you can see your journalling streak and which days you have journaled on, I like this features as its a good way to keep motivated and keep up with it. Now I am not saying that I didn’t enjoying the traditional pen and paper and would say that whatever method works for you, just crack on and start to see the benefits of getting those thoughts and what’s happened throughout the day down on paper or virtual paper.
I have genuinely found this so helpful and would recommend to everyone to give it ago. It might not be something that you find helpful everyday but it could be a useful tool for those times when life gets a little bit stressful.