keep a journal every day for a year

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One thing that can be a problem with goals on this website is that some can be continuous, and with those goals when do you know that you’ve finished? When can you tick it off? Something as general as “keep a journal” is one such goal. For that reason and for several others (such as making the goal easier and giving me a new lease of life for it), I’m hereby changing this goal from “keep a journal” to “keep a journal every day for a year”. I want it to be a “A year in the life of…” type thing. I also plan to combine this modified goal with my long-forgotten goal of learning something new every day.

I haven’t yet decided when I will begin this one. There will be three good opportunities in the next year though, so I’ll probably go for one of them. The first is the start of my third year at University, in October. The second is my birthday, in December, and the third is the start of 2009. Hopefully my next entry for this goal will be to say that I’ve started.

I’ve kept journals before, none of which have lasted for more than a couple of years. My most recent one ended nearly a year ago. I’m not sure why I stopped writing in it though.

I always wanted to keep a journal to document my life, so that I could look back and reminisce, so that I can save the things that my memory will forget in time. But since my previous journals have been filled with all sorts of ramblings as well as memories I always felt like I wasn’t really achieving what I set out to do and got a bit disheartened.

I’ve realised now though, that those ramblings do serve a very important purpose. They help me clear my head, get my feelings out and improve my overall happiness and well-being. Yesterday I started another journal. I don’t care what I write in it. I don’t intend to read it back in years from now. I’m just doing it to keep myself happy.

I hope so, because I’ve done that for a whole year. My other attempts at journaling (read: FOOD journaling, etc.) have not been so fruitful. But keep it going. It does get better after the first 3 months or so. That was the hardest part for me. But now I’ve kept it going a few years, and it’s totally worth it. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. OH! Force yourself out of bed the first bit, and then it’ll be as easy as breathing. I like to do journaling in the morning, fiction writing before I go to bed. Make it either the first or the last thing you do, and FORCE yourself to do it. Also…it’s easier if you put a time limit or page limit on it. “Journal” was too vague for me, so I appreciated the 3 page/30 minute limit of the morning pages. I only have to write 100 words of fiction per night to be satisfied…that’s ten lines of notebook paper, about…

Who knew having a baby would be this time consuming! Just kidding, I did have some idea. I put my journal away in my bedside table when I arrived home from the hospital and haven’t touched it since. So I will try and restart this one tonight.

Because I keep my journal on my bedside table, I usually don’t remember to write in it till it’s time for bed. I was just switching my light off when I saw it. Scribbled a couple of lines real quick and then fell asleep. Perhaps I need a new plan. I know for sure that I don’t write so well when I’m tired.

363 to go! I was going to wait and start this on the day the munchkin is born, but I decided why wait. So instead I started on Oct 1st. I know I won’t have any trouble with things to write about. My main problem will be remembering to write every day. I’m keeping my journal on my bedside table with my current book, so hopefully I can’t forget it that way.

I am good at keeping a journal sporadically, but I would love to be more consistent about it. The plan is to start on the day the babe enters the world. I would love to have a record of his/her first year. And of course I hope that by the time I get to the end of the year, it will be such an ingrained habit that I will keep it up forever.