Why do people journal? What they say they get from it

Why do people journal? Five reasons that keep coming up

Ask people why they keep a journal and the same five answers tend to come back. We haven’t counted them, so the order isn’t a ranking.

Look at the middle column. Every reason runs on one line a night, which is good news if your evenings are already full.

If you’re still working out how to keep any of this going, the pillar on how to journal every day covers the habit side.

A record, and the small memories in it

The oldest reason is the plainest: write it down before it’s gone. Dates, facts, who said what.

In 1803, Thomas Jefferson drafted instructions for Meriwether Lewis, including how to keep the expedition’s notes.

He also wanted several copies, with one on birch bark, since it handled damp better than common paper (Library of Congress (opens in a new tab)).

That was an expedition log for a government, not a diary about feelings. Still, the first reason is the same: a record that outlasts memory.

Your backup plan can be less leafy. A photo of each full page will do.

Write the date and one fact before anything else.

The small days

Weddings, moves and first jobs get photos, and people who retell them for years. The small days get nothing.

Say the rice cooker broke on a Tuesday, and the shop that gave you the wrong change ran after you down the street to fix it.

By spring, that’s gone.

One small detail is what a journal keeps and a camera roll often doesn’t. A photo shows the shop. The line remembers who ran after you.

If your days feel too ordinary for this, they’re the right size for it. There’s more in journaling when life is boring.

Patterns you only spot later

One line about the bus is just a line about the bus. Thirty lines about the bus are a pattern.

This is the reason that needs a reread to pay off.

A pattern needs the same small question, asked many nights.

So keep the question boring. “What took longest today?” asked for a month tells you more than thirty clever questions.

• Thirty one-line entries fit on one phone screen.
• Thirty full pages fill a notebook and an afternoon.

That’s the plain case for a one line a day journal if patterns are your reason.

A private place to think it through

Some people say the point is the page itself: a place to say it without anyone answering back.

Anne Frank wrote that she wanted “to correspond with someone”, and invented friends to write to. Kitty became her favorite, according to the Anne Frank House (opens in a new tab).

Her diary was written in hiding, and her life can’t be compared to an ordinary week. We mention it only for the reason she gave: someone to write to.

This reason pays off the night you write. You don’t need to reread a single line for it to have done its job.

Proof that you did the thing

The fifth reason is the most practical. People trying something, like reading more or saving a little each week, use a journal as a log of small steps.

Most of the lines worth keeping are about something you did, so our app starts there. In Yumemira, the small-steps journal for iPhone, you pick a goal and get one small step a day.

Say, 10 pages. Or 2 on a busy day.

When you finish, Mira, the app’s star, cheers “Nice. That counts.” Then Say how it went asks “How did it go?”, and your answer is the line.

On paper, it’s the same move minus the star. A tick, then a line. After a few weeks, the ticks become a way to track your progress you can flip through.

Is journaling worth it if you never reread it?

Partly, yes. Two of the five reasons pay out the night you write: the private place and progress.

The other three wait for a reread. So the 200 days still did something. But most of the record is sitting there, unread, like a library book under the bed.

Reread once a month, for ten minutes, then stop.

It doesn’t need to be an event. A cup of tea and last month’s pages, on a night when the TV has nothing good on, does the job.

In the Yumemira journal, the Journal tab does some rereading for you. A card shows an old line, labelled Two weeks ago today, a month ago or a year ago.

And the search bar finds the day the shelf fell down.

How to check if journaling is worth it for you

Opinions, including this page’s, only go so far. Your own pages can answer the question in about ten minutes.

1. 1

   Read back 30 lines.

   Start from tonight and go backwards. Or the last month, whichever is shorter. No editing allowed.

2. 2

   Mark the keepers.

   Put a dot next to every line you’re glad exists.

3. 3

   Name the reason.

   For each dot, pick a row from the first table: record, memory, pattern, private place or progress.

4. 4

   Look for one repeat.

   Anything that shows up three times or more is your first pattern.

Then hold what you found up against this sheet.

Three dots means the journal is doing something for you. Zero dots means change the question before you change anything else.

When stopping is a fair answer

Some people run the check, find nothing they’d miss, and stop. That’s a real result, and it was worth ten minutes to learn it.

A journal is a tool, like a shopping list or the good scissors that leave the kitchen drawer and somehow never come back. If it isn’t holding anything you want, shelve it.

That’s allowed.

If you come back in a year, skip the catching up. Getting back into journaling takes one line, on whatever night it happens to be.

Tonight, before the phone goes on its charger, write one line that nobody else would write down.

Line 201 can be about the bus.