The right way to journal
I journal most days. Not every day. Usually in the mornings. Usually stream of conscious. Rarely at night, though if I do journal at night, it has to be more specific, less open-ended, like a list of things I’m grateful for or a single line of encouragement or one moment that happened that day that surprised me. I keep my nighttime entries lighter on purpose; if I write too much, I risk stirring up and stressing out the problem-solving part of my brain.
I rarely reread my journal entries. For me, journaling is mostly a way to acknowledge where I am now, what I need in this moment, which parts of me need a little extra tending to today. Though my journals are a record of where I’ve been, I don’t often think about them that way. This has been true for me forever; I recently reread an old journal entry for the first time since 2022.
A reminder I painted over one of my journal entries in 2023. I couldn’t reread this entry if I wanted to!
I write in one journal at a time, day after day until I fill every page. Then I start a new one. They are rarely the same brand/size/type of journal. Usually they’re lined, but not always. Usually they’re at least 5 x 7 inches, but not always. My current journal is a blocky square shape. I write with whatever pen is nearby. I slightly prefer black ink. I don’t love ballpoint tips. I have written with pencils and markers and crayons.
Last night I went to a transmasc meetup at a bar in Manhattan. At one point toward the end of the night, I found myself standing under a disco ball, Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” streaming through the speakers, talking with a couple of friends about journaling. One friend said he journals every night, never in the morning. He said he keeps it short and to the point, just a line or two about his day. He said he likes to read back over his entries. He said he picked up journaling from his grandmother, who wrote every day in notebooks or whatever scraps of paper she had on hand. My other friend said they keep a five-year journal. (My wife does, too.) They write a short entry at the end of every day; sometimes they write more on a separate piece of paper, fold it up, and tape it to the entry as an addendum.
Kelly Laughlin uses journaling as a tool for tending to self. Amie McNee rewrites the rules of life every morning in her morning pages. pixiewithpens journals through expansion in two languages. Adrianna Nine journals through the hard times with help from prompts like these.
My point is: There are so many different ways to journal. And they’re all the right way to journal, because they work for the person doing it. I know this is true because each of these people—despite their incredibly different approaches to journaling—have told me the same thing:
“Journaling changed my life.”
It changed mine, too. It still does. And maybe it’ll change yours, too.
The only way to know for sure is to try it. Journal in the morning and at night. Journal stream of conscious and with the help of prompts. Journal in pen and pencil and paint. Journal in a standard lined notebook and a five-year journal and a small blank diary. Try it all, and notice how it feels. Good? Creative? Fun? Keep doing those things. Bad? Dull? Frustrating? Stop doing those things.
Eventually, you’ll find your right way to journal. That’s the only one that matters.
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