The Daily Journaling Goal
WHY to do it and HOW to do it.
Over the years, many goal-setting course attendees have articulated a desire to develop a daily journaling practice. Here’s my firsthand account of how to make this worthwhile habit a success.
Social media has introduced a multitude of opportunities to record the events of our lives. We can snap a photo, add a caption, and memorialize the memory for others (or our future selves) to look back on from any day in the future. But despite this fact, social media sometimes fails to capture the inner experience—how we felt about that particular sunset, or the many not-so-photo-worthy but nonetheless priceless events and conversations that led up to it. In order to capture those moments, it’s up to each person to record the moments that are worth remembering before they are gone. This is commonly known as journaling.
Journaling, as a practice, is much like eating salads. Everyone says they should do it. They want to do it. They wish they did it. No one would claim that you shouldn’t. But few people actually do it. Why? My theory is that few people have really articulated a clear reason for journaling. That was me last year. And then I listened to this podcast that changed everything.
In the above podcast (which you definitely should listen to), Matthew Dicks makes the case that good storytelling is a skill that can be learned by anyone. Everyone’s life (even yours) is packed with great stories, if you just learn how to talk about it. One of the methods Dicks uses to record the moments of his life in order to talk about them later is a daily journaling practice he calls “Homework for Life.”
Homework for life is simple: just write down one or two sentences describing the most storyworthy moment of the day. Answer the question: If I had to tell a story from today, no matter how benign or ordinary it may seem, what would that most storyworthy moment be? You don’t have to describe the whole day. You don’t have to go into detail about how you felt. Just write the moment and a sentence or two that would jog your memory to tell the story later. For more reading on this practice, in Dicks’ own words, read this 2018 article in Author magazine >>
After hearing Dicks describe Homework for Life, something clicked for me: rather than think of journaling as a task that I should do, instead I saw journaling as an opportunity to record my life as a story.
This simple daily discipline has been life changing for me. What Dicks is getting at is the importance of seeing our lives for what they are: storytelling material. Human beings are storytelling and story-listening creatures. And even though my social media posts might not always tell the best stories, what I write every night in my Homework for Life practice does.
I’ve been doing Homework for Life every day for almost two years. Every few months, I look back over what I wrote and I read snippets to Dusty (my husband) and we smile and share a moment of nostalgia about the memory. If I were to lose these writings, I would feel a deep sense of loss. Similarly, when I think back over my twenties and our early marriage and all the memories that are lost to me now, I deeply wish I’d started doing this daily practice sooner.
So that’s the why behind it… now for the how.
There are lots of ways to journal. Pen and paper is the classic way that everyone thinks about when they think, “I should journal more.” But pen and paper didn’t work for me. I was always misplacing my journal. Couldn’t find a pen. Had to have a light on. Writing by hand is slow. Even though I would love to be the person with shelves full of journals…. it’s just not practical or realistic for me. What is practical and realistic for me is writing every day in a note in my iPhone. Here’s exactly what I do:
I use one note for the whole year. I use the title “Life Calendar 2020” (or whatever year I’m working on. Every single day (usually at the end of the day, after I kiss Dusty goodnight), I open up the note and I type the date and the day of the week (today I’ll type 09-02 Wednesday). If we’re on a trip, I’ll also write what city or country we’re in, as a little heading.
I always write today’s entry at the top, so over time the note is actually backwards, but it’s better than having to scroll through a full year’s worth of notes and get distracted along the way.
Then I hit enter, and the goal is to write one or two sentences about the most storyworthy moment of the day. Sometimes I write more. Sometimes I go into detail about the whole day. Sometimes I add a photo from that day’s events (which is great because in the note function I can add a photo from the camera roll quite easily). But every single day I write a sentence or two.
_______
And that’s it! Having done this consistently for two years, I’ve learned that the secret to making this a habit is to set the bar low. The minimum standard is a sentence or two. If I write more, that’s great. But I always hit the minimum.
After two years of daily journaling, I am so happy that this practice finally became a habit for me. I truly believe that journaling isn’t just for the “writers” among us. Nor is it just for the analog crowd, or people with kids, or people who want to write a memoir, or people with “noteworthy” lives. I promise you: your life is worth telling stories about, and that makes it noteworthy.
