“Paper is more patient than man.”
~ Anne Frank
The I Ho Chuan (IHC) meeting the other night, on the subject of our journaling, got me thinking about my own adventures in journaling. Having to journal for IHC requirements set me on a path of wanting to learn more about journaling. I had tried journaling at different points of my life in the past but never really “got it”; that is until my mother was dying. That’s when I found myself writing in the first blank book I could get my hands on and just pouring everything I was going through, thinking, worrying, feeling onto the pages. It was very helpful! It was a small beginning to finally understanding journaling. Yet after a while I stopped writing again.
IHC brought journaling to the forefront again and, this time, it started me on a journey of wanting to learn more about how, why, and what a journal is really for. I’m still learning, but I’ve become better at journaling since I learned that journaling is a way to think, on paper. I have found it very useful when I need to reference something that caught my attention in the past, for finding thoughts that I want to expand on and perhaps use in this blog. I’ve even found it helpful for preparing classes and writing articles that almost write themselves because the information was already collected somewhere that I could find them.
A teammate from a previous IHC team once shared a video about how if you want to change the world you must first make your bed everyday. I would venture to say that the second thing you need to do if you want to change the world is journal. History is abundant with people who made world changing contributions and the thing they also have in common is that they kept a journal.
Sometimes it is a way to unload the clutter from my mind, which is something that makes it easier for me to meditate. “Ink shedding” is something I learned for doing this. Basically, I just sit down and write down whatever pops into my mind. It doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t have to be spelled correctly, it doesn’t have to be perfect, I just shed ink from my pen onto the paper. Sometimes I make sense of it later and sometimes it’s just a way to stop the constant chatter in my head by emptying it onto the paper. Doing this has also helped my meditation practice quite a bit.
Some of my teammates have mentioned that they worry that what they write about won’t make any sense, but that’s what I’ve learned a journal is for, to help us make sense of things, to help us process and think. Our thinking can be messy (or maybe that’s just me).
Some of my teammates have said that they don’t feel like they have anything to write about in their blog, which is why this quote on journaling leaped out at me recently.
“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
It made me think that if I ever feel like I have nothing to write about then I better get my butt in gear and go DO SOMETHING so that I do have something to write about.
The learning process regarding journaling continues, which is why one of the books I want to read is “The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper” By Roland Allen. I wonder what other recommendations my teammates might have on this subject.
In case others find it useful, here are some things I learned for helping with journaling.
Here are some prompts for journaling from The Five Minute Journal
I am grateful for…
Daily affirmation: I am… [The kind of person you want, are working, to become]
What would make today great?
Three amazing things that happened today (including small things)
How could I have made today better?
Check out something called Morning Pages. I picked up a lot of prompts from there and continue to add to them. Some of the prompts include:
How do you want to feel today?
What feelings or needs have you been ignoring that need to be honoured right now?
What or who inspires you?
What is one thing you can do today to make progress on your most important goal?
What recent small wins can you celebrate now?
What makes you really happy lately? How can you do or have more of that?
Is there is a part of you that is afraid to go after what you want, what do you need to hear right now to feel safe and gain confidence?
What is something that’s been holding you back that you will release today?
What challenge from the past has made you stronger?
What did you learn from yesterday?
What can you do today to make it better than yesterday?
Make a list of all the things that are stressing you out right now, and then write down how you can turn them into something positive.
When you write a journal that you may want to reference later, you’ll want to create an index. I usually put mine at the back of the book because I never know how many pages I may end up needing for it. Then whenever you write about a certain topic that you may want to come back to, just add it to the index. Of course, you also need to number all your pages. This is why I like the Leuchtturm notebooks. They come with numbered pages already printed in them (at least the dotted pages version that I buy does). They are also good quality paper and binding. If you want something smaller for taking with you and jotting ideas down, consider a Fieldnotes book, which can fit in a pocket.
The other thing that I’ve learned is that there are more ways to get thoughts down on paper than just words. Some people do well with mind maps, others do well with drawing and doodles. Some resources that I found, although geared more toward note taking for things like school are the YouTube channel “Verbal to Visual” and “Shang Huang” (mindmapnation.com).
Some people like paper while others like digital. The Goodnotes app has been the best blend of both that I’ve found so far, and it’s not a subscription. I’ve been using it to write out Mastery each day (OK most days) so that I have the feeling of writing by hand, which is beneficial for memorization, but I’m not wasting paper to do it over and over again. You can even design your own templates and convert them to pdf and import them into Goodnotes for your customized needs. Works best if you have a stylus and tablet but you can type into it too.
Hope this is helpful to you. If it’s not, then I just went through the exercise of forming my thoughts into something more cohesive and understandable than I had previously on this subject. In other words, thinking on “paper”. So, still a win :D
Numbers
Pushups: 804
Sit-ups: 483
Weapon form: 44
Hand Form: 196
RAoK: 19
Sparring: 110
Kilometres: 314
Memorize “Mastery”: ongoing
Nurture Relationships: ongoing
Blogging: 10
Declutter: ongoing
Greatcoat project: stalled, for now
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