Journal Writing Ideas

Before going about writing some thing in a journal it is better to understand why journal writing can be a daunting task. I also went through these and I think many of you also felt the same.

When you start some activity which has to be done regularly you have to form a habit first. After that it will be very easy for you to maintain it regularly. Initially you will not have a habit of doing it. If you start such activity with full force the first day then most of the time you will not come to it the next time. For this reason you should start the activity in the simplest form and continue doing it until it becomes a habit. Generally a period of 30 days is required to convert a work into a habit.

So the bottom line is to start as simple as you can. Do it regularly and do not miss even for once. If you miss once then you may have to start over again. For some people it doesn't matter because they will continue anyhow. Having said that let us get some journal writing ideas going.

As I said that if you are just starting out, start simple and by simple I mean very simple. It cannot get simple than this. You will not need a book for this one. Only a piece of paper will be enough.

Basically when you write a journal, you write about your thoughts, your experiences and such stuff. In the most simple form you can take an activity and write a one word description about it.

Choose some activity where you need to write only one word. For example if you exercise regularly or want to make a regular commitment to exercise, use one word jounalling. Everyday on a piece of paper write the date and then if you did exercise you can write yes or just y. If you have not done exercise write a No or N. After some days you will be able to see for how many days you did the exercise, when you did not do exercise, how is your regularity etc. This is one of the examples you can use.

Another example, everyday write on a piece of paper how your day went. Was it good or excellent or bad or sad or happy or anything like that. Just write how you felt. You know how much information you can get from this simple thing. After a month you can calculate how many days were good and how many were bad. Then you can make some tweaks in your life and make more days good.

There are endless things that you can think for this type of journalling. Just think about anything and start. Just get into the habit of doing it regularly. If it requires only one word then you will not be burdened to do it. And after a while you will like and it and continue.

This second idea is based on the first one itself. If you are just starting to journal or you have tried it before but failed to continue then this can help you. Go to the bookshop and buy the smallest books that you can find and also a pen. Keep these two things specifically for your journal writing practice.

Starting from the first page write the dates on each page. Write them for 20 or 30 pages which will makes as many days. Whenever you aren't doing anything take this book and write something you are thinking about. Make some 10 to 20 points daily. If you miss a day, just leave that page and write for the next day. On the pages you missed, write what happened on that day, or why you were not able to write on that particular day.

After you go for about 10 to 20 days you will feel good about writing in the journal regularly. When the last day is over, take another book and repeat the same thing.

Initially you can write in the journal at any time. But after some days, keep a particular fixed time when you are free, and write at that time regularly. Hopefully it will help to create a habit and before long you will finish several pages.

Future Journalling is a word that I just thought out. It is a great idea and if you can implement then you will be constantly improving yourself and achieving your goals. You will also be able to learn to plan your activities. I took the idea of goal setting and planning, applied it to journalling and got the idea of future journalling.

How are you going to do this type of journalling? Well, you can create your own idea and start applying it. Everybody can have their own cool and great ideas. And each one will be worth discussig. I will give my idea about future journalling and how you can use it.

Take a note book and write on the cover "Future Journalling for my SUCCESS". Don't write in a boring way, use colours and images to make it attractive. Whenever you look at it, you should get the feeling of taking it and write something in it.

Open the book and divide each page into two parts. One part will be for writing what you are going to do and the other part will be to record how much you accomplished. For example you can write - exercise one hour from 6 am to 7 am. Write all the exercises you want to do in that hour in one area.

After you complete the exercise, note down which exercises you were able to do and also note down those which you left. You can also note your experiences with each exercise, whether they were good or boring. If they were boring leave them from the next day. Always try to add good exercises.

The above is one example you can use. In this way you can get several ideas and perform future journalling. Do this for a month or two and observe the change inside of you. You will definitely want to go with it everyday.