Journaling is hard for me. I just don't have much to say I guess and I hate looking back at pages about being depressed... I always start new journals because it's cuter or I didn't like what I wrote in it. Or I wanted to keep the ideas separate. It never works. But I came across this article and liked some of the tips. I especially like the idea of writing about something I read or heard.
http://lifehacker.com/the-psychological-benefits-of-writing-regularly-1783693547
Writing and Gratitude
As the authors of one study noted, subjects who reflected on the good things in their life once a week by writing them down were more positive and motivated about their current situations and their futures.
The catch was, when they wrote about them every day, the benefits were minimal. This makes sense; any activity can feel disingenuous and just plain boring if done too often. It seems like the key is to reflect and write about gratitude regularly, but not begrudgingly often.
Writing and Learning
Information often sticks better when it’s learned as though it needs to be taught or re-written in your own words.
There’s a certain discipline required to create interesting written work that demands the individual be receptive and focused on finding new sources of information, inspiration, and insight. I’ve read books, listened to podcasts/radio, and watched videos I would normally have put off in order to learn something new so that I might write about later.
Simply being a curator of good ideas encourages deeper thinking, research, and “heading down the rabbit hole” in order to find unique takes on topics that matter to you. Committing to creating a volume of work also allows you to tackle big ideas more effectively.
Writing around a certain topic for some time will allow you to build off of older thoughts, utilizing what you’ve already written to develop ideas on a grander scale—I’m sure many writers have written a paragraph that lead to an essay, which lead to a series of articles, which lead to a book.
As the authors of one study noted, subjects who reflected on the good things in their life once a week by writing them down were more positive and motivated about their current situations and their futures.
The catch was, when they wrote about them every day, the benefits were minimal. This makes sense; any activity can feel disingenuous and just plain boring if done too often. It seems like the key is to reflect and write about gratitude regularly, but not begrudgingly often.
