The usefulness of journaling is uncontested. It clarifies our pondering and improves our determination making. It helps us discover our emotions and join with our interior life. It captures the questions we’re mulling over. It grounds us in the place we’re, who we’re, and the place we’re headed.
However most individuals don’t journal. If you happen to’re studying this, you’re in all probability one in all them. So, let’s make constructing a journaling behavior simpler with a couple of ideas.
Tip 1: Select Unforgettable Cues
Each behavior (intentional or unintentional) has what’s referred to as an activation set off: a cue that prompts you to motion. And you may create one on objective.
One of many best cues for journaling is your journal itself. Put it in a spot the place it’s arduous to overlook. In entrance of the espresso maker, so that you choose it up whereas the espresso brews. On the counter, so that you see it once you go to make breakfast. Or on high of your laptop computer, so you possibly can’t miss it earlier than beginning work.
You would additionally tie it to one other exercise. What’s one thing you already do every single day with out fail? Might you journal in your freshly made mattress? Within the car parking zone of your office after pulling in? Proper after doing the dishes from dinner? Simply earlier than you prove the sunshine?
If you happen to don’t need to neglect, make it unforgettable.
Tip 2: Leverage What You Love
Since you’re human, you’ve gotten cravings. Your cup of morning espresso. Your favourite TV present. Your stroll across the block. Settling down with a novel earlier than mattress. Tinkering in your storage. Catching up on the information. What do you sit up for every day? Bundle your journaling behavior with that exercise.
It additionally helps to have instruments you take pleasure in. Spending much less on instruments you gained’t use isn’t a very good funding. If it makes journaling extra pleasant, spend a little bit extra on these fancy pens, high-end pencils, or that handbound leather-based journal. Select the instruments you need to use.
Tip 3: Purpose for Simple
If a clean web page is intimidating, purchase a journal with prompts (like our Full Focus Journal).
If you happen to simply don’t need to journal, observe what you discover your thoughts returning to throughout the day—concepts, quotes, issues, conversations. Return to this listing when it’s time to journal. Free your self from what you assume journaling “ought to” be. Make your journaling serve you.
And set a timer. Don’t begin with half an hour. Don’t even begin with ten minutes. Begin with three. You possibly can spare three minutes a day. And you are able to do something for 3 minutes, proper?
If journaling appears arduous, discover a method to make it simple. Eradicate the intimidation.
Tip 4: Observe Your Streak
Streaks are satisfying. So observe it. Put a “checkmark” by the date in your calendar. Discover an app that can observe it just about. And, in fact, there’s all the time the streaktracker within the Full Focus Planner.
Monitoring your streak will provide you with a lift when you wait till you begin seeing the advantages of your behavior. Then, journaling will change into its personal reward.
Make in the present day the day you began journaling. Select the next move and go for it.
P.S. For extra on habits, take a look at No Fail Habits.
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