Write a journal

‘A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.’ – Edward de Bono.

Unless you belong to a very small group of people who can recall every day of their lives in almost perfect detail, then you are faced with an existence marked by profound memory loss. In fact, almost as soon as you experience something you begin to forget about it.

According to the Curve of Forgetting, developed by the German philosopher Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885, we will have forgotten around 40 per cent of what we have just encountered within just 24 hours. If we wait another 24 hours then we will forget 60 per cent of what happened. From then on we only get more forgetful. And, when around six days have elapsed, we have great difficult in recalling much of anything at all. Anyone who has tried to remember what they had for dinner the Tuesday before last would be familiar with this situation.

The fact that we spend all that time doing things, and experiencing things, that our brain believes is not worth storing in our memory should be devastating. Really, think about it, it should be devastating. You might well ask: ‘What’s the point in living in the first place?’

Of course, if we could instantly recall everything about every day in our lives, including every insult, bad decision and excruciating embarrassment then it would probably be a curse. Sometimes it’s good to forget.

There are two main ways to remember a lot more than you might otherwise do.

The first is to keep having experiences that are so powerful or unique that you couldn’t possibly forget them, as we have discussed elsewhere. These don’t have to be momentous occasions. It could be as simple as experiencing the way a breeze passes over a field of grass.

The second is to consciously turn our attention back to the ideas, information or experiences that we’ve had before.

By consistently retrieving things from our memory we program our brains into keeping what we think is important to keep. I would prefer to keep a lot more than I am constantly losing, but I am reluctant to spend all my waking hours attempting to remember what just happened. I’d never get anything done for a start. 

A far saner approach to introspection is to keep a journal. With this remarkable tool of self-awareness you can remind yourself of things as you write, and relive all the events you feel worthy of remembering many years later.

As Elspeth Marr suggested in Aunt Epp’s Guide for Life: ‘You may return to that day, taste it, and live it over again, but without that act of preservation that day has gone: it is nothing.’ 

But it is not just a tool to simply record the things that happen in your day. You can use it to clear your mind and achieve perspective, become more organised, plan for the future, record things that interest and inspire you, capture ideas before you lose them, clarify your thinking and your goals, reflect on your progress, recognise patterns in your life, find out who you really are, and much more.

In effect you can actually create your own life, rather than just drifting through it.

A journal also offers you the opportunity to live more than one existence. Not only do journal writers have the life they are experiencing right now, they have others laid out in ink on paper in front of them. There are past lives and future lives. There are alternative lives. There is  a personal archive of old conversations too, of past relationships, thoughts that once ran through your head, plans and dreams for the future, situations in existence back then, both good and bad.

I have kept a journal for nearly thirty years. For most of my twenties I would mainly diarise what I had done that day, but as the decades advanced I found myself planning more, noting quotes from writers and philosophers that meant something to me, identifying my goals, struggling with my thoughts and confusions, and reflecting on my achievements and failures. It was a workbook, complete with to do lists, disjointed thoughts, messy scribbles, and therapeutic rants.

I pull out an old diary from time to time and, within minutes, I leave my everyday world and I am suddenly far away, in another place and time, with people I no longer know. I read about problems I resolved (or not) long ago, and sometimes I have to console a younger version of myself: that things will eventually work out well, that worrying was useless, but planning was good.

It’s not always fun reading an old diary though. It can rake up old distresses. But when I close my personal identity book, and refresh and reinstate some of those markers in mylife, I always feel more connected with myself.

Time slows as you sort out your thoughts on paper, and life expands as your past and future interplay with your present.  

Starting a journal

Find a notebook that is nice to look at and feels comfortable to use. After all, you are going to use it on a regular basis.

Some people take time to choose a pen they like to use, but I find that anything with ink is good enough for me. I don’t worry if I make mistakes with grammar, or I spell something wrongly, or I cross something out. A journal is not supposed to be pristine, it’s supposed to be a work in progress, just like life.

I write in bed, in the bath, on the couch, outdoors … wherever and whenever I feel the need. Above all I write as regularly as I can. If I let things slip, and chunks of my life are missing, it sometimes feels as if those absent days and weeks never actually existed. 

Don’t worry if you don’t know what to write, or you feel that you are no good at writing, or that you have nothing interesting to say, just start. Start anywhere and write about whatever pops into your head. Write quickly. Then keep writing. Date every entry. Write about the significant moments in your day, what you did, and what you felt about them. Did you learn anything during the day? Did you accomplish what you set out to do? Who did you meet? What did you eat? Did anything unusual happen? Was there anything else worth noting?

Having a writing routine will help you to keep track of your days, but don’t worry if you miss a few entries. Try your best to recap. You’ll probably find it difficult to remember what happened day to day as you cast your mind back into the past, but at least attempt to give a sense of time passing and events rolling into the present. And remember, you are writing for you, not anyone else.

More advanced journal writing

Analyse your life. What do you really want to do? What are your ambitions? What are your goals and how will you achieve them? Are you content with things? What would make you happier?

How do you feel about things in general and specifically? What tasks need doing? What was good about your day and why? What moved you? What do you really think about things? How can you improve you relationships?

What parts of your life need attention now? How can you utilise your time more effectively? What’s important to you and what’s not? How have you changed? What are you grateful for? What are your dreams?

All of these are common questions that you could work on answering as you move into using your journal to plan and reflect.

One more thing. Capture the moment by using as many senses as you can: you not only make the experience a more rounded one by doing this, but you get in the habit of noticing things with more than just your eyes. What did it sound like? What did it smell like? How did it make you feel?

Image credit: Karen Cox/Flickr