For years I failed at becoming a regular journaler. My longest stint was a couple months with Day One, years ago. It was fun, and I liked reviewing the pretty graphs over time. But it didn’t stick, it didn’t have any real value for me.

Since December I’ve been journaling almost nonstop. Before that I was writing fiction, and loving it. Over the past eight months, because of a few factors and partially related to my creative energy, I’ve just been journaling.

The effect has been a good one. I can’t say yet that it’s had a profound effect on who I am, but it forces me to take a few minutes out my day and write. In that time I force myself to write a thousand words.

Because I type fast, that often doesn’t take long, especially since I do zero editing. I just type whatever comes to mind.

A funny thing happens when you write for a thousand words. In order to keep going I have to dig deep and start to think while typing. It’s a function that feels meditative. It’s like going on a walk without any devices and just having time to think. Only, it’s more active than that. I’m putting my fingers to the page and pushing out ideas. Most of it is complete rubbish, not worthy of reprint. But occasionally, and more often than I’d have thought, I am able to generate clarity in my typing. Ideas crystalize as I type and help me decide what I should do next.

Writing has changed how I think, it’s altered my brain in profound ways. The journaling has helped. A daily habit such as this has become a way of life for me, three years later. I love it, and I would have a hard time without this form of processing at the start or end of my day.

Now, as I’ve shared before, I want to do more than just journaling, I love to create and share ideas; and that will take more than just a few minutes of smashing out letters on a keyboard. It’s a start though, and

I’m thankful for that. I’ve kept up the habit and found that it’s much easier these days to push out my thoughts without self-editing along the way.

If you’re curious to try this I recommend a number of words that’s a little higher than you’re immediately comfortable with. A hundred words a day is too little for me, and would allow me to cheat, so to speak. The longer word count, lets me take a bit more time, and encourages digging deeper into my brain.

Sometimes I start with a retelling of what happened in my day, focusing on the emotions, the struggles, the big wins, and essentially going through a retro of the previous hours. Closing my eyes helps, and often I don’t bother with all the details, just enough to force my brain to concentrate for a moment. As Field Notes likes to say on each book, “I’m not writing it down to remember later, I’m writing it down to remember now.”