P.S.A. Here's a link to Part 1 - The WHY of Journaling. Check it out before proceeding with Part 2! (or don't. I can't control the way you live your life)

Methods of Journaling - the HOW

Before I continue, I'd just like to make it clear that there is no RIGHT way of journaling but I'd just like to talk about my experience and the methods I have tried.

Medium of Writing

First thing you're going to have to decide is on what medium you would like to produce your journal - writing on paper or typing on a computer.

Anyone that knows me, knows that I'm very anal about wasting paper and I'm a bit of a technophile so my first choice was obviously to open up that a Word file to start my journaling adventure - I tried changing from paper books to e-books also. I liked the idea of being able to immediately copy+paste pictures and quotes etc and use it in my journal. I was very enthusiastic about it the first day, then the second, then the third but after just a few days, I completely stopped journaling. It just wasn't working for me.

A couple of weeks later, my personal growth journey wasn't progressing very much and I was pretty frustrated so I thought I'd give journaling a try again. This time, I went to the bookstore and I got myself a nice book with a solid black cover and pulled out my fancy Mont Blanc pen that I got from work but never touched (pictured above). The rest is history and it was completely worth it. This journal is something valuable and something important to me, and it should be treated as such!

I'm not saying writing, and not typing, is the right way or the only way to do it, but there are plenty of studies that show that writing is more beneficial than typing (1, 2). Writing gives you the added benefit of remembering what you write better, be more deliberate with what you're writing, and you brain actually processes what you write better as you write it instead of when you type it, so I highly recommend it.

Style of Writing

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As I mentioned before, there is no right or wrong way to journal. It is all up to your personal self-expression. I'm a pretty boring guy, so I like bullet points, lists and tables and I only use black/blue pen. But I've also seen samples of journals that contain pictures, quotes, many colored pens etc. Draw pictures! Write poems! Create avatars or cartoon characters to represent your inner monologue! The paper is your creative canvas and outlet. This is between you and your journal and no one else, so allow yourself complete freedom with your journal.

The picture above is a sample of a page from my journal where I write lists of things to do or action items or lessons learnt in black while I write my thoughts in blue.

Where and When to Journal

Finding the best place to journal is equivalent to finding the best place you can find peace and avoid any distractions. That means turning off any screens, silencing any devices, clearing any things that may give me distractions like clearing my emails and social media notifications before I start my journaling just so I won't have anything that can take away my focus while I journal.

As to when to Journal, again - there's no perfect or right time, but when I like to journal is at the start of my day and at the end of my day where I would journal about separate things. I like to start the day with my journal so that I can review what I wrote the night before, and plan my actions and to-do list for the rest of the day.

They say that,

How you choose to lead your day is an indication of how you choose to lead your life. If you want to start your life highly successful and impactful, you should start your day that way too! - They

Journaling is part of my morning 20-20-20 routine, inspired by Robin Sharma, where I spend the first 20min of my day exercising, then 20min meditating and finally with 20min of journaling before I go on with the rest of my day.

I then Journal again at the end of the day so that I can summarize my day, write any thoughts I had for the day, check off my goals and action items I have accomplished and any other things. I will talk in more detail about some suggestions of what can be included in your journal in my next post.

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I hope with this post, it will give you a better guideline as to how, where and when you can start your journaling journey! In my last post on this topic, I will talk about What to journal about and Who are the audience of your journal. Follow me (@chuazm) and look forward to them!