Ask HN: Do you journal? What method do you use and how have you found it useful? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you journal? What method do you use and how have you found it useful?

No I don't and to clear up the obvious - I tried it and didn't find it helpful. In fact it did more harm than good because I found the mental exertion of making sure that every entry was perfect, accurate, factual and precise and the inherent stress of making it so outweighed any possible benefits.

YMMV and Everyone is different. What works for one person seldom works for a different one.

I understand, this was partly my inspiration for writing the post.

I don't think you need to follow the format of having to write it perfectly, I see it more as a tool to clarify thinking but I do understand as I don't have a journal habit and I am not sure if it works for me, it does mentally drain me and if I try to do it at the end of the day, I don't think it's useful because i'm too tired and what i'm writing is nonsense, if i do it earlier, I tend to find i exhaust myself with thinking and thoughts that go into the journal without doing any actual real work. I guess in this sense, i'm partly putting my energy into what a writer would do, which is the problem, since I am not a writer.

But I do feel like I need some place to 'think' and writing is a better way of doing this for me, but it's tricky because it can just lead me to going in circles.

You could try just jotting down a précis of whatever drifts in to your head and then process it at the end of the day when you have some quiet time. Even if you can't recall exactly what your point was when you wrote it down, the introspection can sometimes be useful.

It's not really journaling, but I've taken to writing notes on the current weather three times a day in an effort to pinpoint what aggravates my sinuses. I end up writing other health concerns, current news, dreams, and anything of note that happened during the day as a result.

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