1/ what do you feel like you've learned or gained from this?
2/ do you ever go back and study what you wrote or is it more about giving your thoughts clarity today?
The greatest tools for me are:
1. When I'm feeling as if I'm stuck I go back sometime (like a week) and confirm that I've indeed progressed.
2. My recollection of events is better just because I'm logging them. If I really want to confirm something I can go back and check. This is specially helpful in day to day issue resolution with my wife, which has been an important topic for us.
3. Sometimes I go back a year or more to just have some memories. It helps me to feel human because I had big troubles with long term memory.
It's one of the things I'm most grateful of doing for so long.
What have I learned or gained? It definitely helps ground me in the flow of time. It's so easy to lose weeks or months or years if you're never reflecting. Journaling helps me be more aware day to day.