The Socratic Journal Method: A Simple Journaling Method That Works
mindthenerd.com
mindthenerd.com
However, some people experience too much metacognition/reflection and that is actually correlated with depression/anxiety. These people also tend to be highly intelligent, and I suspect a higher proportion of HN readers will fall into this category.
Turns out just running on autopilot most of the time is the healthier human experience.
I'm introspective by nature (I'm sure many of us on this site are) and metacognition can be a very comfortable trap. It's a space where you can convince yourself that you can solve your life problems by spending enough time and effort thinking about them, the same way many of us approach engineering problems or other aspects of life. This is even worse in the era of AI, where you can have a helpful assistant to talk through your problems with and encourage analysis even further.
Turns out that's not true. You can spend as much time as you want thinking about your life, circumstances, emotions, experiences, etc. Eventually, you'll have to actually do something and go have some contact with reality.
It's helpful to examine your life and engage with your problems, but taking it too far is just another way of escapism. At least it was for me, YMMV.
I’ve found it extremely difficult. Another commenter mentioned Zen Buddhism which is also my current focus. It’s really nothing more than a philosophy that says stop thinking and go experience life.
Unfortunately it’s very simple, which us introspectives hate. But that’s why I like it!
For me, it is activities that "stop" the thinker - which include exercise (running), listening to music, sports etc. What stopping the thinker does is to get out of the world-models that we are trapped in.
The issue with "thinking" is an up-front realization that not all problems can be solved with thinking. There are "higher-orders" of logic at play and it is vain of us to hope for a thinking solution in the same frame that created the problem. Now, this doesnt mean that thinking is bad - as thinking serves to clarify our world-models. Only that, it needs to be paused every-so-often for the cosmic-resonance to soak in the vibrations so-to-speak which then become conceptual fodder for our subsequent thinking and refining of the world-models.
It takes some time, but it helps to take a somewhat adversarial approach and try to falsify your introspection. That's why writing is important. It forces you to lay out the structure for later review. When you just think about something, how that thinking "felt" makes up a lot more of your judgement than the actual coherence or validity.
You need to be able to step outside yourself which is easier said than done, but that's a good skill for a variety of reasons. Writing is an important way of doing it. It's like a snapshot of you in a moment of time that you can review later when you are a slightly different person. Sharing your introspection with others who you trust but don't think like you can also help: good friends, therapists, mentors. LLMs can be great for this sort of thing if you approach it with healthy skepticism and avoid leading it to your answer of choice (but if people can't, who knows where they'll end up).
Setting time boundaries help a lot. Also, resetting your mind by doing something that doesn't bend much to navel gazing helps. Your garden doesn't give a shit about your thoughts. I took judo on a trial run once. Your mind clears very fast when somebody is trying to re-introduce you to the ground.
I think that today, people's ability to do this has greatly diminished. Technology has made it much easier for people to get trapped in those staircases just because it makes them feel good in the short-term. With networks, it's even worse because now they are comforted by the shared experience. Those staircases become the identity and reality rather than something to escape from.
We push these one-size-fits-all suggestions, but we are never told who have they modeled from; not everybody is the same, and our minds are even more diverse than our biology.
Also, re: running on autopilot: the goal of mindfulness is to be aware of every waking moment, yet our biology is very much tuned to running on autopilot because it is so much more efficient and frees CPU time for higher processing—you don’t want to be focusing on every muscle when you walk now, do you? Is it such a great idea to overrule our energy conservation protocols our brains depend upon?
(Sorry for the off-topic, your comment was too interesting)
In my opinion, breath-focused meditation is not thinking. It is being aware of the physical sensations of breathing and being aware of emotions and thoughts that arrive, but not engaging with them. Breath awareness and letting thoughts and emotions come into your mind is the easy part. Not engaging with them is the tricky part.
You are right to point out that suggestions like meditation are not one-size-fits-all. Some people aren't ready to commit to the changes meditation brings about, just as others are not ready to undertake weight loss or personal improvement. No blame. When you're ready, the practice will be there.
RE: Running on autopilot. Yes, there are parts of the body that need to function on autopilot, such as breathing and heartbeat. I appreciate that my stomach and intestines run on autopilot. At the same time, I think running on autopilot is dangerous because that is what gets hijacked by social media and misled by advertising. It's why you miss a turn and drive the way you always drove and why you write down the wrong date when the year changes. I consider running an automatic as a possible reason why using AI "makes people stupider."
Meditation (walking, breath, flame) taps into a semi-universal part of the brain, below the level of consciousness, and provides a mechanism for reducing brain chaos, also known as the monkey mind. In my experience, developing the skill of reducing monkey mind-generated chaos becomes a semi-automatic process reinforced through daily meditation practice.
Most mindfulness practices focus on being aware of your body and mind at a low level all the time. It's not an active engagement; it's simply being aware. The monkey mind burns a lot of cycles, and I would rather spend those cycles being aware of the monkey mind triggers and not engaging with them.
Most actual white papers discourage the use of meditation. Risks of suicide, depersonalization, desocialisation, and loop thinkings are very real.
I started meditation practice before I was diagnosed with a mood disorder. I was fortunate to have a teacher who is also a practicing psychologist. After diagnosis, meditation provided me with the strength to withstand the emotional storms that medication trials put me through.
My psychologist and a teacher taught me one of the basic techniques for dealing with complex reactions or feelings that might arise. The practice that worked was sitting with the feelings/emotions/thoughts. Let them hang out in your mind, and every time you engage, stop, disconnect from them, and then start again. Initially, the cycle lasts about three minutes. I learned how to recognize when it was too much, to take a break, and be kind to myself. With practice, those uncomfortable feelings and thoughts gradually fade to the point where they are no longer intrusive as often.
All that said, I don't want to minimize the issue of suicide. I've had brushes with it and survived. I had a brother who didn't. His death has left me with many feelings that don't respond to rational thought and analysis. All I can do is sit with them and not engage.
There are still dangers here from what I understand. Those with trauma can have past events pop up unexpectedly and have, undertandably, negative reactions. Most medtiation teachers recommend seeing a professional for guidance for people like this.
While you clearly didn't benefit from whatever kind of meditation you were doing you may find that other kinds of meditation help you with the very problems you're identifying. Or not. Many (most?) people live fulfilling lives without ever meditating.
That said, I think most people benefit from physical activity. Note that I don't say exercise, I think the latter is great - I row almost daily in addition to doing calisthenics, working my kettlebells, etc. - but I think modern culture and the fitness industry have conflated physical activity and exercise.
Regardless, I'm glad you found something that works for you and that you didn't continue to force a path on yourself that clearly wasn't working. I think this kind of self-awarness and adjustment is important.
You say that right after saying that phsyical exercise might be more for you. The modern one-size-fits all solution par excellence.
And exercise is not overrated. Like with meditation: you have to know what you are doing.
> Also, re: running on autopilot: the goal of mindfulness is to be aware of every waking moment, yet our biology is very much tuned to running on autopilot because it is so much more efficient and frees CPU time for higher processing—you don’t want to be focusing on every muscle when you walk now, do you? Is it such a great idea to overrule our energy conservation protocols our brains depend upon?
Do you call the constant idle mind-chatter and distractability of the not-mindful person “feeing up CPU time” (of course with the PC talk)? On what grounds?
I wouldn't say "stop thinking / run on autopilot" per se, but more that it's healthier to set a limit. Finish a sentence, get it out of your head, and move on. Rest and sleep help with processing the thoughts that you can use journaling for to get in order.
That's a misconception pushed for profit. It pops up a lot in different forms like "don't be such an individual" and makes marketing and mass psychology so much easier.
tl;dr: the problem is not problem, it's your attitude, dude.
Your brain is "cultured" and was wired to echo voices and opinions of peeps who seemed to have more fun when you were having thoughts and doubts about the things in discourse and you held back for one or more various reasons ( most times it's false pity or unjustified disgust because you were too proud of your own opinion, but you don't notice at all or way too late ) and so your brain ends up hallucinating depressive/anxious versions of unspoken things and reactions that never got to manifest.
It has NOTHING to do with intelligence, but the higher proportion of HN readers still falls into this category because the bulk of people under any slice under the bell curve falls into this category.
You can be as meta and reflective as you like, while meditating or not, just don't make the mistake of being nice or holding back. You don't have to be brutal or radical but in most cases, even when you are, someone or some train of thought will easily keep you grounded, albeit sometimes, someone (again, or some train of thought) will attempt to candygrab you onto their (your) cutesy little roller coaster. (Just vomit all over them/it, as soon as you notice and get back to your self.)
If you don't hold back any thoughts, feelings, perspectives about what makes you feel depressed or anxious, you are going to have a good time. Letting go can work but when it comes to some (micro)-(traumatic) experiences, it's better to resolve "their" and your arrogance about the experienced and the never lived, never said, never heard. That way you, even though you don't break the loop right away, you create a simultaneous bypass or parallel circuit that fires up bunches of synaptic connections that find better, less crippling ways to deal with whatever the loop is focused on or around.
You don't read about this because even your favorite teachers are "cultured".
If talking to LLMs about stuff like that, make sure they are local and your system is secure. And you have to make sure your LLM doesn't sugarcoat you or any problem. Especially if you fine tune it for psychology. It's an LLM but it learned from texts of people who are for profit and who will go at lengths to self-preserve who they are and what they learned. Your LLM needs to be radically honest with you and the variety of ways one can think about stuff, which is not something they do by default or anywhere in the top 30-70% of the weights.
PS: Whatever gets to any company will be used for profit and to update profiles of entire population segments. It's not necessarily systemic but there are always individuals inside the companies, inside gov. institutions and MITM everywhere.
>Turns out just running on autopilot most of the time is the healthier human experience.
I cannot believe that you'd argue for mindful nuance only to end up in such a blatantly general statement that contradicts everything you advocated for. That's without even bothering to argue how much of the time is "most of the time".
There's an uptake, that's missing from the article. You can, and you should, every now and then (every month? every week? every quarter? you pick) go back and review your entries.
Reviewing your past entries might actually help you get awareness about the excess of metacognition/reflection.
Not only that: reading old entries about stuff that give you anxiety but after the dust has settled, can help you see the distortion in your own thinking.
It's weird that reviewing isn't mentioned in that article.
""" your affection for [writing] has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are. In fact, it will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so. """
The mix of encouragement and critique is motivating, and it came at the right time since I’d been wondering whether to keep going.
I’ve spent decades in IT, mostly software dev and consulting, but writing and storytelling are new to me. The blog’s a work in progress, rough edges, a few nuggets, but I’m learning by doing. If one post helps someone else, that’s a win.
Thanks again for the thoughtful feedback. It really is a gift.
Glad to answer questions if anyone has them.
At first I was in love - I made an app around Whisper transcription model the weekend it came out. (Still working on it - https://whispermemos.com)
But when I try to read those recordings, they seem long and uninteresting.
I think the slowness of writing forces us to transform the thoughts/ideas into a format that has more substance.
So typing creates better distilled version of the text, and writing with one even more.
Recording audio just makes a raw stream of consciousness.
The process isn’t as therapeutic. It’s like stuffing food in your face instead of slowly chewing.
What are your thoughts on this?
I used audio journaling before Whisper came out, and I did have a pipeline that would run a transcription through Google Cloud and save the transcript to Evernote. I didn’t actually review the transcripts most of the time, but the very fact of developing my thoughts—without being constrained by typing speed—was very helpful.
What I also liked about this system was that it gave me independence of place: I didn’t have to sit down at a computer. Instead, I could be thinking aloud while driving a car, or while taking a walk in the countryside. Usually, after finishing such a conversation with myself, I would automatically feel much more clarity about the upcoming day, or about whatever issue that had been on my mind.
If I were to add AI to this process, I would perhaps only have the AI extract some bullet point summaries for the topics that were covered, and anything that could be considered a potential to-do item—so that as output you would get these high-level summaries, along with the raw transcript.
If you wanted to, you could also color-code for each summary item the parts of the raw transcript in which these are covered. So, if you ever do look at the summary-slash-transcript, you can always quickly look up what your thoughts were on the subject—though I would guess this would not happen often.
And the most value from that would probably be that your future self, say 10 or 20 or 50 years from now, will be able to dive into what went through your head at this point in time. For the immediate present, the most value probably just comes from taking the mess that is in your head of unfinished thoughts and serializing it into coherent speech—until you feel everything that’s on your mind has been said.
Point is that some people know what's good for you, but cannot force them to do it just because it's good, we need something more :) Just because something feels like a "chore" doesn't mean you should avoid it.
For journaling, the benefit is the enjoyment you derive from doing it. If you don't like doing it, you're not going to get anything out of it, at least not more than you would spending that time on a hobby you actually like.
The structuring of your thoughts and emotions, by nature, forces a certain amount of meta cognition and distance from your feelings as you can more easily identify and further think about the insights, inconsistencies, etc. You have a scaffolding that you can continue to build on or rebuild.
Beyond the immediate thinking, it's also interesting to see how the thoughts on something change over time or how they relate to other topics. Now, I'm thinking about my thinking rather than just focusing on the immediate topic.
Deep thinking without a sense of permanence can be great as a start of ideas. You need a low cost way for ideas to form where you can pick the most promising ones for more introspection. But without permanence, there's this danger that you get lost in your half-formed thoughts because it has a lot of "feel" in it and makes it hard to build on or critique. There's a danger that you end up going down an Escher staircase mentally and emotionally that seems like the logical, immediate thing to do but is a contradiction at a higher level.
"What I regret right now is ____"
"What I should now is ____"
"I am become aware that ____"
You don't need to journal these on paper. Don't do these in public. You might find yourself overwhelmed by what comes out.
And while I think it's great when that can actually be another person, whether it's a friend, or partner, or therapist, it is still surprisingly calming, healing, even, when we pose the question to ourselves, and then really wait to hear the answer.
You might find yourself writing about the same thing for a few days and notice how it affects your feelings. You may also notice reluctance in committing certain thoughts to paper because you won't admit them to yourself.
Having prompts to highlight such things is a good idea.
> 2. Digital Typing. The Modern Powerhouse
Not to say it is but it kinda means the article is pretty light on "new" information
Back in 1996 I started with just 200 words each week, this is about equivalent to half an A4 page.
Each year this increased by 200 words, until at year 4 you will be writing a personal journal of a minimum 800 words each week.
I used to carry a tatty old cheap notebook and jot down things that interested me during the day.
This could be a thought, a feeling, an interaction with another person, at home, on the train or at work with a colleague.
As the author wrotes, Good Journaling is a dialogue, not a monologue.
example:
I was sitting on the train today on my daily communute into the city.
There was a women sitting in front of me. When she got up to get off at the next stop, she stared at me for a litle too long. I felt uncomfortable.
questions to expand upon:
what is this about? who does she remind me of? Was it a teacher, a bully, a neighbour? What was it about her facial expression that sent a cold shiver down my spine? Is there someone in my past life who has the same expression? Have I felt this before, if so, when.
and so on.
Digital is faster and more convenient. My journal is in obsidian. My work notes are on my iPad. Everything is synced and backed up. However it's missing the chronological anthology that is a paper notebook.
That being said, I try not to overthink things. The map is not the territory, and my notes are not a perfect capture of my mind at a given time. I don't need to perfectly observe and process everything. Sometimes it's good to just live in the moment.
As for what actually "works", one measure is not whether one produces journal entries (however insightful), but how journalling helps with minding one's life -- in the same way that anticipating a dialog with a therapist or friend might lead one to temper one's own dialog (or conversely, how worrying about what people think might be inhibiting).
I do think that imagining oneself in a constant dialog with Socrates could be illuminating.
Some interlocutors are direct, correcting faults or encouraging you. But the best teachers use indirection, setting you a challenge that should break you of a bad habit or push you to realize a mistake or integrate some insight (Nietzsche intimated that enemies can be better than friends in this regard). People who posit that everything happens for a reason (or, as Thales said, the world is intelligible) do a reflexive form of this, challenging themselves to find that insight or truth.
Similarly, some interlocutors are careful to not inject their own positive bias, but eager to protect against errors; e.g., "the unexamined life is not worth living" says little about what kind of examination helps. That creates essential space for one's own agency.
Ultimately, you create your world, even if you have no choice, so be at least as kind and forgiving as you are critical and diligent.
(Edit: the many many paragraphs of fluff before unveiling the actual method did counter this effect somewhat)
By the way, in addition to occasionally writing a personal journal entry, I also really enjoy keeping notes on my thoughts on the books I read, whether fiction or non-fiction. I love flipping back and seeing what I was going through while reading a really good story, and reminding myself who the characters were, and seeing the important points to remember of some technical material. All good stuff :)
Your practice of keeping book notes is such a great idea. Capturing what you felt in the moment can be priceless. I usually just note what I'm reading, it never occurred to me to write about my feelings about the read. It makes me wish I’d saved those thoughts when I first read some of my own favorites, like Don Quixote!
I agree with the simple physical pen/paper combo.[1] For the digital part, I suggest sticking to plain-text.[2] Personally, I’ve a feeling video or audio, unless transcribed and texted, will likely become cumbersome and will remain in oblivion.
1. https://brajeshwar.com/2025/notes/
2. “Every device, including ones long gone, and ones not invented yet, can read and edit plain text.” - Derek Sivers
Details details: https://www.store.dsebastien.net/l/knowii-journaling-deep-di...
1.https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1q96b5/comm...
I counted 3 almost back to back and stopped reading.
I don’t think people realize how much ChatGPT “leaks” its own commentary into their writing.
Interestingly, recently I started journaling using a method that, in contrast to this, one might call, "Aristotlean journaling", simply because thinking deeply up front caused me to forget important thoughts, and more infuriatingly, elegant phrasing.
It starts with the triggering event or observation, and goes on in a style that includes a lot of "this seems like", "let us now consider", "so then the question remains..."
Here's an (unedited, and admittedly convoluted) example from yesterday. Please ignore the subject matter and only pay attention to style and structure.
Let us say that we have now created a society where paid disemination of political speech, whether through direct payment of fees, or through indirect payment in the form of sponsorship, is not legally permitted. what of commissioned works? No one can prevent one person from paying another person to produce a work of art, literature or media to their specification. In fact, this is one of the primary sources of income for artists in particular. If the work is for private consumption and is not publicly disseminated, then it does not affect balanced political speech at large. However, if the creator is free to disseminate their work to the public (once again, by some means of advertising that is not paid political speech), then the person who commissioned the work would have, through financial means, influenced the prevalence of certain types of political speech over others by increasing the supply (and perhaps also reducing the price) of work that align with their political views. This is a hard problem to solve.
I use the Kobo Elipsa e-ink tablet, which comes with a stylus and a notebook that can convert handwriting to text on-device.
Daily questions:
1. All habits done that can be? (this is my reminder to meditate if I haven't, or watch a mandarin video or do some pushups or whatever)
2. Tomorrow planned? (this is my reminder to real quick make sure I at least know where I need to be on the next day)
3. Work done towards goals:
3. A: Mandarin:
3. B: Weight Loss:
3. C: Improving Engineering:
4. What gave me energy? (literally what made me feel more able to do things? This could be, relaxing and watching a youtube video, or, going on a run, or even just eating)
5. What drained my energy? (what subtracted from my daily capability to do things? Often will be a long meeting, or if I overdo a workout)
6. What gave me joy?
7. What made me feel bored?
8. When did I feel most myself today?
9. I felt most absorbed when… (this is seeking out activities that triggered flow-state, which is important in finding happiness with ADHD)
10. I felt slightly playful when… (related to 9. Playful as per Edward M. Hallowell's definition: "I mean something deeply and profoundly formative - any activity in which you become imaginatively involved. The opposite of play is doing exactly what you are told.")
11. This made my brain light up: (related to 9 and 10, Hallowell: "When you play, your brain lights up. This is where you could find joy for the rest of your life, so take note when it happens… When you play, you are likely to enter a state… named “flow.” In “flow,” you become one with what you are doing… Your brain glows.")
I answer these questions every day, and then every week summarize the answers to these same questions into a week-based entry, with an additional question:
12. What activities did I naturally seek out?
Same then for the month, I summarize the weeks into a month entry. The month has some more questions:
13. What surprised me this month?
14. Did anything I explore make me curious?
15. What habits felt enjoyable or supportive?
16. Which habits am I doing out of obligation?
17. Which small experiments genuinely improved my mood or confidence this month?
18. Where did I unnecessarily push myself too hard? What can I release next month?
19. Did I speak kindly to myself this month? When did I struggle most with self-compassion?
20. What tiny victories can I celebrate this month (especially regarding Mandarin, weight loss, or exercise)?
21. What feels truly sustainable going forward (diet, exercise, language, emotional health)?
For year, I do a year compass. I review my year compass monthly. https://yearcompass.com/ (these I've been doing for 8 years)
Each day review takes about 5 minutes max, week reviews take about 15 minutes max, and month reviews take about 20 minutes max. Year compasses take many hours to complete spread over a couple days (an excellent Christmas activity).
I've been journaling for ~28 years (since I first learned to write, yes really) but my journals were just me kinda flowing my thoughts. I think that's been nice but there's not much point in going back to read old journals, it's just nice to look at them on the shelf. What gets journaled gets remembered, or only I only journal memorable things, who knows. But I've been doing this day/week/month question thing for like a half year now and it's made significant improvements in my life, in terms of keeping me on track for my goals, allowing me to be more in touch with my emotions, and helping me realize a couple key things about myself that completely shifted my self perception and made it all the easier to achieve my goals. For example, I discovered that I actually really like working out, and being fit is a key part of my identity, that I'd been lying to myself about that by telling myself I'm just a fat nerd and that working out is a chore. Or, that despite my nontraditional background, I really do enjoy programming, and can rest in my confidence in my love of my profession.
I do still maintain a longform journal in a Hobonichi book and that has been a nice habit to keep up, it's quite relaxing and I really enjoy using my various fountain pens and inks, pasting in train tickets and whatnot. I'm looking forward to having the hobonichi on the shelf at the end of the year as a year's worth of thoughts.
But it is probably different for people who are happier with their lives.