What is a diary and how to keep it. We forget bad things very quickly

• ...and understand yourself better

In books about the life of high society, there are often episodes of young ladies communicating with their personal diaries. Then it was fashionable and generally accepted, no one asked the question “why keep a personal diary”?

Each girl considered it her duty to pour out her sighs and mental anguish to her paper friend. And be sure to hide him away from mommy, otherwise he’ll be punished for kissing the brave hussar under the bird cherry bush.

In childhood, many kept personal diaries in ordinary checkered notebooks, but then abandoned them. Isn't it in vain? Why do you need to keep a diary? I will tell you a number of reasons for the practical benefits of this habit.

Daily journaling develops discipline.

It is much more difficult to repeat a simple task regularly than to complete a difficult task in one sitting. Once you train yourself to keep daily notes, you will see how much easier it becomes to do simple but routine work. This is what makes up the biggest part of success.

We don't always adequately perceive what we do

First we set a goal. Then our lazy subconscious says: “Well, don’t be a bore, if we rest a little, then there won’t be anything terrible!” And somehow it turns out so imperceptibly that we are not moving towards our goal at all, although it seems like we are doing something.

What if you open the diary and look? What if it turns out that on Monday we were lazy, on Tuesday we had a stomach ache... And so on. If you write down everything you do, you won’t be able to deceive yourself: these are the facts.

We forget bad things very quickly

Sometimes we ourselves don’t know why we feel uncomfortable communicating with a certain person or don’t like our job. The bad is erased as if by a flash of a memory neutralizer from Men in Black. And a good time will be remembered for many years. That’s why “yesterday” always seems better than “today”. This is how our psyche works.

We often make wrong decisions based on our fond memories. A diary is needed to preserve individual details of what is happening, and not a complete image of events, distorted by the absence of forgotten facts.

Based on memory, it is difficult to find a gap formed from a dozen repeating little things. But we have a diary!

...and we forget useful things just as quickly

Unfortunately, this is how our memory works - information that we do not use regularly evaporates from the brain like morning dew. To save space. We may forget important events in our lives because they did not seem significant at the time. The head is not rubber, it won’t fit everything.

Keeping a diary will help you see the path you've traveled.

Sometimes it feels like you are doing the work of Sisyphus, you are exhausted, you try, you don’t sleep at night and you don’t see results. Even hands give up!

But gradual changes are imperceptible. Being inside the process, we are not always able to see the development. And for this you need to analyze what is happening. And, of course, document it, recording every, even small, success.

... give vent to emotions, sort everything out...

It happens that such anger attacks you that it tears you apart from the inside! Or sad, heavy on the heart pressing...

But we later regret the words spoken in a fit of anger (if we have a conscience). Crying into a friend’s vest is also not a good thing: whiners are not honored. And can you be sure that your feelings will not become the property of all your mutual acquaintances?

Paper will endure anything. And she doesn’t have the tongue to spread gossip. The diary will help not only to throw out what has boiled over, but also to understand the situation. Emotions cause the brain to work poorly. But when you write, your nerves calm down and your ability to think logically returns. Everything that happened becomes transparent and simple.

...and understand yourself better

By analyzing different situations in this way, over time you will be able to learn about your weaknesses and strengths. Why is certain behavior of acquaintances annoying, why do you act this way and not otherwise? Trying to analyze “orally”, you may miss something important. But nothing will be lost in the diary.

In a few years you will find out that you have become a different person

If you re-read the diary after a long time, you can come to funny discoveries. It always seems to us that internally we remain the same, we just increase fat and count new wrinkles. But in fact, a lot has happened over the years.

A diary will help you see yourself in retrospect. This view will give the necessary understanding: we change, develop, improve, and gain life experience. If you don’t think about it, then it seems that life stands still. That's why people keep a diary.

There are many types of diaries. The most familiar to us is personal, which has been discussed quite a lot - in it we write about everything that happens to us. There are also more highly specialized diaries - training, travel, books read, nutrition (diet), achievements in work.

For example, a diary of books you have read is needed to periodically refresh your memory of plots and impressions, otherwise they are simply washed away by time. Food diary - to know exactly how much we ate, including those moments when the brain was “off”. Certain genres - a travel or dream diary - can form the basis of a book. Isn't it a tempting prospect?

And for starters, let me remind you that progress has already reached electronic diaries. Why keep a diary in a notebook if it can live in your tablet/smartphone under the seal of a secure password? Modern technologies will allow you not only to always carry records with you, but also to group them by area (family, work, sports), and also to rate events. There are also separate applications for recording results in sports or nutrition.

When you look at your life without looking at specific details, many things are unclear. Where does this dissatisfaction come from, why is everything not working out as dreamed? Conscious living, which is talked about so much, involves a thoughtful analysis of each of your actions. And in this, better than anyone, a faithful and forgiving friend - a diary - will help.

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Right now, in different parts of the world, a huge number of people are writing something in their personal diaries. Someone may be crying and writing with a trembling hand about an unfulfilled dream, while someone is smiling and with a slight blush on their cheeks talking about a successful first date. Someone tries to remember every second of the past day, every task completed, while someone, tired and sleepy, puts their last strength into a couple of lines about the sweet girl who brought a letter to the office today. But why do they all do this? Why keep a personal diary? What's the point of this?

Secondly, a personal diary is the best psychologist. Even if we cannot write everything, we will definitely think about it. You can find a way out of even the most difficult situations, and a diary helps a lot with this. Having thought about everything that is happening, talking about everything in the diary, in the end we are able to make some kind of decision. We don’t always have the opportunity to speak out, and this is very important. If you keep everything to yourself, in the end, you can lead yourself to a nervous breakdown and acquire several types of psychological disorders at once. Do we need it? We should never forget that “everything we are is the result of our thoughts.”

And finally, fourthly, a personal diary – our tears. It is not for nothing that I singled out this reason for the existence of personal diaries separately from the psychological diary. How much suffering, how many emotions we sometimes experience while writing a personal diary. All our tears remain on the pages of a notebook or small notebook, they remain in absolutely all words, in every letter, in every comma or period. These are tears of joy, sadness, fear, resentment, happiness, anger and many other feelings. There is no need to be afraid of anything, because if a person is honest with himself, he can be honest and open with other people. And this is my last answer to the question of why keep a personal diary.

Thus, I came to the conclusion that a personal diary can be different, its content and type depend only on its owner. I said a lot, so, for sure, someone perceived it as reality, someone as naive stupidity, someone even considered it empty nonsense. And all conclusions will be partly correct. After all, we are different, everyone has their own thoughts and their own worldview. This means that keeping a personal diary will not be interesting or important for everyone.

Keeping a diary can significantly improve your well-being: sleep and blood pressure normalize, the immune system begins to function better, even wounds heal faster.

Surprisingly, improving your well-being by keeping a diary is not just psychosomatic. This activity truly improves the health of those who engage in it. According to Dr. James Pennebaker, a psychologist and leading expert on expressive writing, journaling helps strengthen immune cells called T cells. Thanks to this, mood improves and social activity increases. It also has a beneficial effect on the quality of close relationships.

So what is journaling?

This is the combination of personal reporting based on facts with the exploration of one's inner experiences, sometimes irrational, but always important.

The point of keeping a diary is not only to organize your thoughts - after all, you can simply think about them carefully, and this will also bring certain benefits. When keeping a diary, it is the act of writing down thoughts that brings the greatest results.

When you take notes, the left, rational hemisphere of your brain is working. While it is busy, the right hemisphere can do what it does best: create, anticipate and feel. Keeping a diary removes all psychological blocks and allows you to use all the capabilities of our brain to better understand ourselves and the world around us.

Already intrigued? Then the following 8 tips will help you master it in no time.

1. Use pen and paper

The modern world is all about keyboards and touch screens. But when it comes to journaling, regular pen and paper have more advantages.

Writing stimulates the reticular activating system, the area of ​​the brain that filters and brings to the forefront the information we focus on.

Writing by hand has additional benefits. This keeps us from editing our own thoughts. Although many people in their 20s and 30s have lost the muscle memory of handwriting and may find it slow and awkward, it won't be long before you feel comfortable writing by hand again.

2. If you don't like writing by hand, find a suitable tool.

Perhaps, after trying to write by hand, you will realize that this option is not suitable for you. There's nothing wrong with that.

Luckily, there are a huge variety of options available today. Turn to technological analogues. Both standard editors (Word from Microsoft or Pages from Apple) and more minimalistic solutions like Ommwriter are suitable. Perhaps you prefer touch screens. In general, look for the most convenient solution for yourself.

3. Set a limit

Previously, people set themselves a limit on the amount of writing, for example, 3 pages every day. But experts agree that a more effective solution when keeping a diary is to set a time limit.

Rationally consider how much time per day you can allocate to this activity in your busy schedule. Even if it's only 5 minutes at first.

Time limits help people focus on a specific goal when they start journaling. Seeing 3 blank pages in front of you can be difficult, and the matter will end before it even begins. And the time limit will not seem like an ordeal.

4. You don't have to be Shakespeare

Most aspiring writers (whether they're writing a journal entry, an article for a popular magazine, or a lengthy novel) tend to be misled into thinking that everything they write must be deep and sensual. And when you start keeping a diary with such a delusion, you can be sure that it will lead to failure.

Such activities are directed outward, at others, but you should keep a diary for yourself. True depth appears naturally, spontaneously, even by accident. Pretentiousness occurs when people deliberately try to appear smarter.

Shakespeare was a great writer because of his natural talent and careful study of human nature. But what's good for him doesn't have to be good for you. You don't have to show off your literary talent. You just need to write.

Keeping a diary will help bring to the fore information that is stored just deeper than consciousness. Let it pour out.

5. Don't edit

One of the purposes of journaling is to explore areas of your mind that you may not want to explore. Diary entries are not articles. No one will check your spelling, grammar, punctuation or content structure. When you edit, you become thoughtful and focus on your writing rather than your thoughts.

The essence of journaling is to write without thinking. By thinking, we interfere with our intuition, and therefore the whole meaning of the diary is lost. Journaling can help us explore ways we may not consciously discover. We can find extremely interesting topics if we stop thinking for a while.

6. Journal in the same place every day.

You don't have to lock yourself in a secluded ivory tower to write down your thoughts. However, having a specific place where you write your personal journal will encourage you to take better introspective notes.

Let it be an attractive place, where it is cozy, where there are things that inspire you, where you can see, touch or smell them: flowers, sentimental photographs, memorabilia or pleasant drinks - your choice.

7. Leave room for content.

Before you start your journal, skip the first two or three pages.

As you re-read, highlight notes or thoughts that you consider important, mark the page numbers or the date of writing, and then put them at the very beginning of the diary. This is how the content gradually develops, thanks to which you can easily find important records. This helps a lot when you encounter difficulties. You can look at how you have faced problems in the past that seemed insurmountable, but which you were eventually able to overcome.

8. Keep your diary away from prying eyes

Find a safe and secure place for your journal. For this activity to be truly effective, you must feel as free as possible and write down things that you cannot tell even your best friend.

A personal diary is not a letter to another person. This is not a document by which others should judge you. Want to write a book? Fine. Write a book. The diary is just for you alone. If what you write may hurt the feelings of others or harm your reputation, destroy the diary or hide it in a safe place.

Remember that you are writing only for yourself.

Diary– one of the most powerful personal development tools known. And although it is a simple tool, its impact can hardly be replaced by anything. What gives keeping a diary We . Today we’ll look at the basic rules for doing it.

There are only three rules and they are quite simple.

1. Keep a diary regularly

Diaries come in many different forms. And they are created for different purposes. But one condition is mandatory for keeping any diary - keep it need to regularly. Any communication with the Diary is an appeal to your Consciousness or Subconsciousness.

In the beginning it can be difficult to make a path there. But when a person constantly writes, it becomes easier for him and his path becomes more and more spacious. It's like a path in the forest. The more and more people walk on it, the more comfortable and noticeable it is. But if you don’t use it for a long time, the path becomes overgrown and may disappear altogether.

Therefore, you need to set yourself a schedule and time for working with your Diary. How often you access it is determined by the purposes for which you started your Diary.

This could be half an hour every evening. Then it’s good to analyze the past day and make plans for tomorrow. This could be half an hour in the morning - then it’s good to do self-analysis or work on technique. In addition, in the morning you can write down your dreams in the Diary if you use the active dreaming method. Or maybe you will only write in your Journal once a week. But even then it is important to do it regularly.

2. Keep conscious notes.

Simply keeping a chronicle and describing all the events that happened to you does not make sense. Although there is a special type - which is very useful in a number of cases. But it is also carried out for a specific purpose. Perhaps your descendants will be interested in knowing where you went and what you ate, but this information will not give you anything personally.

The diary is kept for awareness And rethinking what happened to you. In other words, you extract your life experience, or rather, crystallize all the most valuable things that this day, this or that event, gave you.

Rethinking allows you to understand yourself, your emotions, correct and incorrect reactions, and understand what you need to do differently or better in the future.

But if at first it is difficult for you to comprehend what is happening so deeply, just start writing a chronicle to develop the habit of writing regularly.

If you plan using the Diary, then every evening is very important cross out EVERYTHING planned items: done and not done. This must be done - your day is over, there is no need to leave anything in the past.

Analyze those points that remained unfulfilled. If it was something important, reschedule them for another day. If the matter is not important, then cross it out without regret. Nothing in your life will change if you don't do it.

Just one habit of daily planning will greatly increase the efficiency of your life.

3. Optimize your work

A diary is a tool that can greatly improve your progress in life and ease your path to success.

Therefore, try to use it most effectively. This will give you more powerful results.

• Keep your diary in high-quality, beautiful notebooks (notepads). A diary is a piece of your Self. And by choosing high-quality packaging, you show how much you respect and love yourself.
• Number the pages and, if necessary, enter content. Then it will be easy for you to find important things that will be useful to you later.
• Important pieces highlight color, paragraph or something else. You can attach transparent bookmarks.
• It’s good to leave fields in which to make some notes, which will also make it easier for you to find the right piece.
• Sometimes a full spread of a notebook is allocated for each day. Current records are kept on the left side, while the right side remains empty for now. A month later you return to this day. Once again, review the events that happened and see what has changed for you during this time, whether you have learned the necessary experience or have forgotten everything and are repeating old mistakes again. Return ensures your rapid growth and deep analysis, which allows you to see what is happening to you.
• It is better to create separate sections for plans and goals. Your goals will remain unchanged for some time, but you will plan and cross out your plans every day (as stated above).
• It's good to summarize each week and month. To do this, you need to read what you wrote during this period and draw conclusions again.

Journaling shows that you take yourself and your life seriously and are taking real steps to improve it. It can be difficult to examine your own life. But without this you will not build your bright future. So be sure to take the time to journal. Later we will look at what types of diaries there are. But no matter what you choose, you will still be amazed at the results achieved.

Keeping a diary is an interesting and useful activity; you can often see characters in different films keeping a diary. And many people like to take notes. Have you decided to try to master this activity, but have no idea how to start keeping a personal diary? It's not difficult at all.

Why do you need a personal diary?

For what reasons do people even keep diaries? Why are they doing this and what do they want to achieve?

• Often a diary is started as a tool for self-analysis. A person keeps notes, makes some notes throughout the day, and in the evening rereads and analyzes all the events. Many people write about their feelings and emotions, trying to understand them. Often diaries are used as a means to solve any psychological problems. For example, dealing with fear or uncertainty. First, the owner of the diary writes about what worries him, and then tries to figure out how to cope with it. In addition, many people feel better if they throw out their emotions on paper.
• Some people simply love order in everything, including in their thoughts. By making entries in a diary, they bring their thoughts into an orderly form, putting everything strictly on the shelves.
• Many people need the opportunity to speak out. This is especially true for teenagers who are faced with the problems of growing up, and they have no one to consult with, there is no appropriate environment, or their parents do not understand. Yes, and adults often resort to keeping a diary to throw out accumulated emotions.
• Some people simply love to write, they like to preserve memories of certain events or write down their own poems. Many accompany the entries with drawings and original stickers, creating a real composition from a diary page.

Advice : Whatever reason motivates you, keeping a diary is useful and interesting, so if you have such a desire, you can safely make it come true.

Selecting Suitable Items

If you decide to keep a diary, then you will need a notebook, notebook or notebook in order to describe your own thoughts. However, you can do this electronically if working with a keyboard is more familiar to you.

How to choose a suitable notebook or notepad for your diary? There are no general recommendations here, but one thing is for sure - choose what you like best. Do you like large and substantial notebooks? Take one of these. Are you used to writing down your thoughts in short phrases and prefer minimalism? Then you'll probably love a small pocket notebook. Are you afraid for the safety of your secrets? Buy a notepad with a lock and keep the key with you. Just rely on your own preferences and tastes, because you choose a thing just for yourself, you should like it and evoke pleasant associations.

In addition to choosing the notebook itself, it would be nice to choose a pen. You can buy multi-colored ones to highlight especially important thoughts and emphasize phrases. And if you like a strict style, then choose a solid pen with black ink.

Advice: If you plan to take the diary with you on trips or just carry it in your bag, then choose something with a hard cover or additionally wrap the selected notebook so that it will last you longer.

Stick to the regime or choose free flight?

When it finally comes to the process itself, that is, writing notes in a diary, many are puzzled - how often to write? Should this be done every day, or maybe several times a day? What happens if you miss a couple of days?

How much to write is entirely your decision. The main thing is that you should be comfortable. If you feel that you are “tormenting” the lines, then it is better to take a break than to force yourself.

However, if your diary serves some important purpose - for example, you are engaged in constant introspection, struggling with some problem, then it is still better to write every day so that it brings results. Even if the entries themselves are small, a few lines are also good.

There are no general rules, you can write about whatever you want in any form, there are no templates to follow. Perhaps it is only worth noting that for convenience you should not forget to indicate the date of recording.

The notes themselves can be ordinary, you can accompany them with drawings, color the letters or put funny stickers on the pages, as long as this format is convenient and you like it.

The topic of the posts is also entirely your business. You can write down philosophical reflections on how to achieve peace in the world or complain about the evil boss and gossips from the next door.

Where should I keep my diary?

An equally important question is where to put the diary so that no one accidentally finds it? This is relevant for those who live with their family and do not want their secrets to be read by anyone.

• You can put the notebook in the drawer with your laundry; it’s unlikely that anyone other than you will rummage through it.
• Carrying a diary with you is also a good option; you can put it in your bag and keep it there.
• Some people hide the diary under the pillow or under the mattress.
• To protect your secrets, you can also purchase a notepad with a lock, then you won’t have to worry about the safety of your secrets.

Keeping a diary will help you understand your own problems, learn to analyze information, or simply get rid of the emotions that have accumulated during the day. This is an interesting and useful activity and, for sure, in a few years you will re-read your notes with curiosity.

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