On using a daily journal

In summer this year Armin Schubert and me gave a couple of talks on a topic we are both truly passionate about: Gratitude. Basically we talked about how you can leverage insights from Positive Psychology in your day-to-day (work)life – and we shared a bunch of methods for individuals and team to foster flourishing and resilience.

One of these methods is (micro-)journaling. Within that context of public speaking, two contacts with companies which create guided journals emerged. Their journals are pre-structured and designed as a means of establishing healthy, positive habits in your daily life and both companies offered to provide us with a free sample of their books (at that point, I feel the urge to add: without expecting anything in return). 

These samples were kind of a broad hint to me! The last time I’ve been using a journal over a longer time is years ago. So giving those journals a try was definitely out of my comfort zone and yet it made me excited. “Will I manage to stick to it? Will it have effects on me? Will I like these effects? What else will happen?” my busy brain kept asking me.

So here they are:

The Clarity Journal (German original title: Klarheit Journal) from halloklarheit.de was the first that arrived at my desk and it was the first one I was experimenting with. 

The 6-Minutes Diary (Geman original title: 6 Minuten Tagebuch) from urbestself arrived a bit later and it is the second journal I testdrive.

I already tweeted a bit on my first 6 weeks with the Clarity Journal to share with curious people and help myself over the first bumpy time. As the journaling surprised me with its really deep impact, I decided to write a little blogpost series about my experiences.

This is the start and there will be four parts coming meanwhile we have six parts to offer:

  1. How to make the journaling habit stick
  2. WTF?? Did I really want to be that honest to myself? On my first weeks with the Clarity Journal
  3. Different needs, different tools! What made me change the journals earlier than expected…
  4. Change hurts! My first weeks with the 6-Minutes-Diary
  5. How I started Bullet Journaling
  6. … and my experiences using the Bullet Journaling method for a while

I am looking forward to having you here and maybe also contributing your thoughts, experiences and questions. 🙂

Take care,
Cosima