THUNAIKeeping a Diary Can Help Your Journey:
A diary in its simplest form, is a record of each day - the interesting and the mundane things that happen in life, and your thoughts and feelings about both. Keeping a diary has many benefits and is good for your mental health, as it:
Gives you a place to vent your feelings, and a space to process difficult experiences safely and in a less stressful way. It helps you focus on both thoughts and feelings, and not just feelings.
Is a way to record your feelings and views and how they have changed over time. This means it can help you track personal developments over time.
Helps keep track your stress levels or episodes of depression.
Other Benefits to keeping a diary:
It helps improve your writing and become more creative in how you think
It can help you remember events and activities - a diary helps you record the times when you have demonstrated a skill and other successes. When you are applying for a job for example, you have a ready source of examples for job applications. Writing about positive events, and looking back on them, can also boost your self-esteem.
Paper or Electronic?
There is a huge range of electronic options as well as the traditional paper-based route. You could, for example, use:
A note-taking app like Google Keep or other diary apps.
A Word document stored on your laptop or in the cloud.
You could even go ‘open’ and keep a blog, sharing your thoughts with the world, and not just your diary.
Benefits of electronic options - Diary apps are quick and easy to access, and are private. Electronic back-ups in the cloud should mean that even losing your device does not mean that you have lost your diary. It is also easier to craft your thoughts more carefully, and to go back and change them later. This can help refine your thinking, however a disadvantage is that it will not show you your raw thinking when you look back, and may encourage you to spend more time than you really need on your journal.
Benefits of the paper-based option: it is completely private. Writing things down long-hand can also be useful practice in ordering your thoughts in advance, which is good if you will ever have to sit written exams.
Tips for Keeping a Diary:
Don’t worry, just write: Your only audience is you. Over time, you will find it becomes easier to write.
Try to write every day, but don’t panic if you miss a few days:
To develop the habit of writing, you may find it easier to develop a regular time slot: for example, just before you go to bed.
Write as if you were writing to a friend, or even your future self:
This will encourage a more informal writing style, and also help you to share information about your feelings and deepest thoughts.
Your diary does not have to be just a written record:
You can also draw or sketch, or stick in pictures from magazines or tickets from events and the like.
You can be negative, but remember to be positive too:
When you look back, there is a reasonable chance that you will have forgotten quite a lot of it. You want to be able to read it to feel good about the things that you have achieved.