Why I stopped journaling in 2024 after almost 5 years
Let’s face it—not everyone has to do it
The clock was inching closer to 2 a.m. that night.
I still lay awake in bed, the sound of Diwali crackers bursting at every interval adding to my sleeplessness. “How come I’m awake through these fireworks?” I asked myself, realising that the loudness wasn’t an issue the previous year when I easily fell asleep, despite its onslaught.
In any case, I had to do something to slip into my peaceful slumber. I could do anything, honestly. Anything.
Consulting my intuition, I reached an agreement: if I got fewer than five hours of sleep that night, I’d pull the plug on my almost-five-year-old practice of journaling forever. Or maybe revisit it when needed. But otherwise, it would be out of bounds for me.
I fell asleep after 3 a.m. when the noise had stopped. I clocked around four hours of sleep that night. From that point on, my journal lies unwritten after entry # 1,763, tucked away in one of my under-bed storage boxes.
Initially, I felt like a junkie on her first day of getting clean. It was a task to fight off the urge to grab my A4 notebook and pen down three half pages of long-hand stream-of-consciousness brain dumps. I’d always harboured the fear that not journaling first thing in the morning would jinx my day and take it out of my control—a few instances had even confirmed that belief.
But soon, it was evident that prioritising an extra hour of sleep over this daily free-writing practice had its benefits. I was anyway doing affirmations on waking up, so the journaling was proving to be excessive.
Do I still journal occasionally? Not really. I write letters to my future husband every night, but because they’re going to be my wedding gift to him and he’s going to read them (he should, no?), that doesn’t really count as journaling, which is supposed to be strictly for our eyes only. So, no, I’m not doing any kind of journaling right now, and my life has turned out to be alright without it.
Why quitting journaling was the right decision
It was becoming repetitive
The same issues—cribbing about my household woes, soulmate, work projects, finances—kept making their way into every journal entry without any concrete action taken on them. At one point, I probably didn’t have anything else to write about because I was busy making to-do lists in my entries! I even tried variations, including speed-writing to silence my thinking mind, but I always wound back at square one. The penny dropped for me when I realised the need to do something about my troubles instead of writing about them repeatedly without taking action.
Journaling was making me self-obsessed
Guess whose problems make their way into your journal? Neither your parents’ nor your neighbours’, not even your dog’s. It’s always about you. People might call that self-love because you get to prioritise yourself in the process, but for me, it was beginning to smell like the early signs of narcissism. Before it got any worse, it was good I was made to take it off the flame.
My plate was full
Journaling can get overwhelming if you have a rich, busy life, with plenty to command your attention. Some may say that journaling, like meditation, helps you empty your cup in such instances. I’d say do what floats your boat. For me, journaling was interfering with my need for extra sleep and other practices and priorities. I had to be selective and take a call. No wonder it got the boot.
It was an ego show
Most of the things vomited in my journal came from the very inner critic the activity was trying to silence. While I did try intuitive writing later on, why reinvent the wheel, I asked myself, when there was so much success-based literature out there. So, I dove headlong into books and scriptures, getting an idea of basic universal laws first, before I took my woes to the page. I didn’t have anything to write after that, especially when my intuition would deliver solutions based on these principles anytime in the day without the need to put pen to paper. Clearly, it was my ego’s way of clinging onto something familiar. I had to axe the practice.
The activity had served its purpose
I’m not at all suggesting that the five years I spent journaling were a waste. They definitely played a role in subconsciously shaping the events of my life. But clearly, the time had come for my daily journaling to end. It was like the boat you need to let go of once you’ve reached the shore. Maybe I’ll resume journaling in the future, who knows? But right now, I’m happy without it.
What I do instead
Image: cottonbro studio | Pexels
Virtual whiteboards
As they say, letting go of the old makes way for the new. In this case, a few days after I terminated my journaling habit, I stumbled upon the idea to use a virtual whiteboard to jot down facts and thoughts on computerised sticky tapes in an assortment of colours (I ended up sticking to three—yellow, green, and pink). The crime board from the Disney+ Hotstar show Only Murders in the Building was my inspiration. After a bit of a search, I found a template on Canva. The fact that I could see all my notes from my headspace and personal-development gurus in one place helped me spot the connections between them and, thus, implement those pointers more effectively in my life. Try it for yourself here and customise it to your liking—you’ll realise what I mean. Again, I don’t push myself to put up these bits—I do it whenever I feel like it.
(Also read: 10 retail-industry problems solved by Shoppers Stop)
ChatGPT
It doesn’t pay at all to mope around with your issues and wallow in self-pity. We’re fortunate to live in an age where AI can prove to be a capable assistant for our problem-solving endeavours. So, if ever I have a niggling concern, I take it to ChatGPT. While you need to use discernment for its suggestions, some of its solutions have proved to be intuitive and effective for me.
Blogging
It’s somewhat true when they say that writing for yourself also means writing for several others like you. Why not, for this reason, take your brain dumps online? You get to monetise them, too, in the long run. And when someone sends you a sweet note telling you how your blog post has saved their life or put them back in the saddle, is there anything more rewarding than that?
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