Ask HN: Has journaling improved your life?

I use Nextcloud hosted on Hetzner. It is pretty cheap and supports almost all systems I can think of. It feels a bit sluggish at times (slow sync, apps can be buggy), but I'm pretty happy with it.

Oh and the mobile app has a decent editor for text / markdown files :)

Yes. It makes me feel better and gives me a structured place for thinking about what has happened that day, plus, as I journal digitally I can search later and see when something happened.

That of course, doesn't mean I actually do it regularly, just that I probably should, like many things that have been displaced by drama and crapscrolling.

As for how, I currently use Obsidian. But I find the loading time discourages me from ever writing any quick notes, it feels like more of a time commitment than it really is even with just a ten second load on Android.

I use Google Keep exclusively for all utilitarian note taking, maybe I need to find a new app for journalling.

Thanks for sharing. I resonate with so much of what you say, particularly this: >>or perhaps they believe they already do it with an internal monologue. This is the typical justification I use for when I'm not in the mood to journal.

And your comments about ADHD, being more intentional with people, and living a prosocial-oriented life. I too could easily veer down a hermit-like path but deliberately effort not to. And I used to think that a personal CRM was overkill and such detailed tracking of others a waste of time. I haven't implemented anything yet, but I see the value of it now. Relationships are cumulative, interactions build off of each other. Remembering salient details in prior interactions (e.g. from my recent life, little tidbits I could find useful: Rachel deeply loves her mom. Ana is aware that I get car sick easily and made an accommodation for me, etc etc...)can enhance future ones.

I am about to start my 11th journal. I have been journaling for about 10 years, but I have only been consistent for about 5. As an aside, I would define “consistent” as leaving fewer and fewer days unwritten. I mostly journal about events from my day. I used to journal about general ideas as well, but I began to separate recounting my experiences from using writing as a way to think things through. To write about live events I use a physical notebook and to write about everything else I use Obsidian. Overall, I have experienced some great benefits, mostly regarding how I organize information in my own head and how well I remember things.

- I now find it easier to put events from my day-to-day life into a structure. If you ask people about their memories, you will find that many of them have a single moment they remember well. But what happened right before and what happened right after? Sometimes we forget the sequence of events that led into something or how we “got out of it,” so to speak. Journaling helped me know how A led to B and then C.

- It’s a good way to keep (somewhat) accurate records. If I ever wonder something along the lines of “hm, I wonder when it was that I started doing x thing,” it’s very convenient to check the journal and know right away.

- It helps me see how often the future recontextualizes the past. Some things that seem unimportant in the present become important in the future and vice versa. I mean this both in a philosophical/emotional sense and a practical one. The more you notice the general way things develop, the better you become at predicting what will be relevant and what won’t. It makes it easier for me to see facts in terms of what future things are implied in the current conditions.

- It’s a good way to understand your own feelings. There is a catharsis that comes with writing quite a few pages about something that has been bothering you or that you otherwise want to reflect more about. It has definitely helped me.

- It’s a good way to avoid getting stuck in a frame of mind. Whenever I read back my journals, I see how many things I have already gone through – which, ironically I thought were completely new experiences / thoughts. I see this in other people as well, where someone will make a grand declaration about something and forger the other times they said the exact same thing. There is a Roger Ebert review of the 63 Up movie that mentions that “whenever one of the subjects. . . brings up a past statement or event, the movie cuts to a sequence of shots or moments illustrating that the character has always been preoccupied with that thing, or done that thing, or denied being worried about that thing.” I think this is relevant to everyone.

Absolutely. Your relationship with yourself is the best thing you can develop to take care of yourself. After all, who better than you to ensure future you is taken care of? On the other hand, the people around us are everything. Life is nothing without others.

Apart from nurturing a constructive relationship with ourselves, for ourselves, it’s critical to do it for the people around us as well. I don’t think it can be understated how important and worthwhile it is to be intentional and mindful about it.

Someone noticing you get car sick might seem like a small matter in passing, but that’s the fabric of what makes our relationships. Like you said, it’s all cumulative. I think it’s absolutely worth taking a moment to contemplate that or note it away somewhere.