In this post I invite you to try out some new techniques for your journaling routine. You can experiment with new forms of writing for a week or a month and see what new insights come out of this challenge.

Sprint/ Timed Writing

Short timed writing is a writing technique that brings focus, intensity and speed to journaling. You can set as short time periods as 1 minute segments or larger 5 minute segments. Sprint writing is good when you are writing about things where you are easily blocked by your own thoughts. Sprint writing is used a lot in goal setting and visualizing.

A typical example would be : you won 50 000 on the strange terms that you get it only if you can spend it all today and only on your own needs and desires. You can’t directly help others with it only invest the money in ways that bring direct benefits to you too. What would you buy? You have 5 minutes to list it and spend it all.

Another example of speed writing is when you want to get negatives out of your head. It is a good idea to set a time limit of less than 2 minutes for writing out negatives about a person or a situation. Those aspects of the person, thing, place or the situation can be so active in you that you cannot think of anything else. In this case speed writing can help to get it out on paper and setting a time limit will keep the flow of negative thought with a boundary. the alarm brings you back. Seeing on paper, rereading what you don’t want is a clarifying experience and can help you chill a little and focus on what is that what you actually want. What would make you feel better?

Listing, categorizing, inventories

Inventory type journal writing starts with creating lists. Writing lists however isn’t usefull data in and of itself so if you choose list writing for journaling I advice setting out time regularly to go over your lists and categorize them. You can introduce a summarizing moment on Sunday when instead of writing the list for 15 minutes, you are analyzing the data that you have collected during the week.

You can create list as short as 3 items or more vast list with 200 -500 items. Shorts list will be used for daily entries while long lists are more usefull for creating perspective on a larger topic. The typical short journaling lists are about gratitude ( list 3 things/people that made you feel good today) and venting ( write 5 things/people that made you feel frustrated, anxious today). Short lists with daily entries will be repetitive after a while but that isn’t a problem. On the contrary, you can get usefull insights when you start categorizing your entries. You can see what makes you really feel good in life. You can create labels for the categories like people, places, activities, food, etc. and summarize your list regularly ( monthly quarterly, yearly).

The longer 100+ itemed lists are usually used for clarifying your vision and interest in life. It seems simplistic that a list can help you find your purpose in life, and it is simplistic in a way, but still it can help more than you imagine. You can and should list all kind of things that you desire from places to visit , to skills that you want to develop, books you want to read, people you want to meet. This list isn’t repetitive in nature so list each item only once. You can set a timeframe between 3- 7 days to finish this type of longer list.

You can also do a combination of the two list writing techniques and collect daily data into a larger list. Write 5 items each day into larger list and analyze it when it grew into 50 items, 100 items, 200 items. This type of list can be for example about things that you are content with, that you like about yourself. Each day write what is current and active. (Examples : You talked nice to stranger, you finished a project on time, you exercised as you planned, etc. ) It is a nice and practical way to build self esteem over time.

ABC writing

ABC writing is a sort of sub category of list type journaling because it is basically a list where you have letters instead of numbers. You write the alphabet, A to Z, vertically down the side of a page and than you fill it up as you would fill up a list.

You can write positive words that start with A to Z to relax and wind-down. Starting with A you write a positive feeling word. You can time this type of journaling to keep you going. If you get blocked just leave that letter out and go on to the next. You can always come back and fill out the blank spaces. You can write lists of things you want starting with words that start with the letter A continuing on till the letter Z. You can write names of places where you want to go, restaurants where you want o eat, sports you want to do and so much more.

At the end don’t forget to group the responses into themes and synthesize the information into labels and categories. You can create categories like ” soul mates” listing people who make you feel good regularly. Once you have the category with the items you can start analyzing the data. Why – is the easiest question to ask to analyze anything and it is super useful in self -discovery. Why? Why I like those type of people? Why I want o go exactly there and not somewhere else? Why? Why? Why? Keep asking till you get the Aha moment.

Creative writing – imaginary letters, poems

Typical entries in emotional journals are the unsent letters. Unsent letters are a form of creative writing. You are essentially writing a letter that is not mean to be sent. You really don’t want the other person to read it but that part of your mind which is in conflict with this person doesn’t know this. Imaginary letters can be written when you want to let go of anger, jealousy and there is no way to discuss the issue with the person involved. You can write them an imaginary letter where you tell them how they make you feel. You can write imaginary letters when you are missing loved ones and it would be nice if they had been there with you.

You can write creative journaling entries in form of a dialogue. Anyone or anything is a good imaginary dialogue partner. You might have noticed that you are having imaginary dialogues in your head mainly about challenges and difficulties. When you are angry you are fighting with the other person long after they have physically left the scene. They are no longer there but you sort of continue the conversation in your head as if they were there. You can do it even if you haven’t seen the person for the last ten years and react emotionally just as if they were standing next to you.

Creative journaling can help to end meaningless thought streams by getting the dialogue out on paper where it can be seen and analyzed logically. It can help to write out the dialogue or the unsent letter and let it sit or a while. come back to it only after a month or so and re read it. Can be a truly clarifying experience.

Vision journals are also a form of creative writing. You can write down images from your future. You go on your dream trip with your loved one. Where you go, what you do? An interesting exercise is to think of a major life goal and write down the day after this goal has become a reality. Where you live, when you wake up, how you dress, what you eat.? You’ll see that it will be much like a normal day, no big deal and that’s exactly the point of this type of exercise. It is meant to make your visions feel more real, palpable, achievable.

You can create imaginary Facebook posts, tweets, answers to comments that you might or might not want to get publicly posted. Sometimes social media can make us react emotionally in a strong way but it isn’t the best idea to jump and write on the first impulse. You can give it a day or two and till you decide how to react you can create imaginary reactions in your journal and test out how they look and feel after a day.

Those who have artistic skills and tendencies can write poems, texts for songs based on how they feel and what they experience. You can capture moments of your life by narrating them in an artistic way like a writer would describe it.

Repetition writing

In journaling repetition is the repeating of a word or phrase in writing, or more simply said writing it down again and again. Why would anyone do that? Repetition is said to be the mother of all learning and several psychological studies confirm that repeating simple words and phrases can convince us that they are true( even if they aren’t at the moment).

Writing affirmations is the most well-known version of the repetitive journal writing technique. Affirmation is a sentence that is positive in nature and it is formulating a good feeling perspective on a challenging topic. Affirmation are used to educate and rewire the brain so it will adapt and accept a more positive outlook on life. A typical technique to use affirmations in journaling for mental wellbeing and personal development consists in selecting or creating a set of affirmations( 3-5 sentences at maximum) and writing them down each day 21 times for 30 days. For more on affirmations check out this article :

Free writing

In journaling the free writing technique refers to unstructured, unpaced narrative writing. Free writing seems like the easiest thing to do in the world. You take a pen and a paper and you start writing down whatever comes to your mind. Easy, right? Well, like many thing in reality this is easier said than done.

Freewriting is used not only by those who like to journal but also by professional writers, academic students and business researchers . The technique consists of setting a time limit, stating a timer and writing, sketching continuously for that set period of time. The idea is not to care about correctness, grammar, rhetorical perfection and just write without worrying, rereading and without stopping. whatever thoughts In many different fields professionals use freewriting as a strategy to improve their writing efficiency and overcome blocks.

Freewriting is useful for discovery, brain dumps, for sparking the creative flow of ideas or spontaneous writing sessions. The key to effective free writing is the relaxed mental attitude that you are free to write whatever in whatever way you like. This attitude helps you bypass your inner critic and get out ideas that would otherwise be guarded or dismissed as unimportant. It can be used to clear out of your head distracting thoughts or to generate ideas for new projects.

Prompts & Sentence stems

A sub-category of freewriting is when you get a little help and instead of letting your mind totally ramble around wherever it wants ,you put a little fence around the territory it can freely investigate. In other words, you choose a topic to free write about. Journaling topics that you can free write about can be as general as Describe your day in one page/ 10 minutes or as specific as Why spring is my favorite season?. Journaling topics are also called Journal prompts.

The simplest form of a journaling prompt is using a sentence stem. Sentence stems are often used in journals to start freewriting sessions. Sentence stems are basically sentence starters. The beginning of the sentence is written down for you and the rest is left blank so you can finish it your way. Typical sentence stems in journals are : Today was…. because…… ; The three things that I like most about this time of the year are …., …,. …. because ….; Right now I am feeling ….

Another possibility to free-write with a prompt is using questions. Journal prompts in form of questions are very popular throughout the web so it is easy to find a list to start with. Choosing one question at a time you can have 10 minutes freewriting sessions detailing your thoughts on that topic. Starting a journal entry with a question about a specific topic can start your freewriting session and frame the process.

Brainstorming, sketching

Brainstorming is similar to freewriting in the sense that you write down ideas quickly in a preset timeframe without criticizing or making ideas look ridiculous. It is considered different than freewriting because when you are brainstorming you are writing shorter sentences, words, you can draw tables, circles and other idea clustering shapes rather than writing a continuous block of text.

Brainstorming sessions can serve as a precursor to a freewriting session where you use the ideas , words, topics from brainstorming as prompts for freewriting. usually the shorter the time for brainstorming the more efficient the results. Brainstorming is used more in business circles but it is an efficient tool for journaling too. You can carry around a brainstorming journal wherever you go and this way you can write down ideas freely whenever they hit you.

CONCLUSIONS

down different perspectives is a form of brainstorming for mental wellbeing.

Credits and further readings: Journal Therapy, The Power of Repetition