Even though I didn’t create any new journal entries on the weekend, this is a very useful thing to me. I’m creating these entries first thing in the morning when I sit down at my desk at work. After I’ve checked my email and lined up my schedule for the day, this allows me to get myself into a productive mindset for the day. It engages my mind in something that makes me think, but it’s not nearly as intense as most of the programming I do. It’s a nice kick-start to my day.
I have really enjoyed writing these every day. Being able to reflect on my own personal opinions and experiences to answer the questions that come with these prompts helps me to understand myself better. Getting my thoughts out of my head and into something concrete is really awesome for helping me sort out my never-ending stream of thoughts and short attention span. I know that in the future, writing things down on a regular basis like I have been for a week now will provide a way for me to reflect on my thoughts over a longer period of time. I can tell people that I’ve grown or matured, but having a paper trail of it will not only help me prove that I have done so, but also reassure myself that I have not stopped moving forward.
This experience has been different than what I expected, honestly. I expected to write maybe a paragraph every day, but every time I sit down to start answering a prompt, words flow into my answer significantly easier than I ever thought could. Its almost as if journaling lets me access opinions and thoughts on things that I didn’t know I had, and they’re a reflection of my true personality (which is awesome). Writing more than I expected is nice, but one of the biggest benefits I’ve gotten out of this so far is a conversation starter. Several of my friends and family read these entries every day and I can sit down and have a legitimate and involved conversation with them about the topic of the entry instead of struggling to find topics to talk about. It lets me express opinions to them in a way that I can’t structure in a normal conversation.
I enjoy this practice so much that I intend to continue doing it even after the 31 days of prompts from this Art of Manliness journaling exercise are finished. It’s been nothing but beneficial.