[iamjason89]

Reading this article and the comments here make me want to journal again. After reading a book on taking smart notes and finally successfully implementing the zettelkasten technique into my daily life, I feel like I've drifted away from the traditional journal method. Where I now utilize a system of index cards to capture dreams, thought out ideas, task list and concepts, I previously held notebooks that I would attempt to write daily on all various types of things. Reading back on these is an amazing to relive and stir up new feelings.

I found that when I wrote and read things back later, I would have trouble remembering them fully. When I was using a "journal" daily, I started to capture a few key details with every entry to help with recall:

  1) Current date and exact time (ex. 10/9/23 @ 9:33am)
  2) Music / auditory ambiance (ex. X song was playing in background)
  3) Where I was while writing (ex. on couch in living room at X house)
  4) A trigger memory (ex. travelled back from X destination yesterday)

When I read the entries that include this metadata, it helps me re-live these times and further spark memories around them.

I'm curious if anyone else has key details like this they include with their journaling that help them. I have a mission to start journaling again and would be fitting to add anything else others might be doing.

[broscillator]

A few things: around once a month I log what I've been reading, listening to, watching, playing, and hanging out with.

For the daily journaling I try to focus on a quality of feelings and events, which we could call significance. It is pretty difficult to measure the significance that a thought or event will have in the future, but this process itself is helpful for journaling in the moment, and its most helpful for my future reader self.

That means that when I sit down to journal I no longer focus on the "material" conditions, when I do that it feels like I'm grasping at straws to capture some inner snapshot that by nature is not contained in any of those material factors.

Rather I try to focus on fragments of my inner narrative while being on the lookout for my own biases and mental patterns. It's almost like trying to guess which events for the day will resurface in your dreams, which stick to your subconscious rather than what you think is relevant in the moment that you sit down to write.

[iamjason89]

I appreciate your input and I like the monthly check-in items. Those are certainly relevant and would be useful looking back.

I'm often trying to influence my dreams and make things stick to my subconscious so they will surface up during them. I find your approach interesting.