Nifty Item #2: A Thought a Day

To journal or not to journal?  That was never a question for me in my last three years as a high school English and theatre teacher.  I was so busy grading papers and lesson planning that I just didn’t have the time to journal, and when I did, I felt too exhausted and drained to “process” my life on the page.  It was truly the last thing I wanted to do.

But, oh the guilt!  That tiny voice in my head would mutter, “You should be writing this stuff down!  These early days of teaching and being a newlywed aren’t going to last forever.  Will you even remember it if you don’t write about it?”  (Maybe you recognize this voice, the voice of your inner critic.)

Then, we moved from Ohio to Florida this past July, and the only teaching job I could find was part-time, which has proven to be an unexpected blessing of space to breathe and think and re-prioritize.

And one night, while perusing the shelves of Barnes & Noble, I spied a nifty item that I thought just might be the ticket to helping me re-forge my relationship with journaling.  Here it is:

There are only five lines for journaling…so the pressure for length is OFF.  Its pages look like this:

Here’s the back cover, which explains the schtick:

To me, this felt do-able.  A thought a day, that’s all.  So, I laid my Amex down and haven’t looked back.

Like learning to walk again, my pen is touching paper, and I’m taking steps toward a journaling routine.  Since making it over a month of thoughts, I have even branched out to another journaling project, which you can read about in a future post.

I think the real fun will begin next year when I get to my second daily entries, and I can see what I was doing, thinking, feeling on that same day a year before.  I might recognize cycles and patterns.  It’s like a personal research study.

So, if you believe in the practice of journaling, but just haven’t journaled lately either because of lack of time or interest, here’s your nifty opportunity.  There are many other styles of this same type of five-year journal out there, even on Amazon.

But remember, you’re not committing to five-years.  It’s just a thought.  One day at a time.

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