How to organize a personal diary. How to keep a personal diary. Making a personal diary with your own hands

In childhood, almost everyone kept diaries. True, I cannot say that the boys also had secret notebooks, but almost every girl had her own notebook or notebook with the coveted lock and the inscription "Personal!" All secrets and all experiences were recorded there: tears of unrequited love, joy from a fleeting glance and constant complaints of absolute misunderstanding on the part of parents. Children grew up and gradually transferred their habits of describing their lives and their thoughts from paper to the World Wide Web with only one difference - we wrote diaries exclusively for ourselves, in order to then re-read and remember those feelings, understand and find the reasons for the present in the past, but web diaries are for general reading.

It became uninteresting to write just for oneself, because I want to see the response, to feel that your thoughts coincide with the thoughts of tens, hundreds, and maybe thousands of people. It's nice, and writing just like that into the void, without getting a positive feedback, becomes uninteresting. But in fact, keeping closed diaries solely for yourself can greatly help you when making important decisions. Many people remember either only the good or only the bad, and this is a rather one-sided point of view, which makes it difficult to objectively (as far as possible for a person) assess the situation.

The creators of the electronic version of the Day One diary shared their thoughts on why you should keep such closed diaries, and how to do it correctly.

There have already been several publications on Lifehacker on the topic of keeping personal diaries, no matter if it is a paper or digital version - "", "" and "". And if you are really interested in this topic, I recommend reading these articles.

Now let's go directly to the tips from the creators.

As mentioned above, the main problem in keeping such closed diaries is the question "What should I write there ?!"

Intimate thoughts

Writing very personal, intimate, one might even say intimate thoughts is the basis for keeping such a diary. When you write down all your experiences, be it anger, joy, longing, disappointment, love, passion, you will realize all this more deeply again when you write down your feelings on paper. And then, rereading all this in a few days, months or years, you can rethink all those emotions and understand why you made this or that decision, you can see how you evolved and developed as a person.

Things or events that influenced your decisions

It is also a good idea to write excerpts from your favorite articles, quotes, books or ideas in your journal. And then develop your thought, writing down all your thoughts in a diary. After all, it is not the articles, quotes or books themselves that are important, but the impact they have on you.

Objectives

If you publish your list of goals for the year on your personal blog or on social networks, why not do the same in your personal diary? These do not have to be very important and long-term goals. You can also write down smaller, current goals that you would like to achieve. You can write accompanying comments to them, and then look through them and note for yourself what you managed to achieve from what was planned, what was all this accompanied, and, if something did not work out, why exactly happened one way or another? This is a good way to understand where you have been, what level you are now and where you are going to move.

Impressions of books read, movies watched and music listened

Books and films affect our desires and actions much more than we think. Writing mini-reviews of books you read and movies you watch is a good way to rethink the information you have received and highlight the most important points for yourself. This applies not only to educational books, but also to fiction, which sometimes affects us much more than the next book about the smart.

This kind of cataloging is useful for more than that. You can recommend something new and interesting to your friends, or by reviewing the notes, decide whether to watch the movie or read the book again.

Little joyful moments of life

"Dear Diary, Today was an incredible day!" - where else to write this, if not in a personal journal? In fact, it is from such moments, joyful and not very, that our life is formed, and if it seems to you that such records do not carry any meaning, then over time it is these records that will be of greatest value to you. They will remind us how good it was with someone and why we spent so much time together then. They will remind us of who we were and who we are, and why everything happened the way it did. And they also warn us against making the wrong decision on emotions, when blood pounds in our temples, fists clench and we only want one thing - to destroy everything and send everyone to hell, and then pick up the pieces of our life.

Favorite dishes or dishes that amaze you

Just a few lines about something new, just in order to repeat the order later or, perhaps, find a recipe for the dish you like.

Places you have been

Let it be a short travel note that marks your first impressions of a new place. You can add geotags and photographs there, and then these records will remind you why traveling is so great, and why it is worth coming back (or never again) to this city.

You can write whatever you want in your personal diary, so it is rather more difficult to decide not what to write there, but which entries to refrain from. Do not turn it into a dump of junk and write down how many new friends you have on social networks. These should be things that are truly dear to your heart and that help you to live meaningfully, without missing a single moment. And for a dump, you can leave social networks, which are already filled with incomprehensible garbage like numerous selfies, photos of meals and strange statuses from one phrase;)

Did you have a personal diary? If so, do you still lead it and what did you record there?

In adolescence, most of us keeps a personal diary, pouring out their emotional experiences on its pages, telling secrets that cannot be shared even with the closest person. But we grow up and forget such a good habit as keeping a personal journal. And completely in vain, because it is a personal diary that helps to look at yourself from the outside, to understand your aspirations, to analyze failures.

Personal diary - this is our main assistant in terms of introspection and self-development. By writing down practically everything that happened during the day in it, you get the opportunity to thoroughly understand the committed mistakes, actions and your actions. In other words, keeping personal records is a great habit with many benefits. Let's try to understand the key points that prove the effectiveness of a personal diary, and the basics of how to properly keep a personal diary.

1. By writing down our thoughts in a diary, we create a base for achieving our goals.

If you want your plans to come true, try to write them down on paper. After all, what slipped through my head, but was not reflected on paper in time, can easily be forgotten over time. But the recorded goal is clearly fixed by your consciousness, becoming a kind of reference point, a beacon to which you must move without fail. At the same time, your brain itself searches for any possible ways to achieve the goal, working as if in autopilot mode. Various studies show that people who have not achieved what they want, when asked whether they wrote down their desires on paper, answer negatively. In turn, those who have achieved their goals, almost always keep personal notes, recording thoughts in a personal diary. And they have a lot of explanations for the need to keep such a diary.

2. Keeping a journal makes your life more mindful.

By writing down the thoughts that visited your head, various observations in your diary every day, you get the opportunity, after a certain period of time, to look at yourself with the eyes of an outside observer. Such an opportunity, in turn, allows you to rethink the way of life that you lead in places, to assess how correctly your life path is chosen, and whether you are making enough efforts to achieve your goals. Our life is so full of various little things that we often forget about serious things. This is how we are made. Therefore, by writing everything in a diary, we ensure the safety of important points. To what extent does the life you live correspond to your earlier ideas? Do you manage to realize what you have in mind? Or maybe you are so dug in the little things that you completely gave up on your real dreams and aspirations?

3. Keeping a personal journal means being able to store ideas.

From time to time, almost every one of us is visited by good ideas, without writing them down, we simply forget. This can be avoided by recording ingenious thoughts on paper. And even if it seems that the idea that visited you cannot be realized, everything can change overnight. Therefore, heed the advice, write it down and wait for the right moment.

4. A personal diary develops your discipline.

This argument echoes the aforementioned ability to realize the recorded deeds and desires with the highest degree of probability. And here the explanation lies not only in the fact that thanks to the diary you will not forget what you planned to do. The main advantage lies in the ability to categorize the recorded cases in order of importance, as well as to draw up a plan for their implementation.

5. Taking personal notes improves your ability to formulate thoughts and express them correctly.

Suppose you are a sufficiently disciplined, ideological and purposeful person, and you can perfectly cope with daily difficulties without a personal diary. Then the reason for starting it can be precisely the opportunity to become more literate, to learn to formulate thoughts beautifully and concisely, to talk with a dumb listener, in the role of which the diary acts. Keeping a journal can be compared to a person telling about their life. You can be compared to a writer who improves his literary skills daily. In addition, like any other writer, you will want to make your work more interesting and positive, respectively, and the actions you commit, which you will tell the reader about, may become of better quality over time.

6. Keep a journal and learn from your mistakes.

By rereading the events described in the diary and the actions you have committed, you get the opportunity to look at everything that happened from the outside. And, believe me, this is a very effective tool for changing yourself. It becomes clearly visible to you what and where you did wrong, where you chickened out, and where, on the contrary, went too far and, most importantly, how it ended for you and those close to you. All this allows you to avoid repeating similar situations in the future.

7. Diary allows you to become more self-confident.

Another important reason for keeping a personal journal is the ability to become more self-confident. By analyzing what happened to you in the past, sorting out your inner feelings and experiences, you get the opportunity to change yourself, become more confident and more purposeful.

8. Improve your efficiency.

In any business, the main thing is to start. Try to write down everything that happens to you during the month. Return to these notes after a while, and you will realize that you have become a little wiser, gained some experience. By splashing thoughts on paper, writing down ideas, you get the opportunity to structure your life, increase its efficiency, and achieve your goals.

9. Keeping a personal diary means getting rid of negativity in your life.

Surprisingly, the fact remains - the recorded thoughts, tuned to the positive, receive a double power. You gradually learn to get rid of all kinds of negativity, envy and anger. In addition, you do not disrupt your negative experiences on close people, avoiding scandals, but simply describe everything to the same dumb listener. And he, as they say, will endure everything.

10. Learn from yourself with a personal diary.

Having decided to keep personal records, take it with full dedication, describe in detail the situations in which you find yourself, try to find an answer to the questions that arise before you. Do not spray on trifles, but pay extra attention to the really important points. You will see from your own experience that the beginning of the diary will differ significantly from its middle and even more so the ending. Over time, your thoughts, life guidelines will change, you will take a fresh look at life. And the reason for this is self-development, the ability to gradually live and think more correctly.

These are the top 10 reasons why you should keep a personal journal.

In conclusion, I would like to note how important it is to keep a personal diary correctly. In the beginning, of course, you will still only learn to state your actions, as well as desires and plans for the future. But already over a period of time, acquiring the habit of sharing thoughts on paper, you will learn to write deeper, more meaningfully and competently, moving from a standard description of events to their thorough analysis. Rest assured, this is quite a valuable skill that can be very useful in many situations in life. In other words, go ahead and the effect will amaze you.

Instructions

First of all, think and decide - do you need it? And why is it necessary? A personal diary is a secret that only you own. This is your best friend and personal psychiatrist. And after some time, you can publish excerpts from it on the Internet blog.

Buy a notebook or diary of your choice in the store. Choose a diary that has fewer extraneous printed inscriptions. If this does not bother you at all when filling out, you can choose the one that suits you. If you are frightened by the volume of the notebook you bought ("how can you fill it all up!") - take a few pages first. So to speak - for testing.

How you keep your records is up to you. But it's okay if you don't refer to the diary as often. Write a few short phrases describing the past day. You can make a detailed story about the event that excites you. Put a date in front of each entry - this will later allow you to determine the time you spent on solving a particular problem.

Make up your diary. Write with different pastes, paint, paste, or newspaper clippings. Your diary can become like a little encyclopedia of your personal life. If desired, store it in a secluded place.

Write down your birth story, family history in your diary. You can enter dreams or interesting stories, anecdotes, songs, poems, aphorisms. It is possible that you have a definite opinion about some people - write it down. If you are tormented by some problem or anger - pour it all on paper. This will make it a little easier, and after a certain period of time you will remember what happened with a smile and learn a lesson.

Human memory can fail, the Internet does not work with a blog, and a diary will never fail. With its help, you will remember the past happy and not so moments of your life.

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• how to keep your personal diary

Did you know that a memoir begins with keeping a diary? the diary is very exciting, even if you do not know how to do it and what to write in the diary, then we will help you.

If you do not have experience in keeping a diary, then you can start to “fill your hand” by writing down your dreams. It is better to write down dreams immediately after waking up, while the memories are fresh. By the way, if it is done regularly, you may be able to start interpreting your dreams, trace the chain of events and coincidences.

For those who do not remember dreams, start writing down fascinating moments from your life, for example, how was a meeting with friends. Keeping a journal will help develop your attention to detail. Describe in detail what your friends were wearing, memorize funny phrases and include quotes in your diary. By the way, after a few years, having gathered in a close circle of friends, you will be able to surprise them with recordings, we are sure that they will be pleased. In the diary, you can attach, which are made at the moments in time in question.

A great opportunity to start is vacation time. You will personally be pleased to re-read the notes about the rest after a few months.

An important point - a diary is your personal thing and you need to keep it out of the reach of others. A locker with a key or a nook in your room is suitable for this.

At all times, the diary was a means by which a person shared his thoughts about himself and the world. All events, all incidents are recorded in the diary. At any time you can come back and watch, remember and surrender to nostalgia. With the help of a diary, you can relieve emotional stress so as not to keep everything that has accumulated in yourself.

You will need

• - notebook for diary

Instructions

Now all that remains is to start your diary entries. Try to write every day without missing out on little things. You can record events as soon as they happen, but for this, the diary should always be there. In other cases, the recording is carried out in the evening, before going to bed. Keep the journal in a private place so no one has access. You can buy a diary with a lock. Then make sure that only you have the key.

Helpful advice

Write down how you feel, how your mood changes, what factors affect it. Indicate in diary pregnancy date of the first ultrasound, tell us about your emotions at the moment when you saw your baby on the monitor screen.

Do not forget to record the date of the first one. Tell in diary about their assumptions and feelings related to the sex of the future baby. Provide information on weight gain. On the last pregnancy write about all your experiences and expectations related to the upcoming.

The style in which your diary will be filled pregnancy, depends only on you. You can fill it out in the form of a simple chronicle or a conversation with your unborn baby. Write down all your joys and worries. Do not worry about the correct wording, because you keep the diary for yourself, not for the public.

Rereading your diary pregnancy in the future, you will be able to relive one of the brightest and happiest periods of your life.

Related article

Calculating the timing of pregnancy with interactive calendars

Even the smallest moments of a child's life become valuable to loving parents. A special diary will help to save information about childhood, in which you can record information about the growth and development of the child.

Instructions

Choose a notebook to keep your diary. In bookstores and stationery stores, you can buy ready-made models, but you can take a diary yourself from a diary or album. The main thing is that the format of the notebook is convenient for notes and that you can paste photos there. You can arrange it yourself by pasting a photo of a child or another picture pleasant for you. If you wish, you can also make an electronic version of the diary.

Date each of your entries. Subsequently, it will be easier for you to correlate the information with the specific age of the child.

Start recording at the point you want. This could be the onset of pregnancy or even the moment when you started planning for the birth of a son or daughter. As illustrations, you can choose not only photos of your family, but also beautiful pictures from magazines. If you know how to draw, use this when designing.

Write down not only dry numbers about changes in the height and weight of the child, but also various amusing cases and situations. You can also touch on your experiences. But do not forget that the children's album is not your personal diary. Subsequently, outsiders and the child himself will be able to read it in an older age.

If you're inviting guests for your child's first birthday, give them a page in your diary to write their wishes. The child, of course, will not remember the holiday itself, but it will be interesting for him and for you later to read the notes of relatives and friends.

Give the child's father the opportunity to participate in the diary if he wants to. In such a situation, you will get a look at the child from the point of view of both parents.

As a child grows, his nutritional needs change. At the age of 5-6 months, breast milk or formula can no longer provide an adequate intake of calories, vitamins and nutrients, so complementary foods are introduced at this time. But if the baby is prone to allergies, new foods should be offered to him with caution, and in order to track the reaction to this or that type of food, you need to keep a food diary.

In the "Quantity" column, indicate the volume of the product eaten by the baby in grams. Enter the new kind food from 0.5 teaspoon, gradually increasing the amount to the age norm, and note this in the food diary. Keep in mind that a 10 g serving may not cause allergies, but at 60-70 g, a reaction will occur.

Divide the column “Changes” into 3 parts. In the first, write down the manifestations on the skin: itching, rashes, swelling, severity, localization. In the second part, note the reaction to the product on the part of the digestive system: vomiting, abdominal pain, especially these phenomena. In the third part, indicate the response of the respiratory system to the introduction of new food: runny nose, cough, shortness of breath. Also write down the time of manifestation of a particular reaction of the body to the product.

Which personal diary to choose

Before you start keeping a personal diary, you need to decide on its option. There are 2 types of diaries:

1. Handwritten version.


2. Blog on the Internet.

A handwritten version of a personal diary has been known since ancient times. For many centuries, women have recorded their personal experiences in notebooks that were hidden from prying eyes.

The 21st century gives people the opportunity to go beyond the classical journaling and offers to create it on the Internet. If necessary, you can close your diary on the Internet from strangers. As a last resort, the diary can be created under some pseudonym. The advantage of an Internet blog is the ability to upload your favorite pictures, music, or. With deep feelings or problems, the author can ask advice from other blog creators.

How to make a personal diary

Another advantage of a handwritten diary is the ability to design it for every taste. Writing in it can be done with colored pens, felt-tip pens. Mark interesting thoughts with a highlighter or frame. Any imagination of the author will come true. If necessary, you can paste interesting newspaper clippings, photographs or pictures into your personal diary.

It is worth buying for yourself some kind of notebook with a lock or a button. Let it be more expensive than ordinary notebooks, but after all, it will remain with the owner for many years.

After purchasing a notebook, it is worth purchasing cover material. For example, felt. You can buy it in many stores, and a huge selection of shades will allow you to choose the perfect one for yourself. Cut the cover out of felt, sew on the pockets to hold the notebook. Flowers, angels or rhinestones can be glued to the cover. You can create a whole masterpiece.

It is advisable to make a special pocket on the cover or on the first page. It will contain memorable photographs or notes that someday will be in the hands of the owner.

In a personal diary, you can make absolutely any entries. Don't be afraid that someone will read it. After all, it will be stored in a place inaccessible to others.

You need to keep a diary constantly. Even if nothing happened in a day, then it is worth doing at least a couple of lines. If you have no idea what to write in it, then refer to the following tips:

1. Don't be afraid to write down all your thoughts. Let them seem strange and incomprehensible from the outside. But then these notes will help you analyze yourself.


2. Write down all your feelings, emotions, and experiences. This is especially true of feelings of love for a man. Maybe he will become your husband and in some conflict situation these notes will help to remember all the feelings that were experienced for this man at the very beginning of the relationship.


3. If you remember at night, then write down your dream and the state of it after waking up. These entries in your personal diary will help you sort out your inner problems. Determine why this or that dream had a dream.


4. Try to jot down as many positive thoughts as possible. After all, after re-reading them, the soul becomes good again. But don't be afraid to vent your sadness. After all, a personal diary is your friend to whom you can tell absolutely everything. Such recordings will allow you not to keep sadness, anger and longing in yourself and not to get hung up on some problems.


5. But you should not turn your personal diary into a list of enemies, their actions and problems with them. By making such notes constantly and re-reading them, you will simply be angry with the person again. And enemies must be forgiven.

We all know about the benefits healthy way life. Of course, keeping a food diary and exercising is not always convenient. However, the benefits of such self-discipline are undeniable! In the process of losing weight, it is very important to control not only your diet, but also your physical activity. Moreover, this must be done every day. With this approach, you can maintain a healthy lifestyle.

How to keep your healthy lifestyle diary right? Below we will look at the secrets to help you cope with this task!

1. You should include all foods and drinks that you consume during the day. It is advisable to measure them in portions. This means writing down the butter you put on the bagel, the cream and sugar in your morning coffee, soda. Even the bits of food you eat when preparing dinner should be noted. Be honest with yourself and write everything down accurately. This allows you to discover when and what you overeat.

2. Time of eating plays an important role. Try to write everything down immediately after eating. So, you will not forget what exactly you used during lunch or dinner. Also note the duration of the meal and the time. Consider snacks too. This indicator will help you adjust your eating habits and diet.

3. Convenience of the diary. Filling out a food journal should be a simple task that doesn't take long. Some people find it easier to use a dedicated app on their smartphone. The main thing is to keep a diary every day. The method of writing the data does not play any role in the end.

4. Record your hunger level. You can use a special scale, where 1 is very hungry and 5 is completely full. This will help understand the cause of hunger. Maybe you just eat out of boredom or exercise requires more calories. This approach will give you the opportunity to understand your feelings and deal with mindless food intake.

5. Review your food diary at the end of the day. Self-criticism can help create new habits. You can use this information to determine your goals for the day ahead. For example, you may find that when you take a long break between meals, you become irritable or depressed. As a result, this leads to overeating. We hope that ours will be useful to you and help you reach your desired weight as quickly as possible!

It is surprising that such a simple thing as a personal diary can simultaneously be a creative laboratory, a caring psychotherapist, a source of memories, a tool for self-development, and most importantly - a reliable shelter behind which you can be absolutely honest with others and with yourself. It is even more surprising that all these qualities are often not realized even by those who once tried to keep regular notes in their notebooks, notebooks and diaries.

Journaling is not fruitless self-delusion. This is not an activity intended exclusively for young girls and adolescents who need to sort out their feelings and sentimental experiences. And this is not just a prosecutorial business record of events that happened to you over the past day.

It is also wrong to think that journaling is only for great people who "have something to say." It is true that among famous writers, scientists or artists, it is difficult to find someone who does not keep records intended only for themselves. But even if you do not claim to be a genius, this is not at all a reason to give up this useful practice. In addition, there is always the possibility that you are still a genius, and many years after your death, the heirs will receive substantial royalties for the publication of your diary.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Nausea

In order for the most banal incident to turn into an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient to tell it.<...> Each person is always a storyteller, he lives surrounded by stories, his own and those of others, and he sees everything that happens to him through their prism. So he tries to fit his life to the story about her.

Diaries are written in order to be written, read and re-read. Here are some answers to the reasonable question "what is it for?":

• to pour out on paper and realize those feelings that cannot be entrusted to others;
• to figure out what you want from life;
• to understand how your plans correspond to reality and whether you are moving correctly towards their implementation;
• to better understand other people and learn to take their point of view into account;
• to practice expressing your thoughts and learn to reason;
• to recognize and change bad thinking habits and behavioral patterns;
• to develop intuitive thinking and creativity.

What to write about

Who am I?

A sheet of paper that “endures everything” is almost the only place in this world where you can be yourself. This may be said too categorically: after all, each person is multifaceted and needs different contexts for his realization. But the honesty and openness achievable in a diary are very rarely available to us in other areas of life.

In the diary, you can reflect on your past and make plans for the future. This is a famous exercise: try to imagine what kind of life you would like to lead in 5/10/15 years? Then correlate what you are doing now with your long-term intentions. If the pictures don't fit together, it might be time to change something. In this practice, it is the recording procedure that is useful.

If you think about the future, then the gaps between dream and reality are smoothed out. In the recording, they appear clearly.

If you don't know what you want to do in this world, a diary will help you get closer to understanding your strengths and deep intentions. Write down things in your journal that bring you joy and genuine interest. A person immersed in business may suddenly realize that the poet's soul has always been hidden under a business mask. The diary will provide him with the opportunity to develop this particular side of his personality, not forgetting about the rest.

If you have been keeping a diary for several years, when you re-read your personality in dynamics will be revealed to you. How have your priorities and values \u200b\u200bchanged? What was important to you then and what remains now? So keeping a diary helps you see your life as a whole, albeit an unfinished picture. The diary introduces unity and extension into a series of torn moments, in it “every moment carries in itself the burden of everything that is previous and the rudiment of everything that follows” (Lydia Ginzburg).

Lev Tolstoy

Resurrection

For two years I did not write a diary and thought that I would never return to this childishness. And this was not childishness, but a conversation with oneself, with that true, divine self that lives in every person. All the time this I was asleep, and I had no one to talk to.

With the "true self," Lev Nikolaevich may have gone too far. The diary does not remove all social masks because it is impossible. But it helps to understand which of them sits on you better. Perhaps this understanding will lead to a change of masks, a change of personality. As Susan Sontag wrote in her diary, “Masking my behavior, I do not protect my personality - I overcome it”... The surest way to change something is to understand how it works. The diary does not just record what is happening around; it changes its owner. Usually for the better.

If you suffer from low self-esteem, self-doubt and see only negative sides in everything, journaling will help you overcome these harmful thinking habits and look at the world more realistically. This is how the diary is used, for example, in cognitive-behavioral therapy. This is not only useful, but completely free (as opposed to analyst visits and antidepressants).

Recently, there has been scientific evidence for the benefits of journaling. Psychologists from Duke University (USA) found that writing down exciting events and their own experiences not only improves memory and well-being, but also reduces the frequency of visits to doctors.

Timothy Wilson, one of the authors of the research, writes about it this way: "Writing interventions like this can really help people start thinking positively and self-confidence"; "Writing lyrics makes people understand everything that worries them and find new meaning in it."

People prone to self-flagellation usually ignore praise, but they react extremely sharply to any criticism. If you record in your diary cases when you were explicitly or implicitly praised, you may be surprised to learn that others do not treat you as badly as you thought. When depressed after another failure, re-read the notes about joyful events and situations when you showed your best side.

After that it will become much easier to believe that the world is not so bad and hopeless, and all difficulties are surmountable.

As one of the Buddhist thinkers said, the “I” given in reflection is not the true “I”, it is constructed by the mind. But it is a mistake to think that this “I” can be found in some other place. To believe that a real person does not reflect, but commits actions, is at least naive and unfair: you need to do both.

How do I treat other people?

The unchanging heroes of the diary are not only ourselves, but also our loved ones. Some keep a diary solely in order to pour out their resentment, anger, feelings of loneliness, abandonment and misunderstanding that haunt them in relations with others. And here you can figure out how this relationship works: why do you repeat the same mistakes? what do you expect from loved ones and how justified are these expectations?

You can take notes in "unsent letter" format, expressing to the end what you cannot say in real communication. You can try to take the position of another person and write a monologue on his behalf: how does he see the current situation? maybe you are missing something and from his point of view everything looks completely different? Such exercises help develop empathy and the ability to see the world as a multidimensional space of choice and evaluation, in which everyone is right in their own way.

A diary is not a substitute for live communication and real relationships. As Theodore Adorno wrote, “we become free people not because we ourselves, as they say terribly, we implement each one alone, but due to the fact that we go beyond our own limits, we enter into relationships with other people and, in a sense, abandon ourselves in them. " For self-development, it is not enough to create a safe area for yourself where you can “water and grow yourself like flowers” \u200b\u200b- this requires other people and real actions. But a diary will help you understand what you want from them, what is really important to you.

If you can give yourself an honest answer to these questions, it will be much easier to build relationships with other people.

An example of using the diary to solve personal dilemmas can be found in the biography of Charles Darwin. When it comes to marriage, he, with the meticulousness of a naturalist, writes down the cons ("an endless number of troubles and expenses ... disputes due to lack of society - morning visits - a daily waste of time") and the advantages of this enterprise ("it is impossible to lead a life alone, without children ... Do not be discouraged, hope for a chance - take a close look around - there are many happy slaves "). And in the end he makes a decision: it is imperative to get married.

Diary as an intellectual and creative laboratory

The diary can become the place where vague thoughts and feelings are melted into precise formulations and artistic images. You don't have to be a professional writer or artist to think and imagine. Creativity is not class privilege. They are available to anyone, but not everyone uses the entrance. A personal diary is exactly the place where you can think and fantasize as much as you like and not be afraid that someone will condemn you for your naivety and graphomania.

Write down thoughts and ideas from books you read that hook you in your journal. Make bibliography. Create verbal portraits people and thinkers close to you. Sketch. Make up. Paste photos and magazine clippings. Make collages. Write down your dreams (the list is endless).

Pablo Picasso

spanish painter, sculptor and designer, founder of Cubism

Painting is just another way of journaling.

The diary assumes complete freedom of expression: here you can do whatever you want. But over time, you will realize that certain forms of expression are easier for you than others.

The personal diary as a form of writing appears to have first appeared in Japan. The diaries of Japanese court ladies and poets, recorded in the X-XI centuries, where prose easily flows into poetry, have come down to us. Some excerpts from these diaries may touch the modern reader:

“If only my thoughts were the same as those of others ... I could find more joy, I would feel less old and watch this transitory life with peace.<...> When dawn broke, I looked outside and saw ducks swimming serenely in the lake.

Ducks in the lake -
Can I look at them
Indifferently?
Crossing the seething waters
The sad world and me.

The birds looked so serene, but they too must often suffer, I thought "(Murasaki-shikibu. Diary. XXIII. 13th day of the 10th moon).

As the writer Tristina Rainer points out in her book The New Diary, the shape of the diary corresponds to all four basic mechanisms of human perception, which include emotions, sensations, intuition and intelligence. Try to develop each of these qualities, avoid monotony. And then, quite possibly, the diary will become a fertile ground for you to develop ideas that will go beyond it and will be embodied in real creative projects.

Five rules for journaling

1. Write honestly.

As honest as possible. Even in notes that no one but you will not see, you will be embarrassed or ashamed to write about some things. It is worth taking a closer look where this awkwardness arises, where you yourself hide the truth from yourself. No one deceives a person as often and successfully as he does. But it is much easier to recognize the sources and causes of self-deception in a diary than in mental reasoning.

2. Restrain your inner censor and critic.

We not only hide the truth from ourselves, but also strive to expose our sincere feelings in an unsightly way. This role is played by the internal censor - the embodiment of Freud's "super-I", that is, the assimilated social attitudes and ideas about "how it should be." He is accompanied by an inner critic, for whom fine artistic taste and depth of reasoning are more important than sincerity. To get rid of these annoying creatures, try writing in stream of consciousness. Write down everything that comes to your mind: images, experiences, vague sensations and memories.

Reflection is helpful, but it is far from the only way to understand what is happening to you and your life.

3. Write for yourself.

We are used to the fact that any message is intended for some addressee. But a personal diary should not be public-oriented (this, by the way, is one of the many differences between a diary and a blog). If you are writing for an audience, however narrow, an internal censor and critic will ruthlessly edit whatever you post. Instead, try to write for yourself. Perhaps your “future self,” who will read your diary in a few years, will be a good addressee.

4. Pay attention to detail.

So that you can later revive past events in your memory, try to capture the details and shades of what is happening. If you write simply “it was bad,” it will tell you much less than “I’m lying here on the couch, kicked out of the world with one kick, waiting for a dream that doesn’t want to come, and if it does, it will only touch me, my joints ache from fatigue, my thin body is exhausted by a tremor of excitement, the meaning of which it does not dare to clearly understand, knocks in my temples ”(quote from the diary of Franz Kafka).

5. Use paper and ink.

This recommendation is not here because of inertia and retrograde. When you write by hand, handwriting can say as much about feelings as the words themselves. In addition, a paper notebook can be carried with you everywhere, unlike a laptop (and taking notes on a smartphone is not very convenient). Sometimes it is enough to just feel the rough surface of the paper notebook in which you write in your hands to feel a sense of confidence and security. Better, by the way, to use notebooks with blank sheets, rather than lined diaries. The key is to choose writing supplies that make journaling enjoyable.

Some people think that diary entries should be made daily. It seems to me that this is not necessary at all.

It is better to write when there is a desire or need to understand something, so that keeping a diary does not turn into another boring "must". But at first, until the habit is formed, you have to force yourself to open a notebook and write at least something. But if the first words are found, there will be others.

Do not forget that each diary is a reflection of the personality of its owner (albeit incomplete and distorted). Therefore, these recommendations are somewhat generalized. But even they should not be taken too literally. What works for the conventional Leo Tolstoy may be completely useless for you. The individual way of keeping a diary develops over the years and changes over time. But in order to understand what benefits the diary can bring to you, you need to start one first.

Classic notes in a notebook have not lost their relevance to the end, they are still popular among school girls and adults of different sexes and status. At the same time, many people will never be ready to start writing down their thoughts, no matter whether in a notebook or in an electronic document, although the benefits of this process are tangible.

This process is not in vain called a personal diary. This is something deeply personal - emotions, dreams, plans. Often entries in a notebook become witnesses to the stormy tears of schoolgirls in love and the first business combinations of young entrepreneurs. The first reason for keeping a personal diary follows from this - it helps to express emotions and structure thoughts.

Interesting! Psychologists advise emotional people to keep records in order to subsequently evaluate themselves from the outside and learn to manage feelings.

Another reason is the possibility retain memories of the situation with those emotions that the writer experienced then... A few years later, many people read their notes with pleasure, remembering funny and sad moments from life, plans and dreams.

The third reason for keeping a personal journal is the ability to express all secret feelings, indecent thoughts and pent-up anger... Sometimes it’s impossible to yell at an unjust boss, take revenge on an offender, or have an affair with someone. Writing in a notebook or electronic document allows you to do anything on your pages with your boss, with the offender, and with other people. Thus, it relieves tension, while allowing you to assess the situation from the outside.

How to start journaling

Some adolescents and adults do not have the question of how to start keeping a personal diary. This happens spontaneously during the period of falling in love or life troubles. Sometimes mothers try to start keeping personal records about their children or schoolchildren themselves at the request of doctors and teachers.

Another group of persons are junior and middle school girls... For them, it is a hobby or a mass phenomenon when disseminated at school. There are also people who understand the need to keep a diary or feel lonely. All of this divides the recordkeepers into two groups:

1. Spontaneous.
2. Conscious.

People in the first category are not interested in the rules and conventions for keeping personal records. They just write where they want and the way they want. The result is the most sincere and emotional diaries, but difficult to read by the owners themselves.

The second group is interested in how to keep a diary according to the rules, what requirements should be presented to it and what it should contain. Hardly anyone can give such precise recommendations, they are too individual, although you can roughly learn how to keep personal records.

How to keep records correctly

Filling in a paper version with your thoughts or an electronic one is an individual choice. The same can be said about the rules for filling out the diary. It is important to learn one thing - it should be convenient.

Some people are more suited to quickly write down their thoughts in transport, others need silence and many colored pens, markers and all kinds of stickers, photographs, newspaper clippings. You just need to understand that there are no specific rules for keeping records. A personal diary is the untouchable space of each individual person, he can do in it what he wants and as he pleases.

What will be inside the diary greatly depends on who will keep it. Personal notes of a student-programmer will be filled with tags and ideas, a housewife can complain about poor-quality household chemicals or rudeness in a store, and a businessman will write down plans for modernization or thoughts on restructuring loans.

The frequency and volume of filling will also be individual. for different people, although it is worth highlighting schoolgirls separately. For them, a personal diary is something special, colorful and gentle, and sometimes gloomy and incredibly rude. At the same time, all people need to know only a few of the same principles by which a diary is kept.

Main requirements for a personal diary

To keep a diary, you do not need to try to do it like others, although no one forbids using other people's ideas for the design of personal records. Observing just a few requirements, anyone who wants to learn how to keep a personal diary:

Appearance, electronic or paper format, pen color, writing density and other criteria do not need rules. For each person, it will be correct to write in the way that suits him, sharing intimate thoughts.

Caution! It is worth separating a personal diary from a worker, school, medical, sports and other. They can be combined into one, but then the teacher, doctor or coach will want to familiarize themselves with it. This will prevent the author from writing his innermost thoughts there sincerely, without looking back.

If a girl keeps a selection of newspaper clippings, photographs and facts of the biography of an actor or singer, then this does not prevent her from giving notes to her friends to read. At the same time, if there are recorded thoughts about feelings in relation to the star, then the girl is unlikely to want someone to read them.

Starting and keeping a diary

It was said above that the recording of the events taking place begins to be kept in 2 ways. Spontaneous keeping of personal records does not require comments, the diary is already there and it is being filled in, such people do not need to be taught how to start keeping it.

A conscious desire to keep records makes it possible to initially foresee the nuances of the future diary, choosing the format, style and method of filling.

You should start recording with the following steps:

These are the main points of starting a diary with the exception of 2 nuances. These are not requirements, but rather guidelines for convenience. One of them concerns the paper version of the records, the other electronic. In the first case, when buying, it is advisable to purchase hardcover notebook or notebook, this will allow the diary to keep good appearance and do not wrinkle. When choosing an electronic option, you need to determine in advance where and when the records will be made, and already starting from this, you need to select a format - an online program or an inconspicuous document on a stationary computer.

For those who do not know how to spontaneously share their thoughts you can try this writing algorithm:

This structure is suitable for the diary of a junior schoolgirl, and for the records of the head of a department of a large enterprise. The only difference is that events and objects will be different, as well as conclusions, descriptions of emotions, and so on. Also, do not forget that this structure is optional - items in it can be changed, rearranged, removed or added. The understanding of more convenient notes will come with time, and for this you just need to keep a diary.

Important! The main rule of journaling- it must be filled in! How to start it, what to write or draw in it does not matter.

Keeping a journal correctly means only making entries in a convenient format and with a comfortable frequency. You can think in advance about the number of entries per day, week, month, or just carry it with you and share your thoughts with the diary at the first desire.

Several entries per day, if desired, are the ideal way to keep a journal. This allows you to both throw off excessive emotions, and immediately write down the necessary thoughts or good ideas. Not everyone can afford to keep records in this mode, someone understands the need for a diary, but is unable to devote so much time to it.

For organized people, the method of filling out the diary in the evening is suitable, while the volume of the entry does not matter. You can divide the entries into morning, afternoon and evening, detailing the events of the day, or arrange everything in one text. You can also highlight what is happening at work or school, separately describing love or life experiences. There is only one rule of journaling, everything else is very individual. Over time, everyone chooses a way to fill it out in a more convenient form for him, it remains only to start leading it.