Almost everyone kept diaries as children. True, I can’t say that the boys also had secret notebooks, but almost every girl had her own notebook or notebook with a treasured lock and the inscription “Personal!” All secrets and all experiences were recorded there: tears about unrequited love, joy from a fleeting glance and constant complaints about absolute misunderstanding on the part of parents. The 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 later re-read and remember those feelings, understand and find the reasons for the present in the past, but online diaries are intended for general reading.
Writing just for yourself has become uninteresting, because you want to see a response, to feel that your thoughts coincide with the thoughts of tens, hundreds, and maybe thousands of people. It’s nice, and writing just into the void, without receiving a positive response, becomes uninteresting. But in fact, keeping private diaries just 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 whether it is paper or digital - “Why you should keep your personal diary (not a blog)”, “6 reasons to start a personal diary” and “Grid Diary - a beautiful iPhone application , which helps you keep a personal diary.” And if you are really interested in this topic, I recommend reading these articles.
Now let's move directly to the advice from the creators of Day One.
As mentioned above, the main problem in keeping such closed diaries is the question “What should I write down there?!”
Secret Thoughts
Recording very personal, innermost, one might even say intimate thoughts is the basis of keeping such a diary. When you write down all your experiences, be it anger, joy, sadness, disappointment, love, passion, you realize all this again more deeply when you write down your feelings on paper. And then, re-reading all this in a few days, months or years, you can rethink all those emotions again and understand why you made this or that decision, you can see how you have evolved and developed as a person.
Diary design options
It is advisable to approach the issue of external design of the diary with all seriousness. You can decorate the pages with original drawings. In addition to external beauty, distinguish the internal content of the diary:
Quotes and innermost thoughts; Plans and “wants” for the future; Important dates; Current days; Sweet memories; Photos.
You can then add content at your own discretion. There can be any sections, the main thing is that they satisfy personal needs. On separate pages you can put cute envelopes for photos and storing ready-made notes. You can come up with a single diary or make several copies dedicated to a specific topic:
Everyday life of my family; My baby; My career; Personal thoughts.
Goals
If you post your list of goals for the year on your personal blog or social media, why not do the same in your personal diary? These don't have to be very important and long-term goals. You can also write down smaller, ongoing goals that you would like to achieve. You can write accompanying comments to them, and then look through them and note for yourself what was achieved from what was planned, what accompanied all this, and, if something did not work out, why exactly did it happen one way or another? This is a good way to understand where you've been, what level you're at now, and where you're going to go.
Formation of original pages
Select the optimal color scheme and the required number of sheets. Colors can vary - from light to dark tones; Using scissors, you can give the pages different shapes, add delicate lace or round them; When choosing a title page for a diary, give preference to thick materials; Using a hole punch, two holes are made on the left side, and two rings are threaded through it to connect the pages. If there are no rings, then you can tie the pages with a beautiful ribbon; To create pages, purchase a ready-made notebook and create a creative design.
Impressions from books read, films watched and music listened to
Books and films influence our desires and actions much more than we think. Writing down mini-reviews of books you've read and movies you've watched is a good way to rethink the information you've received and highlight the most important points for yourself. This applies not only to educational books, but also to fiction, which sometimes influences us much more strongly than another book about smart people.
Such cataloging is useful not only for this. You can recommend something new and interesting to your friends, or, after reviewing the notes, decide whether to watch this movie or re-read the book again.
If you don't like writing with a pen, find a suitable tool for you
Perhaps, after trying to write by hand, you will realize that this option is not suitable for you. There's nothing wrong with that.
Luckily, there are a huge variety of options available today. Personally, I prefer to journal by hand using the V5 Hi-Techpoint pen, which has a very thin tip. Yes, only this specific option. I think it's the perfect tool to help my thoughts flow from my head to the pages of my Moleskine notebook.
But, if paper and pen are not for you, turn to their technological counterparts. Both standard editors (Word from Microsoft or Pages from Apple) and more minimalistic solutions like Ommwriter are suitable. Perhaps you prefer touch screens. In general, look for the most convenient solution for yourself.
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 so joyful, that our lives are made up, and if it seems to you that such records do not carry any meaning, then over time it is precisely such records that will be of the greatest value to you. They will remind us how good we were with someone and why we spent so much time together back then. They will remind us of who we were and who we are, and why things happened the way they did. And they will warn us against making the wrong decision on emotions, when the blood is pounding in our temples, our fists are clenching and we want only one thing - to destroy everything and tell everyone to hell, and then pick up the pieces of our lives.
Use pen and paper
The modern world is all about keyboards and touch screens. But when it comes to journaling, regular pen and paper have more advantages.
I find that most of my patients intuitively understand that writing down thoughts by hand is more effective than using a keyboard. And research confirms this. It turns out that while writing, the reticular activating system is stimulated - the area of the brain that filters and brings to the fore the information on which we focus.
Maud Purcell
Writing by hand has additional benefits. This keeps us from editing our own thoughts. Although many people in their 20s and 30s have lost the muscle memory of handwriting and may find it slow and awkward, it won't be long before you feel comfortable writing by hand again.
When I can convince young people, especially 20-year-olds, to take good old-fashioned note-taking, they are always amazed at the results because it really calms them down and helps them cope with problems.
Maud Purcell
Places you've visited
Let these be short notes from a traveler who notes his first impressions of a new place. You can add geotags and photos there, and then these posts will remind you of why traveling is so great, and why you should return (or never visit) this city again.
You can write whatever you want in your personal diary, so it’s more difficult to decide what to write there, but what entries to refrain from. Don't turn it into a junk dump and write down how many new friends you have made on social networks. These should be things that are truly dear to your heart and that help you live meaningfully without missing a beat. And you can leave social networks for the landfill, which are already filled with incomprehensible garbage like numerous selfies, photos of lunches and strange statuses from one phrase 
Did you have a personal diary? If so, do you still keep it and what did you write down there?
How to keep records correctly
Filling out the paper version with your thoughts or the electronic version is an individual choice. The same can be said about the rules for filling out a diary. It is important to understand one thing - it should be convenient .
Some people are more suited to quickly writing down their thoughts in transport, others need silence and a lot of 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 whatever he wants in it and as he pleases.
What will be inside the diary depends greatly on who will keep it. The personal notes of a student programmer will be filled with tags and ideas, a housewife can complain there about low-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 tender, and sometimes dark and incredibly rude. At the same time, all people need to know only a few identical principles by which a diary is kept.
Maiden kingdom
A notebook or notebook in pink tones, filled with bright colors, stickers and clippings from fashion magazines, with fragrant pages and photos of Hollywood stars - this could be a treasured book for girls. Here is the kingdom of girlish dreams and dreams. Secrets entrusted to the book are not revealed even to close people. They take care of her like the apple of her eye, never leaving her unattended for a moment.
Creating such a book is quite simple. The origami technique or simple appliqué techniques are taken as the basis for ideas for designing a notebook: light sketches and beautiful sketches can add romanticism and tenderness to an ordinary notebook, making it stand out with its uniqueness.
Wicker bookmarks, bows and ribbons, envelopes with nice little things, a dried flower or a heart-shaped valentine - every detail here is special, unique, and memorable.
Growing up, girls keep such notes for a long time. Occasionally, over a cup of cocoa, turning over familiar pages, she remembers those times with tender sadness. The first test poems, written specifically for LD, can bring back for a moment youth, full of hopes and desires.
Don't edit
One of the purposes of journaling is to explore areas of your mind that you may not want to explore. Diary entries are not articles. No one will check your spelling, grammar, punctuation or content structure. When you edit, you become thoughtful and focus on your writing rather than your thoughts.
The essence of journaling is to write without thinking. By thinking, we interfere with our intuition, and therefore the whole meaning of the diary is lost. Journaling can help us explore ways we may not consciously discover. We can find extremely interesting topics if we stop thinking for a while.
Set a reasonable limit for yourself
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Previously, people set themselves a limit on the amount they could write, for example, 3 pages every day. But experts agree that a more effective solution when keeping a diary is to set a time limit.
Rationally consider how much time per day you can allocate to this activity in your busy schedule. Even if it's only 5 minutes at first.
Time limits help people focus on a specific goal when they start journaling. Seeing 3 blank pages in front of you can be difficult, and the matter will end before it even begins. And the time limit will not seem like an ordeal.
Pennebaker recommends writing for 15 to 20 minutes a day. The only rule is to do this all the time.
Draw more
Previously, the diary was used more for notes, but now visual memory gives us its fruits. Even if you are not an artist, then still try to sketch what you see, because it is precisely such drawings that will warm your heart later.
