I’ve( 22M ) been an overthinker for almost my entire life. Not only that, I have hyper-anxiety and overwhelmness. I haven’t been scheduled with a psychiatrist so far.
A few months ago, I seriously realized that I was wasting my time on devices( phones, laptops etc) and haven’t been paying attention to real life and responsibilities. Because I had made devices as a way to escape from reality.
Then I made a schedule to maintain that included low and controlled use of devices and some other things. Journaling was also a part of that.
I began to write my daily events on a journal app in my phone. I had a physical diary that I started to use to write down advices, methods, facts, important instructions that I was gathering from youtube. That diary is now filled around 60%.
I continued writing my daily journal in the app for 1.5 months and then lost the drive to continue for unknown reason. Consider this one of my main psychological problem. I lose drive very quickly.
Then I realized that, when I continued journaling, I had more control of my overall daily activity that I used to do. I had less laziness, more energy, more drive, healthy sleep schedule etc. And now, it seems that I’ve sunken into my peak rabbithole again.
Now I’m seeking advices from people who turned their life in a positive way by writing journals as a first step. Any other advices except journaling is also welcomed.
I’ve been journaling for a few years, starting with a Mind Journal in COVID which I found really useful. It’s built to ease you into it, get you reflecting more and introspecting as well as build the habit by making it as easy as possible to note something down each day.
I don’t use their products any more as they are quite expensive but I’d definitely recommend looking into them for trying to turn journaling into a habit. I do use the system though which is for each day you note your feelings, 3 (or more) achievements which can be anything from got up and showered to got a promotion, 3 (or more) things your grateful for and a happy hour where you have or plan to do something good for yourself.
This is a really useful prompt I find because those bits only take a few minutes and are a great way to track things over time. For example looking back at my COVID journal I can spot when I started getting burned out by having feeling: tired every day for several months. Noting down what you’re grateful for is also proven to help your mood, basically you start looking for positive things more and it’s a happy feedback loop.
Once I’ve done those bits I write stream of consciousness style, anything that’s playing on my mind, details of my day, stuff I hope might or might not happen, things that made me angry. For me it’s a really useful medicine practice which has definitely helped keep my mental health more stable over the years.
I like having a nice book and pen to write in too, I’m looking forward to finishing this journal so I can upgrade the book to something more fancy, maybe going leather bound next time.
My main advice would be to stick with it, habits take a good 3 months or so to bed in. The mind journal is good for this as it makes it really easy to journal something and gradually builds you up to more free form writing.
Good luck with your journalling I hope you find something which works for you. There are loads of methods out there from billet journaling which helps like a load of work to me but looks amazing like an art project, to the VOMIT method to just get your thoughts onto the page. Keep at it, try to find what works for you and build the habit, but don’t stress if you miss a day or two.
I’ve been journaling for the past few years and, like a lot of people will say, it’s not the magic bullet people want it to be. But it is a great tool for sorting thoughts, tracking events, and just a general brain dump. But we all slip every now and again but I will say my experience lines up with yours. I feel that journaling has helped to keep things in my life in control because it forces me to A) keep tabs on myself and B) keep track of the things going on around me.
Another thing is that there is some scientific research that shows writing by hand is better for journaling and memory. I think that by going back to the app after writing so much didn’t help your case. Part of the problem with digital journaling is that distractions are just a button press away. When I sit down to write at the end of the day: my computer is off, my phone is on the desk or charging, and it’s usually quiet or some music on. Being a daily ritual helps keep the train on track. If I dont get to it on the evening then it’s usually the first thing I do in the morning. Routine helps a lot.
Lastly, the tools you choose make a difference. There are a lot of journaling systems out there aside from a notebook/diary. The pens you use should be ones you enjoy using. I’m a fountain pen person and will use a different pen each day and can rotate pens and ink to suit what i feel like using. You could color coordinate entries depending on the mood, emotion, or day. There is a lot out there to make your journal unique instead of black ink in a notebook.
Lastly I will say sometimes life just gets too hectic. You can get so busy, tired, or burned out that you just default to survival mode. For me its ultimately a matter of discipline/ roitine to stay on track and keep up with it as much as possible.
I don’t think journaling has had any magic for me but I really enjoy it. I write my daily tasks, random thoughts, things I learned, and feelings. I really like the act of physically writing especially with fun pens. One thing I came across recently is to right your daily highlights at the end for record keeping.
For all the things I journal except for writing daily activities, I really find them enjoyable and interesting.
I too use 2 physical diary to write down certain things. 1 is for writing down my understanding and explanation of youtube videos, forums, thread, articles that I find informative.
And the 2nd one is for writing down random 1 line thoughts, facts, ideas throughout the entire page.
But I can’t keep myself continuous to write my daily activities for some reason. Firstly, I don’t find it interesting, secondly, I don’t find it useful.
What I DO want to explore is that, I keep hearing people saying that, for those who overthink, writing down their thoughts really helps.
But I couldn’t quite take myself at that point. Maybe because I don’t know how to write my constant thoughts in an organized way or do I REALLY NEED to write down my thoughts or I need other people’s company/ or emotional relationship with someone of my opposite gender to quiet down the current inside my brain.
I never really tried the later possibility as I am a very anti-social person. Nor do I have any “friends” whom I can hang out with freely.
Ultimately I’m seeking to organize my entire life. May it involve the help of other persons, physiatrist, emotional bonding, socializing or just journaling as I want, I don’t care which might help.
Other than journaling, the other methods are hardly executable for me.
It depends on what you overthink. If it’s anxiety and stress stuff, you might be right that doing that with some safe support (friends, partners, professionals) might be wiser. But there are some techniques for quantifying and putting into perspective worries. Something that a therapist recommended and has helped me is to track specific, measurable and reasonably immediate anxieties, then tracking if they were justified or not.
So I don’t bother writing down vague big concerns like “maybe I’m a terrible person / it’s the apocalypse / etc” but if I’m stressed about an upcoming event, interaction, or outcome I can write it down, record how anxious I am on 1-10 and then the day after it happened I record how big a deal the consequences of it actually are. And for me at least, I would often be very worried about something, but afterwards realise that it didn’t really matter much. Even if it went badly, it was just a bit awkward, it didn’t actually make my life worse or ruin anything, unlike the anxiety which impacted my life much more and for much longer. If I spend a lot of mental energy and make myself miserable trying to avoid some relatively minor negative outcome, then the medcine is worse than the disease.
But my main type of overthinking isn’t really anxiety related, it’s just not thinking clearly about what I’m interested in exploring (adhd related, probs). And journalling has been great for that, I don’t worry about getting it right or it even making sense, I just start writing about an idea. And even if I repeat or contradict myself it doesn’t matter, I’m not writing a book or blog, this is just for me. And having to slow down my thinking to writing speed, and consider what I’m saying, helps me actually pursue a train of thought rather than just thinking chaotically about a topic.
The biggest thing that freed me to journal better is to cut all the bs rules I forced on myself. My only standard is to include the date everyday I write and try to add highlights to reflect on the day. Everything else is just random stream of consciousness tasks, thoughts, whatever. I also have a ton of random thoughts and I think that helps.
I tried keeping separate journals like you said but that’s too much form for me. Just throwing everything at one is best for me or I just won’t do it.
The best tip I have for organizing life is to keep a stupid easy non streak based habit tracker and a tasks list.
I wrote journals for years, they help a little. I used them to vent, to discuss with myself about stuff I couldn’t discuss with someone else, put thoughts in order, practice calligraphy (people now praise my handwriting), etc. I never took it as a chore, so when I didn’t feel like it I didn’t write.
I went to cognitive behavioural therapy and that not only helped the most, it gave me tools to get out of the hole when I fall into it.
Also helped to stop pretending anything on a screen is social interaction. I ditched every social platform except reddit and now lemmy, these two, because I don’t know anyone feel different
You might want to check if you have ADHD buddy
