Question from a reader --

"Hi Sebastian,

Have you had any experience with journaling your thoughts daily? I know you previously carried out the 90-day tracking, but what about tracking your thoughts instead of your daily activities?

If you've every journaled your thoughts on a day-to-day basis, what advantages/disadvantages did you encounter?

If you've never done so, would you see value in it?

And regardless of each, do you think that sharing the journaled thoughts on a public forum (similar to your 90-day tracking) provides any benefits over keeping them private?

Cheers, and thanks for reading.

--
J"

I have spent time journaling, though not reliably and consistently. When I do it, my entries tend to be 2-3 pages long, so it tends to be a few hours long process for me.

One thing that's worked very well for me during transitions is to find 3 hours to go to a cafe with no technology, just paper notebooks and a pen. Then I'd write at the top of the page, "What do I want?" And I'd just write.

The answers tend to get more refined over time. It's interesting, because I think most people have never reasoned through what they want, and the many ways to get there. They never dig deep and probe into what they want to do, and not do, what's potentially conflicting, and so on.

So, I've done that exercise, sometimes on an daily basis for a while. I did it every day in Chiang Mai for about three weeks a few years ago, and it brought some clarity, though eventually pure thinking without any highly directed action gets tiresome.

Why don't I journal now?

Lack of time. There's a number of commercial projects I'd like to do, new business initiatives I'd like to do, charitable things I'd like to do, subjects I'd like to study, people I'd like to connect with, and other things I'd like to deploy my time on. Yet, my calendar is pretty full -- of the 168 hours per week, I've already got 113 of those hours scheduled with 56 hours for sleep, 50 hours for my main work, and 10 hours for charity. That leaves me only 55 hours for everything else -- day-to-day mundane stuff, time with family, eating, writing (blog and email, correspondences, etc), reading, fitness, planning, finance, etc. I'd love if I had 21 hours per week to do some long-form multi-page journaling, but alas, it's not in the cards for me at the moment.

Still, I think it's a great thing. For quick snapshots of a day, I'd often jot little notes among my time-tracking, so I captured some loose thoughts. If you take up journaling -- or any readers here do -- I'd love any thoughts on its effects for you in the comments.