Eda's tips for proper (and fun) journaling

Every day, when something interesting happens, and/or every night, just 30 minutes before sleep lay down with eyes open or closed, with a notepad or phone nearby, write about things that stood out to you.

Heck, I couldn’t get this out of my mind tonight so I woke up and started writing this. If you are too close to falling asleep, have a pencil + paper near your bed so you can leave a quick note/word for you to help you remember + write more about in the morning.

 

Tips to do proper journaling that will even help you with your college essays

• Don’t use a cliché format like “dear diary”… in other words, write in your words, write as you think or are talking to a friend. This will not only make it more fun for you (and less tiring), it will also be more personal
• Write about your deepest thoughts that u may be even embarrassed about (things u may not even tell anyone). This will help you reflect about yourself, and maybe even encourage you to try to improve yourself. Also, this is private, so don't worry!
• Use DETAIL. This will come in so much more helpful if you need to write a personal essay later, since you won’t remember the details years later as well. Detail includes writing about the 5 senses, and your thoughts at the time/afterwards
• Don’t write about everything…. Just about things that have stood out to you. And try to think and write about WHY it stood out to you. Did it make you feel some way? Brought back memories? Got you excited? Why why why?
• Write poems. Really, especially if you find it fun/easier. It will help you be more poetic and dramatic. Don’t worry about rhyming. It will help you dump emotions and multiple thoughts easier.
• Don’t worry about typoes/grammar much (as long as you can read). Sometimes you might even want to write as if you are texting
• If you have an absurd thought, write about it (maybe even tag it #absurdidea or #showerthought or something… maybe you will write a story about it one day). If you ever had a thought/idea thinking “wow it’d be great if something existed that would help with XX and did XX”, write about it!! Might even inspire you later on…
• Don’t forget to provide context; I know I said write freely as you think, but maybe at the end add a bit of context for your future self to remember what event you are talking about/who this is about. If you wanna write cool mysterious stuff, you can, just add smthng in brackets [or something like that]
• Don’t forget MDY! Sometimes even hour may be important info (some weird thoughts are better explained by the fact that it was written at 11 pm)