Tip: Make sure you have a good book and a nice pen.
If you want to write digitally, there are quite a few apps available.
I use a mind map program myself.
My Diary Experience
I’m not someone who writes in a journal every day. Sometimes I start a new journal, and then after a while the inspiration fades away. Eventually, I pick it up again and fill a few pages.
Paper and/or Digital
I often write on paper. The downside is that it’s much harder to find texts again. That’s why I now also write digitally. Every now and then, I print out the texts and put them in a folder. It feels good to have them on paper.
Ik keep a diary, because:
- I can give my thoughts, feelings, and emotions a place.
- I can more easily get thoughts out of my head.
- I can read back on experiences that are important to me later.
I find it valuable and enjoyable to read back through my diary. Emotions that once felt very intense can now be experienced very differently with more distance. I can learn from this and reflect on it.
“A Diary…
Describes the perception of a single soul.
I know from experience that daily notes are an indispensable contribution to the search for greater truth and reality in dealing with the ‘self.”
After what I experienced in Jakarta (as a young journalist), I decided that from then on I would be guided solely by my own observations, with an added mechanism to guard against any prejudices I might have brought with me from elsewhere.
‘With more truth about the past, reality becomes more manageable, so that our perception of the world does not constantly lose itself in fantasy and unreality.’ p. 6
– Willem Oltmans, ‘Het dagboek als Camera Obscura’