Thought Exercise: Effective Journaling/Diaries via Tasha Eurich's 'Insight'


I have been keeping a regular diary for about a decade. Then, to my horror, I discovered I was doing it all wrong.

Painting above: Christine de Pisan c. 1412. Artist unknown, so let's say it was painted by a woman

How I've used Diaries

For myself, the practice of keeping a diary has changed forms many times over the years. In the name of experimentation, I have tried things like writing out song lyrics, dreams, notes from my studies, etc, in addition to the usual chronicling of daily events. These varied attempts were to see how to best capture and explore a feeling, happening, or situation that was important/significant to me. 
Above: my personal diaries from 2013-2019

 The traditional diaries you see pictured here (yes, all of them are actually full, front to back) contain some of these efforts, though they are mostly daily-ish updates. 

 After I finished the last diary (the light pink one in the pictures), I felt like I hadn't gotten the sense of fulfillment that I had hoped for. I noticed I kept making a lot of the same mistakes, and writing the same rants; I wasn't learning at the pace I had hoped, nor making significant strides in personal growth. As such, I set aside these more traditional diaries and moved on to other, more informal notebooks for personal use.


Turns out, there is a Better Way

A couple months ago I read Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think by Dr. Tasha Eurich, and the folly of my diary practices became clearer. Eurich notes, "my own research [...] has shown that people who keep journals generally have no more internal (or external) self-awareness than those who don't, with one small but important exception."

 Omg. Have I been doing this wrong the entire time?!

 For my intention with keeping a diary, yes, in a way, I had been doing it wrong. That being said, I don't entirely regret these diaries as I just enjoy writing itself, you know?

 Thankfully, Eurich goes on to explain that, "the resolution lies not in questioning whether journaling is the right thing to do, but instead discovering how do to journaling right."
Painting above: Woman Writing a Letter c. 1680 by Frans van Mieris the Elder

Enter Expressive Writing

So what is the better way of keeping a diary or writing in a journal? 

 Eurich suggests expressive writing, a particular type of journaling researched by psychologist James Pennebaker. Expressive writing, "involves writing, 20 to 30 minutes at a time, our 'deepest thoughts and feelings about issues that have made a big impact on our lives'."

Expanding on this, here's some advice Eurich has on Pennebaker's journaling method*:

  • Explore the negative and don't overthink the positive
  • Avoid journaling solely for discharging emotions; true insight only happens when we process both our thoughts and our feelings
  • Guard against turning journaling into an exercise in self-absorption; use journaling to explore other people's perspectives as well 

Even Better: Daily Check-ins

Eurich further offers daily check-ins, specifying these don't even have to be written down (though those of us who are already in the habit of writing personal stuff are welcome to continue to do so in this method). She outlines this practice as follows*:

  • Take five minutes every evening to mindfully ask yourself
    • What went well today?
    • What didn't go well?
    • What did I learn?
    • How will I be smarter tomorrow?
  • Overarching goal: look for patterns, observed what worked and what didn't
  • Insights gleaned don't need to be life-altering, quite often, they will seem insignificant at the time
Eurich notes the benefits of this simple daily check-in are incremental and powerful as, "if we can get just a bit more mindful each day, the sum total of effect of these insights can be astonishing." She further goes on to refer to a study that had call center trainees practice daily check-ins and those who, "took just a few minutes to reflect at the end of each day improved their performance an average of 23 percent." Pretty impressive, eh?

Painting above: Lady at writing desk, c. 1530s. Artist unknown, so let's say this one is by a woman as well

Looking ahead


I remain optimistic and intrigued. I'm still going to keep a diary/journals/notebooks, and I'll definitely be trying daily check-ins. I'll probably also try researching expressive writing further. After all, I've done so much experimentation on the diary front already, what's the harm in trying another method?


*Please note all points are all nearly direct quotes, I won't put them in quotations for visual cleanliness, but know that they are Eurich's words pretty much verbatim.

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