How to keep a personal diary. How to make a personal diary: how to arrange for girls, how to start, keep what and how to fill out, how to decorate inside the LD

A personal diary is loyal and reliable friend, which has brought up more than one generation of successful, creative, romantic people. Ideas for LD are so varied, interesting, bright and attractive that today everyone can shape their thoughts in the most aesthetic way.

To decorate the diary Ideal for copyright drawings, color and black-and-white prints, emoticons, stickers and much more... If you know how to write poetry, do hand-made art and love to draw, making a personal diary will not be difficult for you.

However, even for those who are just comprehending the wisdom of needlework and taking their first steps in educational art and literature, there are many bright ideas and tips for ld: pictures for girls, ready-made drawings and templates, quotes, poems, sketches, comics.

A personal diary keeps not only your secrets, experiences, dreams. On the pages of the diary, your life flows, which you so want to decorate, improve, diversify. If you are still thinking about how to design a personal diary, use for decoration magazine clippings, stickers, emoticons, photos... The idea with frames is very much to the liking of young girls, because they love highlight the most important and exciting moments of your life... To print frames, you can use a color printer, and if you don't have one, just make a frame on a regular one and decorate with felt-tip pens, paints, gel pen or pencil.

An easy way to tell about yourself - make a mini-quiz with answers to a variety of questions: my favorite color, fruit, etc. In the same way, you can design your favorite quotes, aphorisms, plans for the future. What else can be written in the diary, we will describe in more detail below.
For example, you can make a mood calendar, interest page, music page, a small visualization board that will hold all your dreams, desires and plans for the future.



Ideas for a personal diary can be applied to the cover design as well. Despite the fact that this thing will be seen exclusively by you, it should be pleasant to the touch, please your eyes, soul and heart.


Diary pages can also be decorated with the help of original pictorial techniques.

And if you don't want to draw - buy scrapbooking paper.
Individual pages of the diary can be decorated in your favorite color. So your thoughts and desires will have their own Color theme.Another idea is letter to the future... Write yourself a message and reveal it on a specific day and a specific year. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Pictures, drawings, prints for a personal diary

We are used to expressing our thoughts and dreams in words and sentences. We trust our diary with our joys and sorrows, share our innermost things with him and tell him about our plans. Some write in it every day, while others record only bright and memorable moments of life. What if you add a little visualization to the familiar texts and poems, quotes and funny stories?
If, for example, you write in your diary about your hobbies and minor passions, you can draw your favorite pastime or his paraphernalia: sports, handicrafts, travel, books. Instead of writing: "I love the sea" or "I love chocolate" you can draw it! Believe me, when you return to your paper friend in a few years or even several decades, it will be much more pleasant for you to revise hundreds of pictures than to reread tens of thousands of words.
The theme of drawings and pictures can be completely different, it all depends on you and your desires. Drawings for ld conventionally (we repeat, conventionally) can be divided into many headings and subsections, depending on the preferences, desires, tastes and even the mood of the diary mistress.

Diary drawings

  • Travels
  • Hobby
  • Food, sweets
  • Beverages
  • Love
  • Gadgets
  • Social network
  • Pets, animals
  • Cartoons
  • Unicorns
  • Wardrobe, fashion and style
  • Cosmetics
  • Seasons
  • Planets, celestial bodies

This list can be continued indefinitely, supplementing it with your drawings, fantasies, ideas. We offer several “tasty”, dynamic, cute, delicious and, as they say today, “ cute "drawings to decorate the diary.



As practice shows, it is much easier to make drawings by cells, however, you can use both line notebooks and standard A4 sheets.


If you are a fan or a fan animated series "Gravity falls", draw a funny donut Mabel on the page of your diary. She will bring you good luck.

In order to keep your diary, it is not necessary to be able and to love to draw. If you want to save time on drawings and focus, for example, on the presentation of the text, use the printouts for the ld for decoration.
You can print these templates on a color printer, cut and paste in your diary, or make them black and white and paint yourself.

To decorate the pages of your diary will help cute pictures, funny stickers, funny inscriptions or smilies. The beauty of the printed pictures is that you can easily choose a beautiful font, choose a cool print and "settle" many new incredible characters on the pages of your innermost book.

A permanent resident / symbol / keeper of your diary can become unicorn or owl... You can draw such a miracle with your own hands, or you can print a ready-made template on a printer.

What to write about in your personal diary?

The basis of the personal diary is still a deep semantic load. Each author, of course, decides for himself what to write about and what topics to raise in his diary. We dare, nevertheless, to give some advice and expand the richest topics of personal diaries.
In addition to their daily affairs and plans, you can tell about yourself, your friends, tastes. Write, why do you love summer and other seasons.
The diary is your little chest of inspiration. Store in it favorite music, movies, video games, photos and other things that inspire you.
If you have just started to maintain your LD - ideas for LD will help you fill it with useful, interesting and most relevant information.


The first page of your diary might look something like this.

Or so. This is your diary, it contains you have the right to establish your own rules... And be categorical a little.
AND tag about Paris.
No personal diary is complete without poetry.

And no quotes.

And without cute philosophical notes.
And no virtual travel.
And no fun.

During adolescence, most of us keeps a personal diary, pouring out their emotional experiences on its pages, telling secrets that cannot be shared even with the closest person. But we grow up and forget such a good habit as keeping a personal journal. And completely in vain, because it is a personal diary that helps to look at yourself from the outside, to understand your aspirations, to analyze failures.

The Diary - this is our main assistant in terms of introspection and self-development. By writing down practically everything that happened during the day in it, you get the opportunity to thoroughly understand the mistakes made, actions and your deeds. In other words, keeping personal records is a great habit with many benefits. Let's try to understand the key points that prove the effectiveness of a personal diary, and the basics of how to properly keep a personal diary.

1. By writing down our thoughts in a diary, we create a base for achieving our goals.

If you want your plans to come true, try to write them down on paper. After all, what slipped through my head, but was not reflected on paper in time, can easily be forgotten over time. But the recorded goal is clearly fixed by your consciousness, becoming a kind of reference point, a beacon to which you must move without fail. At the same time, your brain itself searches for any possible ways to achieve the goal, working as if in autopilot mode. Various studies show that people who did not achieve what they wanted, when asked whether they wrote down their desires on paper, answer negatively. In turn, those who have achieved their goals, almost always keep personal records, recording thoughts in a personal diary. And they have a lot of explanations for the need to keep such a diary.

2. Keeping a journal makes your life more mindful.

By writing down in your diary every day the thoughts that visited your head, various observations, you get the opportunity, after a certain period of time, to look at yourself with the eyes of an outside observer. Such an opportunity, in turn, allows you to rethink the way of life that you lead in places, to assess how correctly the life path is chosen, and whether you are making enough efforts to achieve your goals. Our life is so full of various little things that we often forget about serious things. This is how we are made. Therefore, by writing everything down in a diary, we ensure the safety of important moments. To what extent does the life you live correspond to your earlier ideas? Do you manage to realize what you have in mind? Or maybe you are so dug in the little things that you completely gave up on your real dreams and aspirations?

3. Keeping a personal journal means being able to store ideas.

From time to time, almost all of us are visited by good ideas, without writing them down, we simply forget. This can be avoided by recording ingenious thoughts on paper. And even if it seems that the idea that visited you cannot be realized, everything can change overnight. Therefore, heed the advice, write it down and wait for the right moment.

4. A personal diary develops your discipline.

This argument echoes the aforementioned ability to realize the recorded deeds and desires with the highest degree of probability. And here the explanation lies not only in the fact that thanks to the diary you will not forget what you planned to accomplish. The main advantage is the ability to categorize the recorded cases in order of importance, as well as draw up a plan for their implementation.

5. Taking personal notes improves your ability to formulate thoughts and express them correctly.

Suppose you are a fairly disciplined, ideological and purposeful person, and you can perfectly cope with daily difficulties without a personal diary. Then the reason for starting it can be precisely the opportunity to become more literate, to learn to formulate thoughts beautifully and concisely, to talk with a dumb listener, in the role of which the diary acts. Journaling can be compared to a person telling about their life. You can be compared to a writer who improves his literary skills on a daily basis. In addition, like any other writer, you will want to make your work more interesting and positive, and accordingly, the actions you perform, which you will tell the reader about, may become of better quality over time.

6. Keep a journal and learn from your mistakes.

By rereading the events described in the diary and your actions, you get the opportunity to look at everything that happened from the outside. And, believe me, this is a very effective tool for changing yourself. You can clearly see what and where you did wrong, where you got cold feet, and where, on the contrary, went too far and, most importantly, how it ended for you and those close to you. All this allows you to avoid the repetition of similar situations in the future.

7. Diary allows you to become more self-confident.

Another important reason for keeping a personal journal is the ability to become more self-confident. By analyzing what happened to you in the past, sorting out your inner feelings and experiences, you get the opportunity to change yourself, become more confident and more purposeful.

8. Improve your efficiency.

In any business, the main thing is to start. Try to write down everything that happens to you during the month. Return to these notes after a while, and you will realize that you have become a little wiser, gained some experience. By splashing thoughts on paper, writing down ideas, you get the opportunity to structure your life, increase its efficiency, and achieve your goals.

9. Keeping a personal diary means getting rid of negativity in your life.

Surprisingly, the fact remains - the recorded thoughts, tuned to the positive, receive a double power. You gradually learn to get rid of all kinds of negativity, envy and anger. In addition, you do not disrupt your negative experiences on close people, avoiding scandals, but simply describe everything to the same dumb listener. And he, as they say, will endure everything.

10. Learn from yourself with a personal diary.

Having decided to keep personal records, treat it with full dedication, describe in detail the situations in which you find yourself, try to find an answer to the questions that arise before you. Do not be sprayed on trifles, but pay extra attention to the really important points. You will be convinced from your own experience that the beginning of the diary will differ significantly from its middle and even more so the ending. Over time, your thoughts, life guidelines will change, you will take a fresh look at life. And the reason for this is self-development, the gradually acquired ability to live and think more correctly.

These are the top 10 reasons why you should keep a personal journal.

In conclusion, I would like to note how important it is to keep a personal diary correctly. In the beginning, of course, you will still only learn to state your actions, as well as desires and plans for the future. But over the course of a certain period of time, acquiring the habit of sharing thoughts on paper, you will learn to write deeper, more meaningfully and competently, moving from the standard description of events to their thorough analysis. Rest assured, this is quite a valuable skill that can be very useful in many situations in life. In other words, go ahead and the effect will amaze you.


The classic version of journaling involves describing experiences and events. But this is not the only way! Many people like to supplement the text with pictures, collages, crafts.

Pros of keeping a personal diary:

  • Analyzing your own life helps to live consciously, to notice the good.
  • Describing emotional experiences gives relief and allows a detached look at them.
  • A personal diary activates creative energy, distracts from the gray everyday life and brings variety to daily affairs.

Consider where to start if you've never kept a personal journal.

First, note which type of thinking you belong to:

  1. If If you loved writing essays at school, then verbal descriptions of each day would be ideal for you.
  2. When chatting with someone on the phone, the hand just reaches out to draw squiggles on a piece of paper.

    This means that you have a creative streak of the artist. Alternate text and pictures, make collages.

  3. Closer to you rational thinking, exact sciences and pragmatism? A personal diary can become a business notebook.

    Write down goals for the next week or month, celebrate what you have done and be inspired by your achievements!

  4. If you know how to sew, know the art of scrapbooking or know how to do something else with your own hands, create a personal diary based on your hobby.

    Write down ideas for future craft projects, paste in magazine clippings, and note important tips from other craftsmen.

Notebooks for a personal diary are different. You can buy ready-made, or do it yourself, making out with love each page.

Diary options

Homemade personal diary Ready-made hardcover notebook Moleskin
Pros: it will be a unique personal diary that will fully suit your tastes Pros: it is convenient to take such a notebook with you on the road and fill it out anywhere, at any time Pros: this is a real gift for a creative person! Moleskine is made of unlined paper, so it is convenient to draw and draw on it
Cons: you have to spend time searching for ready-made pages on the Internet and creating a cover Cons: stationery notebooks do not differ in variety, they are either in a cage or in a ruler and do not have creative pages Cons: They are quite expensive compared to a regular notebook

Important! The Universal Diary is a circular notepad as it allows you to swap pages and insert new blocks.

Ideas for a personal diary: what can you draw?

Ready-made pictures in the form of collages, your own drawings or sketches of other people's works - these are the most popular ideas for the cherished notebook.

Collages are usually created around a specific theme. Fashion and style, nature, ideas for home decoration, beautiful people - all this can serve as a theme for creating a collage.

On the topic, illustrations in women's magazines or pictures on the Internet that can be printed are selected.

Cutouts or prints are placed on the sheet in a chaotic manner, form a composition, then glued.

Prefer to paint yourself? Choose your option for replenishing the diary with drawings:

  1. Challenge- This is the regular creation of drawings. The main rule is to draw at least one every day.

    There are many options for challenges in the network, you can join a ready-made one or come up with your own.

  2. Art therapy heals the soul through spontaneous painting. Close your eyes, focus on your feelings and draw the first thing that comes to mind.

    Put all your inner emotions into the drawing - and you will feel relief!

  3. Mandalas and anti-stress coloring pages are designed to relieve stress. When you immerse yourself in drawing colorful patterns, you relax your soul.

    This is a great option for those who cannot draw, but want to get involved in the creative business.

  4. Drawings by points or by cells - another cool drawing option that everyone can do.

Pay special attention to the diary's title page. What can you draw on it besides a beautiful frame with your own name?

Ask yourself what is the most pleasant thing in the world for you, and then depict it all on the first page. This will set you up for sincerity and openness in front of your diary.

Making a personal diary with your own hands

The internal and external design of a personal diary will depend on the wishes of its owner.

First, decide in what style you want to design your notebook:

  1. Vintage assumes a beige and brown scale, images of objects in a retro style and black and white portraits of people of a past era.
  2. Shabby chic- perfect style for girls! Beautiful design in the shabby chic style - these are roses, birdcages, wreaths, floral ornaments and pink and blue colors.
  3. Classics chosen by those who are closer to geometric shapes, pastel colors and ornate ornaments.
  4. Boho style- the most daring, colorful and bright, combining ethnic patterns, natural motives and the mood of the hippie era.

You can create beautiful designs in two ways.

Create a hand-made cover or paste in pages that were originally designed with your own hands:

Cover ideas Ideas for unusual pages
Wrap the cover in a cloth! You can decorate such a cover with embroidery, beads, buttons or badges. The paperback is pleasant to the touch and looks very soulful Important Lists will help you keep an eye on yourself and the world around you. Example - "10 Things To Do This Fall", "My Achievements This Month"
The combination of kraft paper and lace looks very original. Check out any creative store for both Emotion pages look interesting and add great value!

Select blank pages in a notebook, and during periods of inspiration, emotional shock or great happiness, take out your own emotions on them as you wish.

Cover photo collage is stylish and easy! Photo frames can be made from decorative tape Infographics are a mix of text and sketches. This is how you can arrange recipes or weekend plans.

Note! The main principle that underlies keeping a personal diary is sincerity.

It really doesn't matter how you keep your diary. There is no consensus on how to fill it out correctly.

Remember that you are creating it primarily for yourself. Therefore, listen to your heart and keep your cherished notebook as your soul desires.

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It is surprising that such a simple thing as a personal diary can simultaneously be a creative laboratory, a caring psychotherapist, a source of memories, a tool for self-development, and most importantly - a reliable shelter behind which you can be absolutely honest with others and with yourself. It is even more surprising that all these qualities are often not realized even by those who once tried to keep regular notes in their notebooks, notebooks and diaries.

Keeping a journal is not fruitless self-digging. This is not an activity exclusively for young girls and adolescents who need to sort out their feelings and sentimental experiences. And this is not just a prosecutorial business record of events that happened to you over the past day.

It is also wrong to think that journaling is only for great people who "have something to say." It is true that among famous writers, scientists or artists it is difficult to find someone who does not keep records intended only for themselves. But even if you do not claim to be a genius, this is not at all a reason to give up this useful practice. In addition, there is always the possibility that you are still a genius, and many years after your death, the heirs will receive substantial royalties for the publication of your diary.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Nausea

In order for the most banal incident to turn into an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient to tell it.<...>Each person is always a storyteller, he lives surrounded by stories, his own and those of others, and he sees everything that happens to him through their prism. So he tries to fit his life to the story about her.

Diaries are written in order to be written, read and re-read. Here are some answers to the reasonable question "what is it for?":

  • to pour out on paper and realize those feelings that cannot be entrusted to others;
  • to figure out what you want from life;
  • to understand how your plans correspond to reality and whether you are moving correctly towards their implementation;
  • to better understand other people and learn to take their point of view into account;
  • to train in expressing your thoughts and learn to reason;
  • to recognize and change bad thinking habits and behavioral patterns;
  • to develop intuitive thinking and creativity.

What to write about

Who am I?

A sheet of paper that “will endure” is almost the only place in this world where you can be yourself. This may have been said too categorically: after all, every personality is multifaceted and needs different contexts for its realization. But the honesty and openness achievable in a diary are very rarely available to us in other areas of life.

In the diary, you can reflect on your past and make plans for the future. This is a famous exercise: try to imagine what kind of life you would like to lead in 5/10/15 years? Then correlate what you are doing now with your long-term intentions. If the pictures don't fit together, it might be time to change something. In this practice, it is the recording procedure that is useful.

If you think about the future, then the gaps between dream and reality are smoothed out. In the recording, they appear clearly.

If you don't know what you want to do in the world, journaling can help you get closer to understanding your strengths and deepest intentions. Write down things in your journal that bring you joy and genuine interest. A person immersed in business may suddenly realize that the poet's soul has always lurked under the business mask. The diary will provide him with the opportunity to develop this particular side of his personality, without forgetting about the rest.

If you have been keeping a diary for several years, when you re-read your personality in dynamics will be revealed to you. How have your priorities and values ​​changed? What was important to you then and what remains now? So keeping a diary helps you see your life as a whole, albeit an unfinished picture. The diary introduces unity and extension into a series of torn moments, in it “every moment carries in itself the burden of everything previous and the rudiment of everything that follows” (Lydia Ginzburg).

Lev Tolstoy

Resurrection

For two years I did not write a diary and thought that I would never return to this childishness. And this was not childishness, but a conversation with oneself, with that true, divine self that lives in every person. All the time this I was asleep, and I had no one to talk to.

Perhaps Lev Nikolayevich went a little too far with the "true self". The diary does not remove all social masks, because it is impossible. But it helps to understand which of them sits on you better. Perhaps this understanding will lead to a change of masks, a change of personality. As Susan Sontag wrote in her diary, "Masking my behavior, I do not protect my personality - I overcome it"... The surest way to change something is to understand how it works. The diary does not just record what is happening around; it changes its owner. Usually for the better.

If you suffer from low self-esteem, self-doubt and see only negative sides in everything, journaling can help you overcome these harmful thinking habits and look at the world more realistically. This is how the diary is used, for example, in cognitive-behavioral therapy. This is not only useful, but completely free (as opposed to analyst visits and antidepressants).

There has recently been scientific evidence for the benefits of journaling. Psychologists from Duke University (USA) found that writing down exciting events and personal experiences not only improves memory and well-being, but also reduces the frequency of visits to doctors.

Timothy Wilson, one of the authors of the research, writes about it this way: "Written interventions like this can really help people start thinking positively and self-confidence"; "Writing lyrics makes people understand everything that worries them and find new meaning in it."

People prone to self-flagellation usually ignore praise, but they react extremely sharply to any criticism. If you record in your diary cases when you were explicitly or implicitly praised, you may be surprised to learn that others do not treat you as badly as you thought. When depressed after another failure, re-read the notes about joyful events and situations when you showed your best side.

After that, it will become much easier to believe that the world is not so bad and hopeless, and all difficulties are surmountable.

As one of the Buddhist thinkers said, the “I” given in reflection is not the true “I”, it is constructed by the mind. But it is a mistake to think that this "I" can be found in some other place. To believe that a real person does not reflect, but commits actions, is at least naive and unfair: you need to do both.

How do I treat other people?

The unchanging heroes of the diary are not only ourselves, but also our loved ones. Some keep a diary solely in order to pour out their resentment, anger, feelings of loneliness, abandonment and misunderstanding that haunt them in relations with others. And here you can figure out how this relationship works: why do you repeat the same mistakes? what do you expect from loved ones and how justified are these expectations?

You can take notes in the "unsent letter" format, expressing to the end what you cannot say in real communication. You can try to take the position of another person and write a monologue on his behalf: how does he see the current situation? maybe you are missing something and from his point of view everything looks completely different? Such exercises help develop empathy and the ability to see the world as a multidimensional space of choice and evaluation, in which everyone is right in their own way.

A diary is not a substitute for live communication and real relationships. As Theodor Adorno wrote, “we become free people not because we ourselves, as it is terribly said, we implement each one alone, but due to the fact that we go beyond our own limits, we enter into relationships with other people and, in a sense, abandon ourselves in them. " For self-development, it is not enough to create a safe area for yourself where you can “water and grow yourself like flowers” ​​- this requires other people and real actions. But a diary will help you understand what you want from them, what is really important to you.

If you can give yourself an honest answer to these questions, it will be much easier to build relationships with other people.

An example of using the diary to solve personal dilemmas can be found in the biography of Charles Darwin. When it comes to marriage, he, with the meticulousness of a naturalist, writes down the cons ("an endless set of troubles and expenses ... disputes due to lack of society - morning visits - a daily waste of time") and the advantages of this enterprise ("it is impossible to lead a life alone, without participation, without children ... Do not be discouraged, hope for a chance - take a close look around - there are many happy slaves "). And in the end he makes a decision: it is imperative to get married.

Diary as an intellectual and creative laboratory

The diary can become the place where vague thoughts and feelings are melted into precise formulations and artistic images. You don't have to be a professional writer or artist to think and imagine. Creativity is not class privilege. They are available to anyone, but not everyone uses the entrance. A personal diary is exactly the place where you can think and fantasize as much as you like and not be afraid that someone will condemn you for your naivety and graphomania.

Write down thoughts and ideas from the books you read that hook you in your journal. Make bibliography. Create verbal portraits of people and thinkers close to you. Sketch. Make up. Paste photos and magazine clippings. Make collages. Write down your dreams (the list is endless).

Pablo picasso

Spanish painter, sculptor and designer, founder of Cubism

Painting is just another way of journaling.

The diary assumes complete freedom of expression: here you can do whatever you want. But over time, you will realize that certain forms of expression are easier for you than others.

The personal diary as a form of writing appears to have first appeared in Japan. We have survived the diaries of Japanese court ladies and poets, recorded in the 10th-11th centuries, where prose easily flows into poetry. Some excerpts from these diaries may touch the modern reader as well:

“If only my thoughts were the same as those of others ... I could find more joy, I would feel less old and observe this transitory life with calmness.<...>When dawn broke, I looked outside and saw ducks swimming serenely in the lake.

Ducks in the lake -
Can I look at them
Indifferently?
Crossing the seething waters
The sad world and me.

The birds looked so serene, but they too must often suffer, I thought "(Murasaki-shikibu. Diary. XXIII. 13th day of the 10th moon).

As the writer Tristina Rainer points out in her book The New Diary, the shape of the diary corresponds to all four basic mechanisms of human perception, which include emotion, sensation, intuition and intellect. Try to develop each of these qualities, avoid monotony. And then, quite possibly, the diary will become a fertile ground for you to develop ideas that will go beyond it and will be embodied in real creative projects.

Five rules of journaling

1. Write honestly.

As honest as possible. Even in notes that no one but you will not see, you will be embarrassed or ashamed to write about some things.It is worth taking a closer look where this awkwardness arises, where you yourself are hiding the truth from yourself. No one deceives a person as often and successfully as he does. But identifying the sources and causes of self-deception in a diary is much easier than in mental reasoning.

2. Restrain your inner censor and critic.

We not only hide the truth from ourselves, but also strive to expose our sincere feelings in an unsightly way. This role is played by the internal censor - the embodiment of Freud's "super-I", that is, the assimilated social attitudes and ideas about "how it should be." He is accompanied by an inner critic, for whom delicate artistic taste and depth of reasoning are more important than sincerity. To get rid of these annoying creatures, try writing in stream of consciousness mode. Write down everything that comes to your mind: images, experiences, vague sensations and memories.

Reflection is helpful, but it is far from the only way to understand what is happening to you and your life.

3. Write for yourself.

We are used to the fact that any message is intended for some addressee. But a personal diary should not be public-oriented (by the way, this is one of the many differences between a diary and a blog). If you are writing for an audience, however narrow, an internal censor and critic will ruthlessly edit whatever you post. Instead, try to write for yourself. Perhaps your "future self", who will read your diary in a few years, will be a good addressee.

4. Pay attention to detail.

So that you can later revive past events in your memory, try to capture the details and shades of what is happening. If you write simply “it was bad,” it will tell you much less than “I’m lying here on the couch, kicked out of the world with one kick, lying in wait for a dream that doesn’t want to come, and if it does, it will only touch me, my joints ache from fatigue, my thin body is exhausted by a tremor of excitement, the meaning of which it does not dare to clearly understand, knocks in my temples ”(quote from the diary of Franz Kafka).

5. Use paper and ink.

This recommendation here is not because of inertia and retrograde. When you write by hand, handwriting can say as much about feelings as the words themselves. In addition, a paper notebook can be carried with you everywhere, unlike a laptop (and taking notes on a smartphone is not very convenient). Sometimes it’s enough to just feel the rough surface of the paper notebook in which you are writing in your hands to feel a sense of confidence and security. Better, by the way, to use notebooks with blank sheets, rather than lined diaries. The key is to choose writing supplies that make journaling enjoyable.

Some people think that diary entries should be made daily. It seems to me that this is not necessary at all.

It is better to write when there is a desire or need to understand something, so that keeping a diary does not turn into another boring "must". But at first, until the habit is formed, you have to force yourself to open a notebook and write at least something. But if the first words are found, the rest will be found.

Do not forget that each diary is a reflection of the personality of its owner (albeit incomplete and distorted). Therefore, these recommendations are somewhat generalized. But even they should not be taken too literally. What works for the conventional Leo Tolstoy may be completely useless for you. The individual way of keeping a diary develops over the years and changes over time. But in order to understand how the diary can be useful for you, you need to start one first.

Do not think that only children and adolescents keep personal diaries; adults also have the moral right to keep such a diary. And they also have privacy on their personal records. In the diary, you can express any thoughts and be yourself.

Another positive feature of keeping a diary is self-analysis and analysis of life situations.

In the diary, you can write down both facts and memories that are important to you, as well as just worrying thoughts and experiences.

With the help of the diary, we see how we change and develop. It can be seen how we have grown. What was important then suddenly ceased to be important now.

How to keep a diary?

As a diary, you can use both a regular notebook and an electronic document. ... Better if at the same time. I write in the morning and 3 pages each, and that's why they are called Morning Pages. But if it's convenient for you in the evening, then write down the events of the past day in the evenings before bed.

There are many types of diaries:

  • Success Diary
  • Travel Diary
  • Diary of ideas
  • Happiness Diary (Positive Moments)
  • Gratitude Diary
  • Diary dedicated to raising a child
  • A memo diary, you write down all the important moments in life, dates and events
  • Diary of useful tips
  • Interlocutor diary or regular diary

The diary should be kept in a comfortable environment for you. I write it in the kitchen on the kitchen table. Although I have a desktop, the keyboard always bothers me there, and it's more convenient in the kitchen. There is usually no one there and no one bothers, especially when there is a mountain of dishes that no one wants to wash).

Diary Tips:

1. Have fun keeping a personal journal. I like writing in a diary because it makes me feel connected to myself. This is how I hear my thoughts, my inner self. Through the diary, I can find ideas for a new article.

2. Write down when you are upset and worried about something. Write down when you are full of joy and in a good mood. A diary is a good way to get rid of negative emotions and relieve stress, you can throw out all emotions, both positive and negative.

3. If you are afraid that someone will find him, then hide in a secluded place, for example, between books or papers. It is not recommended to carry it with you to school, college or work. As a child, I used to tape them with a little tape, because I was worried that my parents or relatives could read it. So glue across the notebook, the pages from it will not stick together.

4. Don't re-read after a few days. The most interesting reading is in a few years. When they have already forgotten what they wrote about. You will see how your priorities, thoughts and dreams have changed. You will notice how you have "grown" and become wiser.

5. A diary is good at helping you understand what you want out of life. What suits you in it, and what you want to change. Even unconscious desires and fears float out over time. For example, many cannot understand what they want in life, what they want to do and what to do. Self-awareness is well developed through keeping a personal diary.

6. It is said that a diary helps you identify your strengths and weaknesses. I don’t know exactly about this. But I know for sure that with the help of a personal diary, namely the Morning Pages, within a few months you can find your favorite business, understand what you want to do.

7. You can also keep a diary for therapeutic purposes. It is often given as an assignment by psychologists and psychiatrists. Your psychological state will be better if you dump negativity and emotions into a notebook, and not on the people around you. This is a good way to calm down and understand what made you angry or hurt.

My story

I recently realized that I was just obsessed with recordings and they say that this is quite normal for writers and creative people. All great people kept their personal journals before they became great. So maybe your diary will help you become successful and famous).

I have kept my diary since childhood. It was an outlet and a lightning rod for me, and now it is. In your personal diary, you can express everything you feel and what you cannot tell other people.

Now I understand that a diary helps to cope with all mental suffering. I think that thanks to the diary I have not lost my mind). As a teenager, I did not get along with both parents and young people. My parents put a lot of pressure on me, I was an excellent student, I constantly had to keep the bar, meet expectations and be smart. It was necessary to be correct in everything, and it was not customary to show negative emotions, and all this depressing over time.

Just like any teenager, I had a transitional period, I wanted to be cool and a star in my environment. In general, the usual childhood and adolescent problems, which then seemed serious. And only thanks to the diary, in which she described her mental anguish, everything worked out and did not develop into real problems.

I am very sorry that I did not keep a life diary in my student years, I was just afraid that someone would read it, because I was away from home. There was no safe corner. At certain moments in our lives, we have periods of crisis and some big changes. But I have not survived from those student days, now you look at everything differently.