My Two Journals

I surprised myself a little over a year ago by writing in a paper journal every morning. The surprise wasn’t that I was keeping a journal but that I was doing it by hand. I had been using the Day One journaling app to record my private thoughts for over a decade. But this was no ordinary year. After suffering an immeasurable loss, I yearned for the comfort that sometimes only flows from pen and paper.

Yet what’s even more surprising is that this was no momentary whim. I’ve kept up this daily habit of scribbling in a notebook in the morning and typing in Day One at night for over a year now. And I think I’ve pieced together why, for me, the combination of analog and digital writing has developed into the best possible journaling experience.

The Benefits of Journaling

Keeping a journal promotes mindfulness, reduces stress and anxiety, improves memory, and can enhance creativity. Journaling can also help you heal from profound loss, providing solace, catharsis, and a means to explore feelings that might otherwise get suppressed. When my son was killed in a motorcycle accident a little over a year ago, I turned to my journal as a way to process my grief.

I am not new to journaling. I’ve kept a private journal for more than thirty years. I filled a dozen notebooks before switching over to Day One in 2012. My journal holds almost four thousand entries dating back as far as 1982.¹ I haven’t missed a night of journaling in almost a thousand days.

The Lure of Paper

Despite my appreciation for digital efficiency, I’ve always carried a Field Notes notebook in the back pocket of my jeans or my bag. I like the feel of a pen in my hand when I’m thinking. When we moved to Arizona last year, I knew we wouldn’t be traveling as much as we did aboard our trawler. I decided to upgrade to a full-size desk journal for a change of pace. As one does, I scoured the internet for a suitable notebook.²

I chose the B5 Journal Pro from Scribbles That Matter, which is roughly the size of an iPad, though much thicker. The notebook paper is numbered, dotted, and thick enough to feel luxurious and sturdy with no bleed-through (the paper is rated at 120 gsm). There are two placeholder ribbons, several index pages, and a tucked-in folder in the back of the book for storing notecards or loose paper. When you open the notebook, you hear that satisfying crack of the binding. The book lays flat on a desk.³ The cover is made from vegan leather and feels terrific. This is undoubtedly the nicest journal I’ve ever owned.

I didn’t know how I would use the notebook at first, but a pattern soon emerged. I reached for it as I sipped my first cup of coffee in the morning while my mind was fresh and any dreams still lingered. I would write a half page of fragments, lists, how I slept, and stray thoughts that were top of mind. Sometimes, my pen would linger over the page for minutes, my mind in a meditative trance. Other times, the words that escaped my pen surprised me, like a possessed Ouija board. Later in the day or evening, I might write a little more about the book I was reading or capture a quote I had heard, but most of the action this notebook saw was during that first cup of morning coffee.

I wrote more honestly and sincerely about the loss I had suffered than I did at the keyboard. Slowly, over days and weeks, the pages filled and overflowed with feelings my stoic heart couldn’t express in front of a blinking cursor.

After several months of morning writing, I marveled over how connected I had become to this notebook. Would-be journal keepers who give up too soon miss out on the magic of a journal filled with 50 or more pages of their musings. Flipping back through prior days and weeks of writing reveals the mosaic of meaning you missed because you were standing too near. These cryptic clues drawn from your subconscious remain invisible until you turn the pages just right and suddenly glimpse the pattern. The invitation to revisit what you wrote yesterday or last month prompts you to probe deeper into the crux of what’s troubling you.

Why Two Journals

And yet, as much as I enjoy this handwritten journal, I still use Day One in the evenings. The two journals flow from different parts of my brain, though they work together in an interesting way.

At a keyboard, I write in complete sentences in my practiced journal voice. I am articulate. I write to understand, yes, but also to communicate with some future version of myself, or potentially others. All my published essays began as one of these nightly journal entries. The handwritten notebook is focused squarely on the present moment; the writing in Day One leans back and tilts forward. One is meditation; the other is memoir.

During the time I’ve kept the handwritten journal, the quality of my writing in Day One feels richer. Fragmentary scribbles in the morning often blossom after a day of rumination, elongating into full sentences and paragraphs. A vague concept at daybreak might give birth to the start of an essay that night or maybe a few days or weeks later. There is a give-and-take between these two journals that I’ve come to appreciate.

And besides, Day One isn’t going anywhere. With thousands of entries spanning three decades of my life, the app holds tremendous value for me. I search it often to track down events, trips, critical milestones in my life. The memories I’ve captured of my son stand out like beacons of light on my darker days. Writing each night in Day One is a ritual that helps settle my mind and bring closure to the day.

A New Year, A New Journal

I completed the final page of my paper journal on the last day of 2023. I realized this potentiality in the middle of December and managed my writing output to coincide with this tidy conclusion. Filling one of these journals each calendar year feels right.

After so many years of digital journaling, I forgot what it felt like to retire one. I had grown quite attached to this old journal with its hundreds of pages of private thoughts. After a year of daily use, the book held up surprisingly well. No loose pages, and the binding is still tight. Before shelving it in its lovely slipcase alongside my other paper journals, I archived a PDF copy with the scanner app on my iPhone for safekeeping.

I am slowly breaking in the new notebook, an identical twin to its predecessor. I miss paging through past entries before I start to write in the morning. But, perhaps it’s a good reminder to celebrate new beginnings and the ever-changing nature of life, to close the book on a year of sorrow. I am not healed. There is no healing from some losses. But, at least I can measure the distance I have traveled through the pages of my two journals.

Do you keep a journal? Do you use an app, or do you write by hand? Or both? I’d love to hear about your experiences with journaling in the comments below.

1. I liked Day One so much that I transcribed my old journals to have a complete digital archive. ↩
2. If you’re curious about the features and characteristics that make a great notebook, I highly recommend Mark Fig’s Hobbyist Hangout podcast on notebooks. ↩
3. I followed Ryder Carroll’s advice on how to break in a new notebook, which I’m sure helped the notebook lay flat and keep the spine from wearing. ↩