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. ↩

I read 75 books in 2023, my high water mark for the most reading in a year. Books have always been like a warm blanket, and I needed that comfort during a most challenging year.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. — James Baldwin

I took on some ambitious books during the year. I read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which has long been on my to-be-read pile. I read a new translation of The Odyssey after having last followed the plight of heroic Odysseus some thirty years ago. I am tackling a multi-year reading of Will and Ariel Durant’s epic eleven-volume Story of Civilization. I inherited these books from my Grandmother twenty-five years ago, and I have finally found the time to read them. Discovering her careful handwriting in the margins of these books has revealed a new and somewhat startling side to my prim and proper Grandmother. What you mark and highlight says a lot about your thoughts and beliefs. It’s like a second history is being told in these pages. I’ve decided to leave my own trail of marginalia for my daughter, should she find the patience and fortitude to complete this generational journey herself one day.

Favorites of the Year

My favorite novel in 2023 was Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane. It’s a bleak book, but protagonist Mary Pat Fennessy is one of the most compelling characters I’ve encountered in a long, long while. She made the bleakness of this book and its theme of parental grief worth it. I will reread this one if only to spend more time with Mary Pat.

I love essays and usually read a half dozen essay compilations during any given year. My favorite this year was These Precious Days by Ann Patchett, who also narrated the audiobook. I recall precise moments on my walks through our neighborhood here in Verrado as I stopped to soak in the wisdom and honesty of this brilliant author speaking to me through my AirPods.

My favorite non-fiction book was The Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh. Sometimes, the universe sends you exactly the book you most need to read. What a clear-eyed and compelling manifesto of living your best life right now.

Stephen King Challenge

In May, I discovered I had read more Stephen King novels than any other author, living or otherwise. Out of his 74 published works of fiction (excluding collaborations), I had read an astonishing 47 of them. It shouldn’t surprise me that I’ve read so much of this author. I love a good yarn, and Mr. King is almost certainly our generation’s most preeminent storyteller. I count Misery, The Dark Tower series, The Stand, and The Shining as some of my all-time favorite reads.

So, I decided to go back and read the 28 books I had missed along the way. In 2023, I read 14 of those, including his most recent novel, Holly. My favorite from the year was Night Shift, his first collection of short stories published in 1977.

I look forward to tackling the remaining 14 unread gems in 2024 before the prolific Mr. King publishes his next book.

More Physical Books in 2023

For the past few years, I’ve borrowed most of the books I read from the library on my Kindle using the Libby app. This year, two-thirds of the books I read were physical copies I own. There was a reason for this change.

We moved from Washington state to Arizona late last year, which afforded the possibility of a larger home library. In my old library, I had to donate a book to make room for every new one I purchased. After nearly twenty years of scanning the crammed shelves for the next sacrifice, choosing what book to cull became excruciating. Borrowing books on Libby seemed the more humane choice.

The new library was indeed more spacious. Once all sixty boxes of books from the move were properly shelved, I marveled at the many gaps between books. This was all the invitation I needed. With joyful abandon, I bought dozens of books during the year to fill those unsightly gaps. I joined two book clubs. I experienced once again that long-forgotten thrill of leaving a used bookstore with a bagful of books. The gaps slowly narrowed and finally evaporated. I struggled in vain to find an open spot for Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li, the last book I finished this year.

In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long… Ultimately the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted. — Alberto Manguel

The coming year will see another series of book sacrifices and likely a return to library borrowing. I enjoyed this book buying spree while it lasted.

My Reading System

I use the Craft app to house all my reading notes and links to my personal note system. I passed the three-year mark of using Craft and have now written and linked over 250 literature notes in this quasi-Zettelkasten system. The connections between books and ideas inside Craft have produced more than a few epiphanies and have indeed taken on a life of its own as a knowledge system.

I continue to be an avid fan of the ReadWise service to collect and review notes and highlights from my reading. I added 234 new highlights to the system this year, bringing me to 1,600 total passages in ReadWise. My daily review of five random selected highlights always makes me smile … and ponder.

Craft and ReadWise form a system that helps me retain and leverage more of what I read. For as much time and money as I spend with my nose in a book, these tools ensure I get the best return for that investment. If you’re curious about either of these apps, please see my earlier post, Read Better with Craft and ReadWise.

The Year Ahead

At my steady pace of 30 pages per evening, I expect to finish The Story of Civilization sometime late in 2024. Beyond that, I’ve been toying with the idea of reading only books I already own, reading only books written in the last year, books written more than a hundred years ago, or reading books I’ve already read. But I know myself. I won’t do any of these things. Books are a comfort to me, and the right book at the right time is the best comfort of all. I’ll know it when I read it.