To journal or not to journal

It's really odd, I have moments of clarity where I can remember events from my past vividly, and other times when I can't remember what I was doing ten minutes ago. The problem is, that I’m finding more and more often I’m in the latter camp.

People who know me think I have a great memory because I can delve into my past and remember events or thing with such clarity. However, there is usually a trigger that helps me to remember those things. It’s usually music.

I can hear a song or a snippet of music and I can be transported elsewhere in times past. And yet, without those triggers, I’m pretty poor at remembering things.

What concerns me though, is my short term memory these days. It’s so abysmal that I struggle to know what I’ve been up to on any given day. Admittedly, when we’ve spent so much time locked down and having hardly been out or about this year, it’s made it seem as though one day has warped into another and it seems to be like Groundhog Day on a consistent basis.

 With that in mind, I’m considering starting a journal, somewhere to write my thoughts, ideas, insights, plans etc.

 A few times as a teen, I tried to keep a diary, but after about 4-5 days, I stopped doing it as I never could be bothered. And that has stopped me from trying in the past few years.

 However, last summer, after reading a book by Austin Kleon, an artist who also writes, I decided to keep a logbook with daily inputs of work I’ve done with examples of work I’ve completed and ideas for work in them.

I’ve managed to keep this going since I started and have managed to complete each day, even if, on some days, my entry has read, “mentally drained, can’t think of anything, reading a book instead!”

Therefore, as I come to the end of the year, I’m thinking that maybe I’m now ready to do a journal.

Why? Well, to be honest, I often find I think about something, get sidetracked and the next day, I can’t remember what I was thinking about. If I had a journal, I could scribble whatever it was onto the page, and then when I wanted to revisit the idea, I’d only need to look at the page and what I’d written to give me a chance to look at the subject anew.

I’ve been trying look back to the beginning of this year and to be honest, I really can’t remember what I was doing, but when I looked back to the July entries in the logbook, it was easy to remember associated things to the work because my entries acted as memory joggers.

If I started journaling next year, then perhaps I could go back and see what other things I’d been up to and what some of my thought processes were, which may help to keep my memory more alert than it is now.

At various points in my life, I’ve been a voracious note taker and I used to have filled books of thoughts relating the field of business I was in at the time. Sadly, when my marriage broke up and I moved away, I appear to have misplaced them which is a great shame because I used to refer back to them quite a lot.

So maybe, writing a journal may be the way forward from here on in. It might help me to keep track of my life and enable me to refer to and take a fresh look at things. It may be that I could write down vague thoughts and ideas that could lead to different journeys in the future.

The process of writing down my thoughts and ideas may also keep them in my mind as well which would make them more memorable to me as well.

It may also keep me on track with things I want to do on a regular basis. I may get more done. Especially if we ever get our normal lives back in the not too distant future. 

One of those thoughts I have had and written down during this time when we seem to be stuck at home, may become an idea that kickstarts a new challenge once we can get back to doing other things. 

All in all, I think there are probably more pros than cons of doing so.

Or it may just be another thing that I start and after a while drift away from.

We shall see...

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