I've long envied journalers because I consider journaling to be a meta-habit. The benefits spill over from the act itself to many other areas of life. It's not (always) just a bland, narcissistic record of the minutiae of your life. At infrequent intervals I've used it to increase self awareness, help with mood regulation, and to clarify my thinking on complicated topics. It takes many forms (from Morning Pages to The 5 Minute Journal, Contentment Journal, and beyond) but there's no special formula - the key is just to write what matters most and do it consistently. Like any additive habit (versus a subtractive or simplifying habit), the benefit needs to far outweigh the cost of taking the extra time to do it.
Many of the most prolific thinkers across history like Charles Darwin were unrelenting journalers. They filled tome after tome with every thought that ever occurred to them, leaving behind a phenomenal record of a lifetime of thinking. I've tried to pick up journaling in the past, and have failed at making the habit last beyond a few weeks. This made me wonder if I simply was not capable of being a journaler, until I was listening to Penn Jillette's description of his OCD in his episode of the Tim Ferriss Show. Some part of a successful journaling practice may be attributable to degrees of obsessive compulsive behavior that I just don't possess (interestingly OCD also helps explain people with perfect memories). Should I just give up?
Enter the Interstitial Journaling technique. I first read about it here on Medium. If you don't want to take the 15 minutes to read the original article, here's the crux of it: start a text file (or Evernote note), and every time you switch from one activity to another write a sentence or two about what you were doing and a few about what you plan to do next. Here's two recent examples:
-
3-2-2020 | 11:32 AM: Feeling pretty good about what I've accomplished so far this morning. I started shaping the project Microsoft Teams site for [project x], and designed a bad ass ultra clear meeting agenda using a technique from the HBR Ideacast episode I listened to yesterday (Why Meetings Go Wrong and How to Fix Them). I framed the agenda as a series of questions so we can check in periodically to make sure we know we are making progress. Hopefully it will help keeps us on track and potentially even end the meeting early if we get the questions answered.Next up: I'm going to sketch out the next steps and timeline for [project x] and have some lunch.
-
3-3-2020 | 5:05 PM: The meeting with the key stakeholders for [project y] was pretty rigid. I don't think we are really doing a good job of landing our purpose and objective for each meeting with these important people. I think that in the future if we aren't totally ready we should just cancel and reschedule the meeting because people appreciate their time back, not having it wasted.Next up: Go home and unplug for the day
It took 4-5 minutes to write each of these, including grabbing the link for the podcast episode, and this habit pulls a lot of weight:
- It forces "in the moment" reflection that provides a vivid record of what I do all week, which makes writing a weekly update much easier at the end of the week. Recording as I go also makes me much less susceptible to hindsight bias when trying to recall something later.
- It helps me keep track of progress on the experiments I'm running, like with techniques for running better meetings (see below for more about that).
- Context switching can be a major drain on productivity, and writing the journal entry provides a clear off ramp from one activity and on ramp to the next. It also serves as a signal of how frequently I'm going through major context shifts.
- Creates space for reflection, and increases my awareness of my emotional states as I move through my day.
I'm a few weeks into the habit, and I've found it to be easy to integrate into my workflow, even if I don't record at every transition. The true test will be if I'm able to continue to prioritize it even when things become more hectic.