A Simple System to Organize Your Thoughts in a Journal or Diary

The Problem With My Old Journaling Habit

Hi! I've been journaling on and off for almost two years, and I want to share the simple system I came up with (at least I think I did, but most likely not because it's incredibly simple) to organize my thoughts.

Before I created this system of mine, my journal was... pretty inefficient.

I'd just write whatever came to mind, until I'd randomly ask myself a question in the middle of writing, which became a problem because I'd stop writing altogether and spend the next 10–30 minutes trying to find or think of an answer.

Meanwhile, I still had a lot of other thoughts I wanted write about, but I never did write about them because I was stuck on that one question (this happens multiple times and I ended up forgetting what I wanted to write).

This way of journaling was really a huge waste of time, paper, and mental energy. IT really frustrated me that I had to come up with a organizing system that allows me to be able to talk about different topics/thoughts without having to deal with discontinuance in my train of thought.

If you currently have similar problems like this, then this may help you organize your thoughts/journal.

How to Organize Your Thoughts in a Journal

At the beginning of every journal entry, I write the date and time. This makes it easy to look back at older entries and know exactly when I wrote something.

From there, I organize my thoughts using letters.

I label my first topic as (a).

If I suddenly think of something completely unrelated, I don't interrupt the first topic. Instead, I start a new one with (b).

If another unrelated thought comes up, I use (c), and so on.

The best part is that if I want to continue talking about my first topic later, I simply write (a) again and continue from where I left off.

Instead of forcing every thought into one long, linear paragraph, each letter becomes its own thread. I can switch between topics whenever I want without losing my place.

Thoughts don't always come one at a time. Sometimes I remember something halfway through writing. Sometimes a question pops into my head that I can't answer yet.

But because of this system, instead of stopping halting how my flow of thought, I create a new thread and keep going.

For me, this systems helps me write better. I feel extremely comfortable writing like this. I guess this is just how my brain works.

If you have a similar problem in journaling, why not apply this system yourself and/or modify it in a way that makes you write more freely.

I hope this blog posts helps and God bless you.

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