How to Keep a Diary and Stick to It

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Keeping a diary or journal is a great way to express your emotions on paper and treasure experiences. Twenty years from now, you'll wonder what you were doing years ago. A diary will remind you of the good - and bad - times you had in your past. However, to make sure it is a complete document, you've got to stick with it.

Steps

1. Pick out a nice journal or notebook that reflects your personality. For example, if you like music, you may want a journal that is decorated with music-related things. Just find something appealing to you. You can also decorate it yourself with stickers or drawings.
   
2. Write in some basic information about yourself on the first page. You could include your name, your age, your occupation or school grade, and a few of your hobbies and favorite things. Sometimes people include a "reward if found" note, just in case it gets lost.
   
3. Start your first entry by labeling the top with the weekday and date, the time, and possibly the place you're writing. Write your entry as if you were talking to your best friend, or even to yourself.
   
4. Try to take your diary wherever you go, and do your best to write an entry at least once a day. You can write your frustrations and celebrations, but also write everyday things about your schedule, your friends, and the things you like to do. People forget things they think they will always remember, and these everyday things will be very meaningful to you later.
   
5. Start again if you have a break from writing. If you do skip a day, days, or even weeks, don't worry about it. Just start in again from the current day. Obsessively trying to catch up with all your past events is the quickest way to lose interest a diary. If you're still remembering something weeks later that you didn't write about, it will come up again in your mind later and you can write about it then.
   
6. Personalize your diary. Some of the ways people make diaries their own are by:
   
   • adding scraps, like movie ticket stubs, receipts, flower petals, etc.
     
   • gluing in photographs
     
   • making sketches and drawings
     
   • writing poems
     
   • choosing a quotation or a goal of the day
     
   
   
7. Read your old entries every so often and see what you think now in comparison to then. But do this when you are in an accepting mood of yourself! It does not help to be mean and judge your former self and then throw away your diary in disgust. Be nice to yourself and treat your old diaries like letters from your former self to your present self. More importantly, see how much you have grown and learned from your experiences. At the end of the day, that is the true beauty of a diary, as a barometer of your own personal and emotional growth as you strive to better yourself every day.
   

Tips

• For inspiration, read other diary books, such as The Diary of Anne Frank, Harriet the Spy, Dear dumb Diary and Alice, I Think by Susan Juby, or the "Georgia Nicholson" series. But don't compare your writing or yourself to others; we are each unique and our lives and styles will naturally be different.
  
• For guys it's ok to have a diary! Many men keep diaries. Celebrity men even keep diaries. One of the most notable was Kurt Cobain, Even though he had expressed his wishes of them never being seen they were. So guys its ok! Express your feelings and love and your personality
  
• If you want to make it even more interesting, once you read your journal many years from now, write your entries humorously. It'll definitely make you laugh later.
  
• It's always fun to write a letter to yourself. Write one of your own on the last page of your journal, and once you fill up all the pages, you can read the letter.
  
• You can also keep a journal on your PC (Doogie Howser style) and/or publish it for all to see in a blog, if you dare! You can keep it anonymous and publish under an alias if you prefer.
  
• If you have nothing to write, write lists. It can be anything- a to-do list, a favorites list, a shopping list, a travel list etc.
  
• Consider decorating the outside of your journal with stickers, drawings, etc.
  
• Be honest in your diary. If you can't say what you really feel, what's the point?
  
• Find a good hiding place so that you can write what you really feel without worrying about who will read it
  
• Whenever you have a thought that will not leave your head, write a note to yourself to explore it later in greater detail in your diary.
  

Warnings

• Make sure you know where your journal is at all times, especially if there is important information in it! If it has some ultra-top secret information, get a lock or get a diary with a lock and then hide it. Be careful not to drop it somewhere and forget about it.
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Hide Your Diary
  
• How to Start a Blog
  
• How to Write a Deep and Thoughtful Blog Post People Will Want to Read
  
• How to Start a Livejournal
  
• How to Make a Romantic Scrapbook
  
• How to Complete Your First Scrapbook Page
  
• How to Fill Your Free Time With Useful Things
  

Sources and Citations

• eHow to Keep a Food Journal
  
• eHow to Keep a Travel Journal
  
• eHow to Keep a Quilting Journal
  

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