process notes: the notebooks I keep
thoughts on keeping journals + my favourite supplies
The real test of the efficacy of this practice will be in your own experience. It will be you noticing that you have a new capacity. Until you do that, you probably won’t be convinced that this is an important practice. But once you do that, there will be no denying it.
Sam Harris once said this in the context of meditation, but it really struck me because I think this is exactly how journalling works, too.
I’ll be honest, I was never big on keeping a journal. I reasoned that I was really good at rationalising and coping already, so I thought there wasn’t much beyond that that journalling could do for me. I was wrong. Ironically, keeping a journal helped me realise that.
The most tangible benefit is that my memory has improved significantly. I mean this not necessarily in the context of remembering things, but remembering moments. The line of work I’m in, combined with the way I’m wired, keeps me in constant reaction mode. That made me terrible at recollecting the little details, because I would only make space for the larger thoughts. That sucked, because its the little details that make up the texture of life. The experience of not being able to recollect what happened over a couple of days just because they were mundane days jolted me into action. I started to make sure I put down as much as I could remember, especially making sure to record not just the bad (since we have a tendency of blowing negativity out of proportion) but also the good and the neutral. A full picture of a life lived.
A great side effect of this practice is that I’ve become a better conversationalist, because it increased the number of anecdotes I can draw on to fuel interesting conversations. Even if binge-reading Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives doesn’t seem worth archiving in your memory, it might end up being great fodder in a conversation with someone you really want to hang out with more often. So you never know what ends up being social gold.
The second benefit of journalling is subtle, but life-changing. Keeping a journal has created a place for me to set down all the thoughts swirling around in my head instead of letting them muddy the waters of my mind. Many of these thoughts shrink when exposed to light; darkness makes them more threatening than they are. Once I give them concrete form on paper, they often reveal themselves as underwhelming or even silly. But left swirling in the mind, they can become almost physical blockers to rational thought. I've noticed that negative thoughts, in particular, persist longer in my head. Having them down on paper makes it easier for me to recognise their true nature and, in a more meta fashion, quantify how many negative thoughts i’m having vs positive, and try to course-correct.
Third, it’s made me confront and understand the way I process heavy emotions. For example, I have realised I am averse to confrontation but I also have a keen sense of justice, which makes for a difficult combination. It means one part of my mind tells me to raise a stink, while the other is scared about the repercussions and reputational damage that comes from that. Just the act of recording these incidents has made me visualise how many times not confronting someone has caused me damage, and how it continues to linger in my mind and subconscious even if I tell myself I’ve let it go.
On grief: while I am an emotionally-aware person in general, encountering grief of any kind would make me turn off that lever and switch to logical, analytical mode. For years, I was convinced I was really good at dealing with grief. But over time, I realised how the emotions I had clamped down on had found their own path, anyway: through stressful chats at work, moody silent days at home, sleepless nights even though I’d worked my body until the point of exhaustion.
I feel like there’s plenty more I’m missing from this list, but Sam Harris’ words keep ringing in my head: you notice the capacity when you have it. The fact that I can now spot these patterns is itself evidence of this habit’s quiet effects. I'm noticing new capacities I didn't have before, and my field of vision (emotionally, logically, intellectually) has definitely expanded over time. The practice doesn’t make grief easier or my anger less red-hot but at least I now know what triggers it, how I deal with it, and what past me can tell present me about making future me’s life easier.
For those more interested in the “how” of my practice, I’ve put together some notes as well as links to my favourite supplies below.
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Notes on my toolkit
I don’t typically subscribe to the scrapbooking style of maintaining a journal, although I deeply admire it; visual recollection can be just as powerful as written collection for many people. I’m personally more of a longhand, long-form enthusiast. I occasionally stick scraps like tickets and photos in my notebooks, but only if I remember that I have them on hand. Otherwise, any paraphernalia I’ve collected on my travels tend to be put in this one catch-all clear folder.
I have four notebooks for different purposes.
The first is a journal journal, the one I use for longer record-keeping, thought-dumping and emotion-processing. This has been my most used-notebook over the years. I write in it maybe once in two weeks, sometimes once a week depending on how urgently I feel like clearing my mind. This is my most private notebook and so I’m very careful about where I keep it—stuff from it almost never makes it elsewhere, at least in its 1:1 form. This is important, because it gives me the freedom to write anything in it, regardless of flow or coherence or style (which, if you’re a writer, can be hard to break out of). This notebook does all the heavy-lifting in terms of pattern recognition and shadow work. I very rarely reference previous entries other than for those reasons. Once I’ve written in this journal, I feel significantly lighter and freer to apply my mind to other things.
Supplies: I prefer to use a sturdy notebook and ink that won’t fade over time. I have tiny, ant-sized handwriting, so I usually end up using one notebook for a year on average, depending on how many pages I write each session. I switch between the A5 ruled notebooks by Moleskine and myPaperclip. My pen of choice is the Muji 0.5 gel or the Uniball Eye 0.5 roller ball (also the pen I used as a court reporter during my journalism days, precisely because it doesn’t fade and can’t be tampered with).
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The second is a pocket notebook, what people would typically call a commonplace notebook. I’ve had varying notebooks of this kind over many years, but it’s only now that I’ve started using it intentionally, as a way of curating ideas and thoughts that matter to me at that moment. This notebook is pocket-sized: I made this choice because I wanted to have it on me all the time, and so it needed to fit into even the tiniest handbag I own. I’m really satisfied with that decision—I’ve been spending more time with it than on scrolling through social media, especially during those transitory moments of the day like commutes and waiting rooms where you tend to while away time anyway.
Some things I’ve put in it so far: snatches of overheard conversations, direct quotes from novels, lists I want to get through over the year, reflections on culture or travel, dreams that I’ve decided mean something and need to figure out why, ideas and plans for personal growth, quick pen sketches. Nothing super private goes into this notebook, and neither do fleeting thoughts or one-and-done bits of writing like shopping lists and work to-dos. I don’t follow a format or a template like I’ve seen some writers do. But I do prefer to keep one note per page in case I want to come back and add to it in the future.
Supplies: I prefer hardcover over softcover just to lengthen the life of what will be a much tossed-about notebook. I’m currently using the myPaperclip pocket notebook with grid pages, but might switch over to the Moleskine square pocket notebook next. I prefer a 0.5 nib pen for this notebook because of limited space, like the Sharpie needle point roller pen I’m using right now.
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The third notebook is a daily diary*. This notebook serves to hold more objective details of what happened in a day, including everything that’s happening around me and with people I care about. I got this idea from my grandfather, who has been meticulously keeping a diary for the last few decades. He calls up family members to get details from them: what time my sister’s flight landed, for example, or how I would describe my job in one line to someone who wasn’t in my field. Minus the phone calls, I’ve been following a similar process: recording my day in short sentences and then any notes on my family, friends, colleagues, or the news. I also draw a little box that I draw an emoji in, to indicate my mood that day. A typical entry might look like:
Went to the office today. It was relaxed, mostly a lot of copy work. Finished Ia Genberg’s The Details—lovely book. Dad has been thinking about taking on a new project, as he’s got more time on his hands now. [Aunt name] has gone to Malaysia to visit her son; they plan to visit Singapore, gave them some recommendations. Grandpa coming to stay with us this weekend.
The key is to make the process short and snappy, so I can fit in as much information as I can. I usually update my diary after dinner, when my day is more or less over.
*I use “diary” and “journal” distinctly. To me, a diary implies recording and a journal implies processing.
Supplies: This notebook mostly stays at home as well, so any diary with dated or undated monthly spreads will work. I’m currently using a Midori A5 planner I bought in Japan, but Muji and myPaperclip also have good options. I personally chose not to buy the ones with a page per day, because that defeats my purpose of short and snappy recording.
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The fourth is a weekly and monthly planner that I use to keep track of projects and to-do lists for both work and life. I refer to it every day; it keeps me organised, and I also use it to record Wins and progress which then feed into my work brag doc. It’s also helpful to keep track of significant dates: project start and end dates, deadlines, birthdays and work anniversaries, etc. I tend to keep a scratch notebook or notepad on my desk for even more ephemeral writing like 2x2s and note-taking during meetings, but those I usually scrap once I’m through with them.
Supplies: I use the Muji A5 yearly planner because it’s the ideal balance of rigidity and flexibility for my use cases. The scratch pad is usually something off Amazon or the local stationery store. As for pens, I rotate between whatever’s in my bag at the time: Muji, Pentel EnerGel, Uniball Eye, or Sharpie.
It feels like you are giving words to how I have felt about some of the things that I have felt about. Thank you for taking that leap and opening up to us.