TL;DR I talk about writing things down by hand, and why it helps me to do so

Arbitrary Rules are Hindrances.

Journalling was always one of those things I had a love-hate relationship with. Writing things down is an important way to draw new neural connections and generally getting things out of my head. On the other hand, I was always trying to follow rules when I wrote things down in my journal. I tried:

Everything under the sun, to try and write things down with structure, and intentional planning.

Then I realized: Fuck all that mess.

Da Vinci and the Art of Putting It On Paper

Leonardo Da Vinci is one of those people that everyone seems to revere as a genius. I should say that I do not disagree; he totally was. On the other hand, he was also not the most organized human being on the planet and his journals reflect that. He just wrote shit down.

Had he written it down before? Maybe… Probably, even… but did that stop him?

Not for a fucking second

Among other quotes, Da Vinci is known to have said ‘An idea not written down is an idea lost.’ He also wrote a note down in one of his journals, that I cannot specifically find right now, a statement about how writing things down more than once is bound to happen, but it is better to repeat oneself than forget something that might be important.

To that end, I found a method of journalling that works for me, and maybe it will work for you too:

Just Write Shit Down

The Journalling method

There is one rule in this method:

If you have a thought and it occurs to you that you could maybe write it down: Do that. Write it down. Maybe you wrote it down 2 months ago. Maybe you wrote it down yesterday. Maybe you will never look at it again, who knows? The important thing is to write it down. It will help you remember it, and help you put your thoughts into words.

That second part (putting thoughts into words) is the important bit. You need to practice writing and speaking if you want to do either one effectively. This blog post, for instance, is just rambling. I did not prepare this post ahead of time, and that probably shows, but that is OK. Sometimes, just putting the thoughts out there as they flow is good.

I will write poetry, prose, key points, simple ideas, essays, sketches, etc. Getting the ideas out of your head, and onto paper, is the goal. Your memory is far from perfect (well, perhaps it is better to say that no one has a perfect memory…). Writing it down will both help you remember, and give you a kind of paper brain to reference.

Looking Back from Time to Time

This part is 100% optional, but I do this a lot. From time to time it helps me to go back and look at the things I have written. Some times I go back and find things I thought about that end up becoming much longer blog posts, essays, or projects. Other times I go back and reference technical notes I made (especially for penetration testing and playing Hack the Box systems). Almost every time I look back at my old journal pages I find something that either gives me a boost of nostalgia, reminds me of something I wanted to do, or teaches me how far I have come since I wrote something down.

There are also a lot of times I go back, look at something, and think “Wow, what the fuck?”

What is the point?

Ultimately, the point is to take a journal, take a pen, pencil, charred stick, or something else, and get those ideas that are in your head, out of your head. Put them on paper.

You will forget them if they are in your head, and you can always reference them again if they are on paper.