No one said you’ve got to be Kafka or something to take up writing as an everyday ritual. That’s a practice all of us can benefit from, and more often than not, it’s not about eloquence or brilliance, but about creating a space on paper that catches whatever slips from thought into form. A journal won’t judge you for being repetitive or vague. You wake up, write something down, and that’s the whole deal. There’s no need for a plot or correct punctuation. Once you’ve started, it’ll probably feel like clutter, like tossing all the receipts out of your bag at once. Later, maybe much later, you’ll read your entries back and it won’t feel like trash at all. You’ll notice that your morning journal has become a track record of how you paid attention. That’s how a morning journaling habit begins. That’s how it grows teeth.
Held Together by Paper and Time
Journaling holds people together through days when the sky changes but nothing else does. As shown in this Berkeley article from 2020, the author kept at it during the pandemic, logging days when they never left the house, barely spoke to anyone, and still, there the notebook was. They didn’t write sonnets or breakthrough reflections. But when rereading the entries, they didn’t regret a single sentence. Each one marked a corner of that long, strange time. Even the entries where nothing happened helped preserve the slow-motion quality of those months.
A day can feel empty in your body but full in your mind. That’s where writing helps. Instead of an audience, you just need somewhere to move your thoughts when they’ve overstayed their welcome. Paper can become that place.
Your journal entries don’t need to be eventful – they just need to exist.
How to Start a Morning Journaling Habit That Sticks
What we do in the morning will greatly influence the rest of our day; it will set the tone for the day, carry it even when nothing is planned, especially then. To make a morning journaling habit that sticks, treat the first part of your day like a hallway instead of a wall – walk through it, don’t bounce off of it.
Going Through Hard Times Yourself?
Writing doesn’t erase difficulty, but it will reduce its weight enough to be carried. If you’re in the beginning stages of anything uncertain, such as the initial stage of recovery in the context of addiction therapy, you’ll need a place to mark time without having to explain yourself. You’ll write it badly, you’ll leave sentences unfinished, and nevertheless, the notebook will hold it all; a notebook doesn’t feel fatigued when overburdened with worrying thoughts, no matter what you choose to put into it.
Say Goodbye to Perfect Sentences
As we already said, you don’t need to be Kafka, or anyone oh-so-clever, to benefit from this. The journal doesn’t hand out points for poetry. It keeps no score. The pressure to perform will disappear when you realize the only reader is yourself, and even that person, in three months, might’ve forgotten what they were so upset about. Perfectionism is a distraction from honesty. Write a self-reflective story, an honest mess. Use fragments. Let it be boring. It’s still working.
One Sentence a Day Keeps the Bad Thoughts Away
Sometimes a ritual sticks because it’s so small it can’t fall apart. One sentence per morning is enough. You don’t need a narrative arc. You don’t need a coffee beside you or a clean desk or even peace of mind. The sentence might be about how tired you are. It might be about a phone call you don’t want to make. Just one. Then close the notebook. Go make toast.
As they say, one sentence a day keeps the bad thoughts awa
Stuck? Use Questions as Kindling
Prompts can feel like lifeboats when your brain goes silent. What made you feel strange yesterday? What are you pretending not to care about? Where do you want to be that isn’t here? You can avoid answering neatly. Simply meander. The question is there just to start the engine.
You Don’t Have to Reinvent the Wheel
There are journal templates all over the internet if you’re the type who likes structure before flow. Some will guide you with checkboxes, some with blank dates, some with calendars. The best strategy is to pick the one that doesn’t annoy you, as that’s the one you’ll want to keep using. The format can be a little mechanical at first, but it will soon become automatic. You’ll look back later and realize the most important thing wasn’t how it was set up but that you kept filling it in.
Read What You’ve Written (But Not Every Day)
Revisiting old entries occasionally is worth it, but it shouldn’t be a daily requirement. Rereading shows you what has changed and what keeps recurring. Sometimes you’ll see that what felt like the end of something was just a day you didn’t sleep well. Other times, you’ll catch patterns that need breaking. Let yourself read slowly, and don’t annotate. The point is to recognize where you’ve been. You don’t need to improve it.
Lastly, Don’t Forget to Date Your Thoughts
The date anchors the entry. Even if you’ve written nothing else, the date matters; it gives shape to the memory later, when the words themselves feel distant. You might forget what you meant, but the date brings you back to the season, the week, the overall rhythm and atmosphere of that time. Just a number, a name of a month, a year scribbled in the corner. That’s enough.
No One Has to See It for It to Matter
You’ll keep writing because something in you wants a record. You’ll pause when it feels right to pause. The pages won’t ask for explanations. They’ll simply gather what’s said and what’s incomplete. Don’t try so hard to make it smooth or clever, or to follow a shape. What matters is that something moves from your mind into your hand and out onto the page.
A morning journaling habit becomes part of how you pay attention. Noticing turns into practice. The pages fill with fragments, with days that would otherwise blur. One morning might bring a sentence. Another, a list. You return to it because it’s familiar, because it marks the passing of time in a way nothing else does.
Author’s Bio:
John Merryman is a freelance writer and mental health advocate exploring the act of writing itself and how words help us connect with our own thoughts (he’s an avid journal keeper). When his hands aren’t on the keyboard, he spends his time with his family, travelling the US in an RV.
Images:
https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-pencil-on-white-book-page-fVUl6kzIvLg
https://unsplash.com/photos/red-and-purple-coloring-pencils-on-pink-journal-y7GlIdTUOvo
https://unsplash.com/photos/person-writing-on-white-paper-xcvXS6wDCAY
References:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_journaling_can_help_you_in_hard_times
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