It’s slightly healthier than talking to yourself. Journaling is a great way to organize your thoughts, and I’ve personally found that doing a quick journal entry in the morning helps to set the tone for the day. Typically, I like to focus on my daily workload and where I’d like to focus my energy. A lot of times it’s how I pinpoint the frog, from the other “thing“ I do..
In all honestly I’m still struggling with a concrete time to shoehorn this into my day. I’ve been having pretty good success with getting in a few lines written while my coffee is brewing.
The main reason I started journaling was because I was having some really freaky dreams. My good friend/guru told me that simply recording my dreams was a really good way to train myself to control my dreams to a degree. I decided that training to lucid dream was worth a shot if just to help with the nightmares. I never really got good at the lucid dreaming but the more I journaled the more I liked the clarity and direction it gave me.
Clarity of purpose is invaluable. That is why having a journal habit is beneficial. The few minutes it takes to give yourself direction especially early in the morning is well worth the cost and is why it is one of my favorite Sixquickthings.
This one is a big one for me.
You summed it up nicely when you described it as a great way to organize your thoughts.
I like to do this one first thing in the morning as soon as I wake up. First, it lets me start of the day with an active and creative motion. Instead of watching something on my phone where I am being passively fed information, I am actively creating something in the world.
Second, I like to do it first thing in the morning because I believe we can learn a lot from our dreams. By holding the memory of our dreams in our minds and writing it down on paper we are actively reinforcing the neuronal activity to more accurately recall dreams in the future. It also helps give us better command of that mental state which will in turn allow us to be more lucid in our dreams in the future.
I also use the journal to make plans for what I want to achieve that day and to organize ideas that are bouncing around without structure.
From time to time I also like to close my day with a journal entry. This helps anchor the day in my mind, summarize the victories and shortcomings, and go to bed with a good resoution ready to tackle the next day with a clear slate.