Journaling is a hobby that has dwindled as the years have gone on. More and more people say that they just don’t have the time to journal, and while this may be true, I believe that many people out there who wish they journaled simply don’t know where to start. With the New Year just starting, now is the best time to make a change and begin to document your life. So here are some reasons why you should journal and some easy advice on how to get started journaling.

One great thing about journaling is your ability to remember what happened to you in your life years later. When you re-read your old journals, it reminds you of all the great memories that you have made throughout the years.

Journaling can also help you relieve stress. When you have a place that you can let out your emotions, knowing that only you can see it, provides a great deal of peace. Allowing yourself to be genuine in your journal can help calm you down and give the space to evaluate your next steps. Also, who knows, in three hundred years, people could find your journal and it would give historians a small glimpse into what everyday life was like during the early twenty-first century.

Now, seeing all the benefits, starting a journal can seem overwhelming. Most people think of journaling as buying a journal and daily writing out a long list of what they did that day. However, there are many alternative methods that are much easier. For the beginner who is nervous about the time commitment, I recommend a jar full of daily positives. Every day on a small scrap of paper, write down one positive thing that happened during the day, fold it up and put in the jar. At the end of the year, you will have a collection of memories from every single day, and you only had to put in a small amount of daily effort.

For people who like the previous idea and are willing to put in a bit more time, I suggest a five-year journal. The easiest way to set this up is to get notecards with every day of the year on them. Then go through and write your positives for the first year on them. The next year, go back to the same cards and write your new positives underneath. As you go on, you will be adding new memories as well as getting to relive what has already happened to you on that day in the past.

Finally, there is full-blown journaling in which you daily write out what happened to you and how it affected you. This is probably the hardest type of journaling, but it is also very rewarding in the end. For this option, I recommend starting one in a word processor on your computer first, especially if you have messy handwriting or can type quickly. Many people enjoy changing up the format during their first journal, and a digital file allows you to easily go back and change previous entries that you wish to alter.

Though journaling can seem daunting at first, when you break it down into daily steps, the task becomes much more manageable. This year try to start a journal to remember all the ways the 2017 inspires you, encourages you, makes you laugh and makes you love. You will never regret writing down your memories. Happy New Year!