this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025

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Journaling Just Works

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A place to discuss anything related to keeping a journal, a diary, a planner, a bullet journal, art/junk journal. Productivity, self-help, mindfulness, memory-keeping, creativity, project management or any other purpose.

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[Weekly Thread] #10 Changing the past through journaling? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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What is this WT?

We’ve a steadily growing community—Welcome to our 18 new members since last week, we're now 483 total!—but participation is growing slower.

My idea is to encourage people in participating more by pushing a weekly theme. It’s an invitation, not a mandatory theme. Feel free to comment about anything else related to journaling, or to start your own thread ;)

This week theme: If by journaling it you could change one thing in the past…

News aren't that great and I thought it might be an interesting way to reuse a classic sifi theme. So, if by journaling it, writing it or skecthing it down in your journal, you could change any past event, not something global like an election, a war, some castatrophic event, or anything like that but something directly linked to you daily or to the people close to you.

Would you use that power?
What would you change?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Hi, I'm one of the new subscribers. Thank you for all your work in this community.

As for your question, I probably wouldn't use the power, but that's because I only write things in my journal that I want to remember. For me, the journal is a place full of good and positive memories.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Hi, I’m one of the new subscribers.

Welcome :)

Thank you for all your work in this community.

Thx. That's not much. On Reddit, I was much of a lurker/commenter, seldom initiating anything but freshly debarked here and realizing how few of use were around, I decided I should try to be more active if I wanted things to change and the community to grow. Looking forward to the day I will be able to retire and enjoy all the other participants worki...posting and commenting hard while I take a nap on the couch ;)

As for your question, I probably wouldn’t use the power, but that’s because I only write things in my journal that I want to remember. For me, the journal is a place full of good and positive memories.

That's interesting. I never dared do that or not for very long, to be honest. But I understand why I would want to do it, and how would like to read my journal like that, even more so in times like the ones that are coming. It's a whole other type of tool, imho, and one that may be very helpful.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

I tend to write down postives and negatives. Otherwise I feel I get a glam'd up version of my past.

Blessed (and cursed) with a memory that can remember everything it sees, journaling helps me with my anxiety of waking up and not remembering.

Wouldn't you change the past to be able to add even more good stuff?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

New sub here after seeing it on fedigrow.

I do interstitial journaling as part of my PKM.

To answer the questions:

Would I? Even tough my mind feels a resolute "nope!", I would say yes, such power would just be too much to not use. (Or try). I would put small experiments first to see what can, and what the consequences are of changing the past.

What would I change? I would try to alter small events that caused me great grief later on but not the big things. I feel those have made me who I am, good or bad.

What I'd rather try to do is change the timeline to skip certain parts, like fast-forwarding in a movie. Go from my ex-gf to my now wife (without the rebounds and akward flirtings).

Change which friends I would meet sooner, so I'd have more time with them. Knowing friends come and go, the ones who stay.. I wish I could add years to those friendships.

Also change little habits that would improve my health down the line so I can live longer.

And maybe I would try to change my career, so I could have started where I am now but younger so I didn't burn-out on an ex-job. I do feel the burn-out forged me, so I might leave that in.

Tl; dr i'd change nothing big, just adjust the timeline and leave out everything that didn't change or add value to me as a person. (In a way I would Marie Kondo my past but keeling everything that made me feel, and dropping everything I'm indifferent for.)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

New sub here after seeing it on fedigrow.

Great! And welcome. I like to read and keep others updated in the fedigrow community, it's great to see the fediverse trying to get better (and it's cool to see people joining from there :)

I do interstitial journaling

I had to check that one. Would you agree to say it is kind of similar to the simple quick notes I take in no order in my pocket notebook (and later put back either as index cards in my zettelkasten, or in my journal in a more structured/linear fashion)?

Tl; dr i’d change nothing big,

Very similar to my own choice I would say. I will post about it later on.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Thanks for the warm welcome.

Well pretty much, but I used to try and journal (like write down how the day went and how I felt) but after a few weeks I would just skip it, which meant my journal was starting to become a empty notebook dotted with filled in half pages. I then tought to work the same as you, write down quick notes and add them up but found the workload too much to start.

When I found out about interstitial journaling, it pretty much fit in with my way of thinking and the fact I can add tasks and to-do's between it all makes for a very compelling journalling.

I use capacities.io right now, and it also allows for some easy markdown syntax so it usually looks a bit like:

08:00 - Woke up feeling rested, but not fully refreshed. Today is a big day at work and I have to get ready [ ] Prepare the desk for the new hire [ ] Take out the trash when coming home 10:12 - Met the new hire, he seems very hopefull and I hope I made a good first impression as I will be supervising him. I think I'm going to go for a lunch and .... 22:00 - in bed, I should be sleeping but today is keeping me up. Overthinking again. [ ] Do more breathing exercises (for the next day)

So whenever I have a break or think about it, I just @now - write down what I think, did, will do and I can add [ ] checkboxes for to-do's. Whenever I complete it I check it off, or at the end of the day I do a big review and check it all of. Often during slow moments I spend time cleaning up or adding more to previous days to beter convey what I meant at the moment. I find it helps me a lot to include everything, ups, downs, things I like, things I don't like.

I also have a whatsapp bot set up with it so I can just send quick whatsapp chats to add to my journaling and clean it up later.

The reason it works for me is I think because I always have a running tasklist in my head, and every time I check my tasks means I have a break, thus time to journal. While if I actively think about journaling, in which I sometimes can get very lost, seeing my tasks reminds me of the things on hand.

It's like a combo-deal and makes me feel more efficient, beter organized and I forget a lot less because it's been written and reviewed multiple times.