How to start and keep a journal during a pandemic (or any time of major upheaval)
Since the coronavirus started spreading through the U.S., I’ve seen a lot of people telling others that now is a good time to start and keep a journal. Which… sure, yes, if you want to!
When I was working on Dot Journaling, I read a ton of academic writing about diaries throughout history, and one of the things I learned is that people are drawn to keeping diaries during times of major change. (Also, fun [???] fact: when I went to Bookshop to search for Dot Journaling earlier today, I noticed a section called “Perspective on Pandemics” on the home page, and the first book listed was the diary of my arch nemesis, Samuel Pepys.) Journaling is also a good coping mechanism and way to process feelings. And when things are changing super quickly, formerly solid concepts like “days of the week” seem utterly preposterous, and your brain feels overloaded and foggy, it’s safe to say that you’re probably not going to remember things as well as you might want to.
That said, it’s hard to do much of anything right now, and journaling shouldn’t be another chore or source of stress during a highly stressful, chore-filled time. So with that in mind, I thought I’d share some low-key ideas for keeping a journal during a pandemic (or any bad time), if you’re so inclined.
Use whatever journal you have and will actually use.
Now is not the time to search for the perfect notebook; it’s the time to make do with what you have and will actually use—a notebook you bought but never used, a legal pad, a spiral notebook, Google Docs, an app, whatever. Make things as easy on yourself as possible right now.
Simply save all of your to-do lists.
A to-do list is usually a very good snapshot of what matters to you at a given time, and that’s definitely been true for me during our current situation. If you keep a separate work notebook and home notebook, it might not be a bad idea to combine them and just keep one (as so many of our work lives and home lives collapse into each other). And if you keep a single undated running task list, you might want to think about making new lists each day or week so you can add a date for context.
Also think about adding things like Zoom calls with friends or nice things you’re planning to do at home to your to-do list; even if these don’t feel like tasks, they are still things you did and very much paint a picture of what your life is like right now.
If a to-do list doesn’t seem like it “counts” as a journal/diary, consider that this is actually very much what diaries looked like until the late nineteenth century. It was only fairly recently that the more “I” centric, “here are all my thoughts and feelings” diaries became the predominant way we conceptualize diaries. Historical diaries actually looked a lot like dot journals, format-wise. (Also consider the fact that “diary” is the word Brits use for what most of us in the U.S. would call an agenda or planner.)
Save all of your receipts in one place or write down your purchases.
Your to-do lists cover how you’re spending your time; it’s also a good idea to note how you’re spending your money. You could either add purchases as they happen to your to-do list each day, or keep a running list for the month on a separate page.
Keep a recipe diary.
I got this idea from my friend Emily, an NYT Cooking editor; she said she got it from Jenny Rosenstrach, who has been keeping a recipe journal for 20+ years. By the way, it’s not too late to do this — Emily’s starts on 3/12, but she told me she put it together a few days ago “based on photos in my camera roll basically.” (BTW, here’s how to search your camera roll by date.)
Just write down what a day in your life looks like right now.
You can either do this in real time or do it later, writing out what an average day’s routine looks like right now. Make note of what time you’re getting up; what you do first, second, third, etc. each morning; and all the new chores that are a part of your daily life. You could also do this once a week or every few weeks to track how things are changing.
Remember that journaling doesn’t need to involve writing a lot of feelings in full sentences.
When I’m recapping my day in my journal, I use dashes to jot down quick notes instead of writing in full sentences. (I also keep the dash format if I want to do full sentences.) Doing it this way is way lower lift and basically removes the mental hurdle of “Ugh, I have to sit down and write.”
If you just want to brain dump/cope, consider doing morning pages.
Here’s a guide I wrote about morning pages few years ago.
If you want a lower-lift/less frequent option, you could email yourself or add to a Google Doc once a week.
You could use a format similar to my weekly newsletter — what you read, cooked/ate, listened to, bought, watched, etc. And if you want to flesh out your email with more personal thoughts or notable moments from the week, you could do that too.
Just put together one big March recap.
If you’re feeling like it’s too late to start keeping a journal, you could do one big entry for all of March. I actually did this the other night, using my Google calendar, planner/to-do lists, texts, and camera roll. I was able to date all the events that felt significant (for example, February 27 is the day my girlfriend listened to an episode of “The Daily” that really scared her and so we started sanitizing our hands a ton when we were out in public) and a put together a pretty accurate record of how we (and our friends, and our workplaces) were thinking about the coronavirus and changing our behavior day-to-day throughout March.
Be a teeny tiny bit less vague than you might naturally be.
As someone who has kept diaries for 20 years, I can tell you that you won’t remember important context as well as you might think you will in a couple decades, even for things that feel super significant as they are happening. This isn’t a huge thing to worry about, but if you’re journaling with Future You or Future Historians in mind, I recommend it. You don’t necessarily have to write “Today I read an article in the New York Times, a newspaper, which I accessed through the app (application) on my iPhone”... but you might want to do small things — like, say, add, “(neighbor)” or “(restaurant)” next to a person’s or business’s name.
Or don’t, if doing this is too much work and would stress you out!!!
Remember that a journal or diary can look like anything.
Photos, texts, receipts, calendar invites, memes, tweets, articles, playlists, emails…these are all excellent records of what is happening in your life right now. You don’t have to start tagging stuff or make a huge effort to collect everything in a single place right now, but it’s not a bad idea to be a little more mindful of retention right now. Things that are dated and searchable, like your personal email or calendar, will be there in a few years, but think about what won’t be super easy to pull up later (like work emails or texts) and find a low-key way to save/find them.
Know that nothing is too mundane or small to be recorded.
It’s easy to operate from the mindset that journaling is a Serious Endeavor, especially during a pandemic. I think that belief is mostly rooted in the parts of history — and the lives — that we’ve been taught to believe matter.
But the things we do every day — the people we talk to, the things we eat and buy, the clothes we wear, the art and entertainment we consume, the traditions and rituals and routines and trends we create and take part in — aren’t background noise. They are, in large part, what life in a given culture at a specific time is. And no one can know, in the moment, what is going to be “interesting” in 10 or 20 or 30 years, or even what we’ll personally wish, a week from now, that we had recorded when we had the chance.
So if you think that the way you’re spending your days right now — FaceTiming, creating or acquiring masks, getting creative with beans, watching TikToks — doesn’t “count” or matter enough to be remembered, I would encourage you to let go of some of the biases that might be influencing your thinking. “Normal” people’s experiences are extremely relevant to our understanding of history. But also, you don’t have to keep a diary for big picture reasons. You can just…do it for yourself, because you feel like it.
I’ll leave you with something Charlotte Forten Grimké, a black teacher and anti-slavery activist, wrote in her diary in May of 1854:
“A wish to record the passing events of my life, which, even if quite unimportant to others, naturally possess a great interest to myself, and of which it will be pleasant to have some remembrance, has induced me to commence this journal. I feel that keeping a diary will be pleasant and profitable employment of my leisure hours, and will afford me much pleasure in after years, by recalling to my mind the memories of other days, thoughts of much-loved friends from whom I may be separated, with whom I now pass many happy hours, in taking delightful walks, and holding ‘sweet converse’; the interesting books that I read; and the different people, places and things that I am permitted to see.” ✨