Same Time, Same Place
I may or may not keep my journal under the sink in the bathroom. Before you say eww, let me tell you why I may or may not do this. There are two things that I never lose: my keys and my glasses. Others may lose them for me, but I do not lose them because walking through the front door is my physical cue to hang my keys on the hook as I take off my shoes, and washing my face before bed at night is my cue to take off my glasses and put them on the window sill in the bathroom. I don’t have to remember to do these things because my daily inevitables do it for me. For most people, going to the bathroom is the only guaranteed 5-10 (ish) minutes of alone time you get every day, and it’s usually the same time every day. Walking into the bathroom and sitting down can become your cue to record a few brief details of the day. If you’re worried about germs, keep your little journal and a pen in a little baggy–just make sure that wherever you put it is within arm’s reach of the toilet because you know you won’t think of it until you’re already sitting down, and no one likes to scissor it. And if you’re still completely grossed out by the idea of writing in your journal while taking care of business, forget that I may or may not have said anything.
The important thing is to have a cue that will come up every day like clockwork. What about you? What cues might you use to remind you daily to write in your journal? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below!
He-he, love it. Well for me it wasn’t journaling that I needed to set a routine for, it was journaling’s sibling ‘morning pages’ I routinely failed at; everyday life just sort of ‘distracted’ me. [Grin]
But one thing I do everyday is sit down to the keyboard to work, but e-mail, news, social sites had a bad habit of being looked at first. Things had to change!
Not an Earth shattering change mind you, but a little prod type change.
I Googled for websites that listed “Why it is a good thing to do morning pages”, found one that had a pleasing appearance and set it up as my home page.
Then in the start-up menu I set my web browser to launch automatically when the pc turned on, (it’s not hard, you just copy and paste the browser icon into the start-up folder).
It is not a huge thing, like you said in your “hypothetical scenario” above [Grin] I just need a cue, a little reminder, a gentle prod. That was all.
That is such a fabulous use of technology to incorporate cues in your daily routine. Thanks for sharing!