Andrew Melder

It’s all about finding the right medium that fits you best

If you spend enough time looking at the benefits of journaling online, you will find some guidance around the medium to use to capture your thoughts.

Many will advise of the benefits of handwriting in a paper (or digital paper) journal; and science has shown the engagement with different parts of the brain when handwriting compared to typing on a keyboard. There’s also a slightly romantic notion of sitting down on a comfortable chair with a warm drink nearby, and handwriting your morning thoughts (or whatever time journaling works best for you).

There’s others that will advise on using the technology that we have everyday with us to journal your thoughts throughout the day; either using an app on your phone or even capturing voice notes to journal.

There’s no right or wrong answer here; however I tried to start a handwriting journaling practice for years with limited success. My journaling method was solidified recently when moving to a digital word processor.

Why typing works for me over handwriting

Being an elder millennial with early access to computers, I grew up with technology. While we were still handwriting all our assessments at school, there were computer labs and typing classes in primary school. I personally had access to computers before 10, putting together 286 PCs with my now brother-in-law before being able to get a 386 machine of our own (good old Packard Bell).

With that exposure to computers at such a young age, it wasn’t long before I was comfortable typing; and soon after I was more comfortable typing than I was handwriting.

Moving forward to today, while I can handwrite decently well it’s still not something I do often enough to ever be truly comfortable with it. I think as a society, many are in the same boat. Most of the documents we need to make now are digital; typed on a keyboard, a phone or even dictated with our voices.

So when I’ve tried to handwrite in either a paper or digital eink journal it’s not too long before I get frustrated with it; either because of mistakes in my handwriting or through general fatigue cause I’m not used to handwriting so much at any given time.

Some might find the benefits of handwriting a journal outweigh these downsides, but they have always presented a frustration and a barrier to myself. Getting my thoughts out of my head onto a page is always difficult and takes time.

Anything that introduces extra friction into that process adds frustration, distracting from the value of journaling in the first place.

Typing allows me to not focus on the medium or my frustrations with it, instead focusing more purely on getting the thoughts onto a page. There’s times where I can even get into a flow state when typing up my thoughts or something I’m working on (like this post).

My natural comfort with typing removes a layer of friction from my head to words on a page.

Why I prefer physical keyboards and a dedicated device to journal over smartphones and apps

I mentioned in my post on the Clicks keyboard accessory for the iPhone that I much prefer typing on a physical keyboard (even a Blackberry style keyboard) over any touch screen phone keyboard that is the default in the modern smartphone era.

This isn’t because I’m necessarily more accurate or faster on a physical keyboard, indeed it might very well be the opposite. However typing on physical keys is a tactile experience that encourages me to type more; something virtual keyboards lack for me, no matter how good the vibration feedback is.

So for a while, I was journaling on an old PSION PDA device. While its cramped, mushy physical keyboard presented some challenges; ultimately typing on this device was more encouraging and productive for myself.

Since that device died, I’ve moved my journaling onto a Writer Forte word processor (which is what I’m writing this post on).

There’s another reason why smartphones are not the best method of journaling for me, which is distraction. The distracting nature of phones and apps is covered extensively elsewhere, so I won’t expand too much here. But it is detrimental to the writing flow if your thoughts and attention are constantly disrupted by notifications, emails, messages, or anything else on your phone that draws your attention away from your thoughts as you journal.

Again, I’m not saying this is a steadfast rule. Some people have found great success in using their phone to journal their thoughts throughout their day.

Experiment and see what works best for you, like I have with myself.