Monday, March 5, 2018

Parting with Journals, Taking Journals Apart

It is already past my bed time, and I have at least two more things to write, so this will probably actually be a short post. Spend aaaaallll day decluttering in the "paper's" category. The KonMari method has you sort things by category, to make it go quicker. I definitely recommend her way of doing things. It's about 10 times less stressful and more productive and less liable to get sidetracked.)

The first leg of it was quite easy, though still time consuming. But the second part was the killer. I have a lot of journals. Some are personal, some are notes from various classes that I've taken. Most of the personal journals were really more about me writing to think, and are not worth a second look. But every now and then, there is a powerful dream, or big life event, that I definitely want to be able to refer back to. And it's nice having at least a smattering of journal entries, so I can go back and have my memory refreshed, if I'm thinking about a certain time in my life.

On the other hand... I can't remember the last time I've actually done that. The bottom line is, I thought letting go of my books was difficult, but letting go of my journals is ten times worse. Books can be replaced, if it turns out I do need them. Journals are irreplaceable. So I saved them for last, and I'm still not through all of them. It's giving me new perspectives on what I want to be journaling, now. Rather than having to go back through my journals and rip out the few entries that I want to keep, I wonder if I can separate them out into two different journals. A thinking journal, and a remembering journal.

It feels so good to be getting rid of all the excess though, I worked basically straight through the day, morning till night, with total focus. The challenge is actually just ripping myself away long enough to take care of my other priorities, which currently feel like flies that are just distracting me from my work. Oh how I love having long, uninterrupted stretches to focus on completing one thing at a time.

Welp, time for sleep, so I can get up and start again tomorrow bright and early...

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