Journal Jam Fall 2022 Day 2

[annofowlshire]

Day 2 Question:

Do you keep your old journals/planners, or do you get rid of them? If you keep them, how do you store them, and do you have a longterm plan for them? If you get rid of them, do you throw them away? Burn them? Something else?

(If you answer elsewhere, drop us a link in the comments.)

Comments

[thistleingrey]

I don't have many and they're mostly A6 or B5 size, so they're lined up on part of one shelf on a bookcase! They don't have content I'd worry about my kid seeing, now or later. Some personal thoughts are in a notetaking app I've used for years, which I might delete before she gains access to my digital files. (I have casual access to one parent's passwords to serve as informal helpdesk, and power of attorney for the other, who lives in a long-term care facility; these are things I've had to ponder in detail for myself, not random concern.)

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*

I think it's good to ponder these things early rather than too late.

Destroy

[oldtoadwoman]

There's sometimes a fuzzy line between "journal" and "sketchbook" or "scrapbook", so I do have two or three "journals" that I haven't destroyed. (I keep all my sketchbooks and just have them stored in a box in my closet.) But anything that is pure journal gets destroyed almost as soon as I complete it. I flip through it and copy out anything important into the next journal and then tear it up. (I really wish I had a backyard firepit because burning feels like a nice symbolic act of releasing the past.)

I think I'm embarrassed by the idea that anyone would read my journal and I think it's a three-way tie between weird thoughts, to-dos that were never done, and to-dos that at this point in my life I feel like I should remember to do without writing myself a note.

Re: Destroy

[lunabee34]

Setting things on fire is so wonderfully cathartic, isn't it?

Re: Destroy

[oldtoadwoman]

Fire is so pretty! (When it's not out of control and terrifying.)

Re: Destroy

[lunabee34]

So true!

[lassarina]

My old planners are lined up on a bookshelf; right now there are six, and I'm not sure they have any specific value even to me, but I keep most things. I don't have a long-term plan right now, but it's partly due to that fact that I keep them. What if I throw them out and then want them later?!

[lunabee34]

The eternal question: if I toss this, will I regret it?

[moomintroll]

I keep all of mine because they're my memories. I don't journal in an emotional or angsty way, it's mostly introspection and what I got up to. Keeping my journals allows me to go back and see my growth, or sometimes even where I've stagnated to help me see how I need to change course. I often scrapbook in my journals too, and keep tickets to everything so they feel like real time capsules and are something I enjoy looking back through.

I don't have too many right now as I only started seriously journaling in 2018 so they're easy to store in a box under my bed. I'd like to eventually have a bookshelf I can put them on in my private office. Obviously they're not something I necessarily want others reading, but it's not deeply private enough to be under lock and key either.

I did have some older angsty journals, and I destroyed them. I just tore out the pages and put them through the shredder, and then put the book in the recycling. Nowadays I vent on loose paper so I can just throw it away after a few days as sometimes it's beneficial to get all of that stuff out and can help me see answers, but it's usually irrelevant after the situation has passed.

[lunabee34]

I have a terrible memory, and I feel the same way about my journals. They really help me remember my life in a way that I would not be able to without them.

[kalloway]

Day One & Two are both lurking in here.

The short answer is all of the above.

[lunabee34]

Hard same on tearing out the planner page and chucking it. It's so satisfying. I have finished with you, task! You are completed and defeated! LOL

[el_staplador]

My personal journals are all in boxes in the loft. I've found it very useful to be able to look back through them and see where my mind was at a particular time. I use a Filofax for planning, and tend to ditch the previous year's pages a few weeks into January.

My father died earlier this year and we've been sorting out generations' worth of personal ephemera. The rule we're using when deciding whether or not to keep something is: does this tell me about the person it belonged to? If not, it can go. Engagement diaries tend to be in the 'not' pile; personal journals, not so much. But all this is also making me more mindful of what I do and don't hang onto.

[thistleingrey]

Hey, I hear you.

One of my parents is in care, and when I cleaned out the apartment (because they wouldn't be living alone without help, ever again), it was poignant to skim a datebook that showed evidence of trying to hold onto memory and basic observation. Every few months, a notation of me (the only child) and a few other names. "Does this tell me about the person it belonged to" sounds like a great rule of thumb--I have one or two more rounds of culling to do, so it's useful, thank you.

[lunabee34]

I'm sorry for your loss.

I also find it useful (and entertaining) to reread my journals. I have a terrible memory, so they help me hang on to the small moments I would otherwise forget.

[lunabee34]

The searchability of digital is a huge advantage. I love my paper journals, but if I want to find when something happened quickly, I search my dreamwidth.

[olivermoss]

For now, yes. I don't have a lot of old ones yet. For now having them in case I need to check something makes a lot of sense.

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*

[seleneheart]

I keep all my bullet journals. They are a helpful resource because of the things I track and record. I store them in a basket on my desk.

As for my planners - when I was teaching, I would keep the last year's planner in my desk to reference when we did things, how long it took, and other things to help me plan the current year. Up until a couple of months ago, I kept all my previous years teacher planners in a box in my closet along with other teaching souvenirs. I cleaned my closet out and threw them away in May. Sometimes the *weight* of things I possess gets to me and I go through a splurge of tossing things out.

[lunabee34]

That resonates with me very much. I am a person who very much enjoys a periodic purge, and I know exactly what you mean by the way it just feels so much lighter to purge things you aren't going to use anymore.

[thenerdygirl]

I keep them currently and store them on a shelf in my closet. I do question myself periodically about what I'm going to do with them because they're starting to add up and keep coming back to keeping them. In the past couple of years I've re-reading or flipping through them to be helpful for a couple of reasons.

One, I've been doing a lot of work on my mental health the last four years and it's been encouraging to see the progress I've made, especially when I lose sight of it. Two, it helps me relive memories of my loved ones who have passed away or are no longer part of my life. I have a bit of anxiety about Alzheimer's and part of me wonders if my old journals might help me if I start to forget things.

[lunabee34]

I think it's fantastic that you're able to see the progress you've made. What a wonderful feeling and what good reason to hang on to those journals--to have that tangible reminder of how far you've come. *hugs*

[severina]

I keep all of mine. I'm not entirely sure WHY I keep the daily and monthly type ones. I can't see myself going back through them, although writing in them and stickering them up was fun. I will definitely always keep my reading ones with my book tracking and reviews, though.

[lunabee34]

I am a huge re-reader, so I always enjoy seeing how my feelings about a book have changed over time.

[annofowlshire]

I do a purge every decade or two. I’ve done some post purges on my old LJ, and I’m sure I’ll do some on my newer DW at some point. I’ve abandoned many a planner app over the years and whatever their contents were. I even lost a few years worth of 750 Words journaling (a couple million words) when I purged that, which I sort of regret now only because I’m using it again and I don’t have a free founder account anymore. But all the stuff in it? I didn’t need that anymore.

I didn’t have many pen and paper records from before 2014 but much of what I had I don’t have anymore so I imagine I must have shredded them at some point. From around 2014*, I have amassed a ton of paper journals/planners (and longhand written fiction) and they are all stuffed into various drawers and such in my office. I do need to go through them at some point, though, as I’m pretty much out of space.

(My life went through a series of major upheavals around 2012-16 in which many things were lost or purposely discarded/destroyed until the remains of my life fit into a tiny corner of a shared 20 foot container and I moved to a new country.)

[lunabee34]

I am a periodic purger of all things. I find it cathartic.

The only thing I've ever purged on my LJ/DW are some private posts I thought the better of making in retrospect, though.

[annofowlshire]

Usually instead of truly purging on LJ/DW I tend to make a post private, but I did some years ago go back and simply delete some old whiny posts I’d made back when I was like 20 and posted about every moment/feeling of my day 😂

[lunabee34]

Planners get thrown away when they are used up.

Journals get saved. Older ones from childhood and college are in boxes in my closet. I took a bit of a hiatus from handwritten journaling in my 30s and relied mostly on DW. The more recent journals from my 40s are in a cupboard in my office.

[mothereader]

Right now i'm keeping all my Bullet Journals and planners on one of the shelves. I got into the habit of making a note in them when something significant happens in my life and that comes in useful.

Practically, i only reference the last year's planner/journal, so if i ever decide that i didn't want to keep them long-term, i'd at least keep them for a year or two.

[lunabee34]

That's smart; that way you can reference the most likely to be useful time without sacrificing the space to keep them all.

[ai]

https://mana.dreamwidth.org/4897489.html

I'm on the fence about tossing out the older ones especially since they aren't as easily protected, but with all of the advancements made to preserve books these days... perhaps it's not necessary?

[lunabee34]

I know what you mean about trying to figure out the line between hoarding and preserving but for me journals are always going to fall on the save side.

[badfalcon]

Old planners and diaries get shredded and gotten rid of when they're finished with, bujo attempts are stored on a bookshelf where I keep university notes and textbooks

[lunabee34]

What makes the bujo attempts worth keeping where the others aren't? Is there something in them that you want to refer to after the fact?

[badfalcon]

The diaries and planners were more just 'x thing happening on y date', whereas the bujos had more collections, more information in them as well as just to the to-do lists. There's also a feel of the effort I put into creating the spreads made them more worth keeping than a 99p diary from Tesco.

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*

That makes sense.