Daily Pages

Short version

Write a daily diary. Choose a medium you like, pen and paper, a nice notebook, a computer, whatever. Make sure it is not read by anyone but yourself. Write at least one page per day.

Rationale and tips

Why should you write a diary? It sounds so childish. Ok, so we call it daily pages, instead of diary. You write at least one page every day. The topic does not matter much. Write about the things that are on your mind. Write about the first thing that comes to your mind. If you have no idea what to write, begin writing "I have no idea what I should write. This feels silly..." Just start writing. The ideas will come. If you write your daily page, sooner or later you will start writing about yourself - about your life, your dreams, your hopes, your disappointments. You might understand more about yourself as you write it down. It might also be that you only understand it if you read your entries later on. The daily pages are meant as a means of self-exploration.

Tip 1: Find a place and time of the day when you are undisturbed. Writing is much more difficult if you have to interrupt it every two minutes to answer some question or do some task.
Tip 2: Make sure nobody reads your daily pages. They are meant as a tool for self-exploration, and for this it is important that you can be honest with yourself. You will not be that if somebody else reads your pages or if you are not sure somebody else reads them. That is also the reason why I think blogging is no substitute for daily pages. Most people will not be as honest and open if the whole world can read what they write. Password-protect the file on your computer if you have to. Buy a notebook with a lock if necessary. My personal protection is my handwriting - it is bad enough that it would take most people a lot of time to get through my pages :-).
Tip 3: Write your daily pages in the morning if you want to find out about your hopes and dreams. Write your daily pages in the evening if you want to find out about your behaviour patterns and your problems. I started writing a daily diary after reading Julia Cameron's books on creativity [The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, 1992]. There, the author recommends what she calls "morning pages", three pages written for yourself every morning, writing down whatever comes to your mind, as a tool to increase creativity and to deal with writer's block. So, I owe the inspiration to this exercise to Julia Cameron. She recommends writing in the morning because that means you will look forward towards the day in your writing. If you write in the evening, you probably will focus on looking back at the day. This is something you can exploit if you have the possibility. If you do not have it, just pick the time that is most comfortable for you. The most important part about it is that you write the daily pages.
Tip 4: Reread your daily pages after a while. Write the pages, and put them away at first. Let some time go by. Reread your daily pages after a month, after half a year. Skim read the pages. See what patterns are emerging, what problems are repeating itself, what hopes you have expressed repeatedly. A lot of insight into yourself is hidden in those pages - do not let it go to waste by not looking at it again.