Journaling to keep a clear mind

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The renovation at home has thrown away most of my habits, which makes everyday life a bit more difficult. But one of the losses I have suffered the most is journaling. In the morning, one of the first things I would do is sit down and write. Typically I would write about the day before, going through it. This process helps me to assimilate emotions that had gone under the rack or how decisions were taken or if priorities were met or, even, if there are some patterns in my actions or hidden intentions in my choices.

This process helps me to understand myself better and also to improve in all aspects of life. It is a way of keeping the mind and the emotions clean. It is also a way of learning from the experiences rather than just being swept by them.

I did do journaling during the last 2 weeks and, combined with the fact that teaching has started, my level of stress has increased. Funny thing, when things get a bit overwhelming, I stress, and then, I lose clarity of mind. Clarity of mind is what I need to take the right decisions and actions. So, of course, the first thing I need to do is to re-gain clarity of mind. How? Journaling (and some physical exercise).

So I started again journaling (also finally life is starting to go almost back to normal). The point is, even though I knew that journaling was important for my well-being, I did not realize to which point is important to help me keep clarity of mind.

And this is challenging: I have been working at full speed, full time, with my team, doing research, organising events, and now teaching comes and somehow there is a massive collision because the number of hours per day does not increase and everything has to be compressed. But the more demanding the situation, the more clarity of mind is needed.

We always need clarity of mind and I think a team leader needs it constantly. There are many decisions to make, in particular, how to make use of time and resources; and the need to make decisions comes all the time and about unexpected things. Yes, I am a decision-making machine.




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