The Non-Journal

This article was first published by the Happiness Project.

My happiness project has convinced me of the tremendous value of reminders that help prompt happy memories.

Studies show that recalling happy times helps boost happiness in the present. Also, when people reminisce, they focus on positive memories, with the result that recalling the past amplifies the positive and minimizes the negative.

However, because people remember events better when they fit with their present mood, while happy people remember happy events better, depressed people remember sad events better—which makes them feel worse.

Many of my happiness-project resolutions help me preserve my happy memories: “Be a treasure house of happy memories,” take time for projects, and keep a one-sentence journal.

Judging from the response on my blog and from the number of people using this tool on the Happiness Project Toolbox, this last resolution—to keep a one-sentence journal—has resonated with lots of people.

My idea for the one-sentence journal was simple: like many people, I had the urge to keep a journal, but I gave it up because it took so much effort. By resolving to write just one daily sentence, I could stick to it. Writing one sentence is enough to be satisfying—yet also manageable.

My one-sentence journal is just a general journal, but I’ve heard from people who keep journals about a child’s first year, about starting a new business, about fighting cancer, about observations of nature.

This week, I came up with another way to record important memories. I bought a blank, lined notebook with a blue bird on the cover (because blue birds are a symbol of happiness and my happiness project). On the top of each page, I put a calendar date without a year: January 1, January 2, etc.

From now on, whenever anything significant happens on a particular day, I’ll write it on that date with the year. So, for example:

August 3
2009: first night in my new apartment in a new city, San Diego
2011: bought my dog Sandy
2012: finally finished the tree house

This notebook will fill in very slowly, but after a decade or so, I’ll be able to look back on any particular day and remember the most significant events from my past—a quick, succinct way of keeping track of my personal highlights.