A simple journaling exercise that is building my life

“Today I’m grateful for... oh wait, I have to remember to... I really want to make sourdough bread...”

Three pages of writing, whatever comes to mind. That’s all it is. 

I have always kept a journal but have never been consistent with writing in it. When I was a little kid, the pages were more or less filled with my frustration about situations like my sister eating the last popsicle. However, my entries have evolved, and I now have finally acquired a habit of journaling. 

In search of a way to revamp my life with the new year approaching, I searched YouTube and came across many motivational personal growth videos, all with similar headlines along the lines of “Goal Setting in 2026” or “Maximizing Productivity.” While watching a myriad of these over breaks, I stumbled across one that recommended the simple exercise: just writing until three pages are full. 

Previously, I had attempted to answer journaling prompts designed to make you think deeply about yourself regularly. I often found myself trying to craft the perfect, philosophical and insightful response — even when I didn’t always have that response within me. Those types of prompts can be beneficial for self-growth, but they do not feel sustainable to incorporate on a daily basis. It’s hard to be in the right headspace to think and write in such a way all the time, especially when getting further into the semester, where there is an exam to study for every week. In fact, rather than feeling like an opportunity to write freely and relieve stress, journaling had started to feel like writing for a neglected assignment due at 11:59 p.m. — failing to do so one day would ruin the continuity aesthetic of dates in my journal. 

Contrary to having fixed prompts, this journaling exercise asks for only one thing: just start writing. Starting can often be the hardest part, but with this exercise, it’s surprisingly easy, as you can even begin with the line “I don’t know what to write,” which I have done many times. But naturally, I still manage to fill up all three pages with text. With this exercise, I no longer feel pressure to craft a coherent masterpiece that reveals something about my innermost self.

Looking through my entries, I see run-on sentences, fragments, and both unfinished and complete thoughts that somehow made sense in the moment, but I can’t make sense of them now. And that’s okay. These entries are simply a tangible piece of my stream of consciousness. Whether I write about the tasks I have for that day or lessons of the past and future, doing so helps me get the day going and gives me a soothing sensation of mental clarity. 

Moreover, aside from serving as a resort where my thoughts can freely float and relax along a lazy river, my journal has witnessed some pondering thoughts spring into action.

I had seen countless social media posts of people enthusiastically involved with the sourdough making process, from them feeding their sourdough starters to the ASMR of cutting into a freshly baked, crunchy and airy loaf. 

Baking bread has always been in the back of my head, and randomly mentioned in my journal entries, but a friend and I finally got our hands on a sourdough starter and successfully baked our first loaf. 

Although purchasing bread may be more time-efficient, there is just something about making it from scratch that brings me this unmatched feeling of joy and fulfillment I wouldn’t get from just consuming store-bought bread. Stretching and folding the dough every 30 minutes and waiting for it to rise seems tedious and tests my patience — yet it is also a therapeutic and calming experience. 

All in all, I can foresee a sourdough era coming ahead. It’s been interesting to witness how this habit of journaling has been helping with my work-life balance — both in a mental health sense and in a literal sense, as there is so much potential for the lingering thoughts I have written on these pages to manifest into side quests. 

Catherine Chan is a freshman majoring in Public Health and Molecular and Cellular Biology from Potomac, Md. She is a Social Media Manager for The News-Letter.