I was in a WhatsApp group with some friends talking about journaling, and two things surprised me. First, 5 out of 7 people in the group already journal, I was expecting one or two. Second, everyone does it at a different time of day.
Most of them were either morning or night people. Almost nobody journals in the middle of the day. And when I asked why, I realized they were not just picking a random time, they were getting different things from it.
What you get from morning journaling
When I journal in the morning, my brain is still quiet. Nothing has gone wrong yet. No messages, no problems, nothing urgent from the outside world, but sometimes my mind is already racing. You know when you wake up, look at the ceiling and start to think about the number of tasks that you have to do?
So, I use that window to figure out what actually matters today. My entries are short, usually the three most important things I need to do, and if something is already making me anxious, I write it down so I can stop carrying it in my head. I will deal with it later, for now I just need to park it somewhere.
Morning journaling is basically pre-processing. You are setting up your brain before the day starts.
One person mentioned the Morning Pages, where the idea was to open the notebook, and just let your mind wander for around 15 or 30 minutes. As simple as that, there is no structure, no clear goal, no rules, just a timer.
Morning Pages is a journaling practice developed by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way, and she talks about writing the three pages, but I liked the idea of just having a timer to prevent distractions and no other rules.
What you get from night journaling
Night journaling is a completely different thing. You are not planning anymore, you are looking back.
After a full day of doing things and talking to people, there is a lot of stuff your brain never got to process. Writing at night gives you space to do that. The friends in my group who journal at night all said something similar: it helps them close the day. One of them described it as "emptying the bucket."
There is also a real sleep benefit. A 2018 study from the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that writing a to-do list before bed helped people fall asleep about nine minutes faster. If you are someone who lies in bed with your brain still running, you know exactly what those nine minutes feel like.
I do a mix of both, most of the days, I just review what happened, and I have some structure for this. However, when I have some feelings or a hard situation to process, I go for a free format journal where I just transfer what I have inside my head to an app. Yes, I prefer to type, which is not the most popular way among my friends.
Which one should you pick
Honestly neither is better, they are just good for different things.
If your days feel chaotic and you spend most of the day reacting to things, morning journaling could help you to add some structure to it. If emotions build up and never get released, or you have trouble sleeping, night journaling is the better fit.
During stressful work weeks I journal in the morning because I need to see my priorities before everything starts. During weeks when something difficult is happening, I journal at night because I need to make sense of what happened, not plan what is next.
Some people do both. I have tried it and it works when I have the energy, most weeks I do not.
If you need help to find templates, you can check some free Journaling Templates here.
The honest thing about timing
The best time to journal is the time you will actually do it, not the optimal time, the time that does not require you to fight yourself to sit down.
Pick the time that fits your life, write for five minutes, see what happens. If you do lik the method, try a different one, if you are not enjoying any method, just go for a free format.
If you want to try a journaling app that actually does something with what you write, Pensio is free at pensio.app.
