About "Rules"

There are no rules for journaling, only guidelines and preferences. What do you want your journal to do for you? What structures would allow it to do that?

There are so, so, so many different styles of journaling out there, and no two people have quite the same setup. Some people swear by elaborate formatting that takes them an hour to set up before they can write the entry itself. Some people journal with a Bic ballpoint on looseleaf paper that they staple together sometimes. Some people prefer to write for an imaginary audience. Some people burn their finished journals. Some people do best with set journaling times, while others stick to an "if we think about it, we do it" tactic. I could go on.

If you keep individual journals, then your personal setup is going to be unique to you, but a big part of having a shared System Journal is finding ways to coexist despite different formatting preferences and/or journaling goals. The challenge comes in allowing your journal to change with you or in compromising on a shared format.

That's where Rule Two comes in: at any time, you all may agree to do something a certain way. That agreement might help keep the peace, make conversation easier, or otherwise help you get along in the journal, but it should help you journal in some way.

A rule isn't working? Remember Rule One: there are no rules. You can always try something else. Rules should help you share the space, not get in the way of using that space in the first place.

As for starting: As soon as you've gotten a thought out of your head somewhere vaguely reflective, you've successfully journaled. Keep going.

Our Journaling Setup

Your journal is probably going to look very different from our current setup, but I'm hoping that ours gives you ideas about what your own system journal(s) could be like.

We keep four journals right now:

One lined A5 journal that acts as a catch-all for thoughts and communication. We call it the "main journal" for a reason, and it was our only journal for a long time. When in doubt, check this one. (See footnote 1)

One blank A6 journal that lives in our pocket. Useful for work, going out, etc. Also great for brainstorming in. We added this journal when the main journal became impractical to carry in some situations, but we still wanted something to capture our thoughts with.

One chunky, specialized A5 journal designed to capture one four-line entry per day for ten years. Extremely useful for figuring out when something happened in the semi-recent past (or what happened at all). It's also proven its worth by making seasonal patterns in our mood obvious.

One orange three-ring binder that we leave on our desk when actively debating major or long-term decisions. Used to keep the debate somewhere that we can actually find it. Also contains printed copies of system agreements for archival/reference, brain-fixing documents in case of emergency, etc.

This setup is something that we've figured out by trial and error- if something snags, then we change our journaling habits to fix the snag and keep improving upon it as we go.

Our rules for our main and mini journals:

There are no rules. If a rule stops helping or being fun, then suggest changing or removing the rule.

No thought is too small, ridiculous, absurd, or out of context. If you think, "I should write that down," then write it down.

Do not write for future historians, potential snoopers, etc. Write for yourself or our system. Do not self-censor. (See footnote 2)

You are not required to identify yourself in entries, but it is appreciated if you're comfortable doing so. (See footnote 3)

Avoid censoring each other, but respect it when it happens. If we see something crossed out or blotted over, then we will assume that it would be destabilizing or dangerous to know, and we will not attempt to read it anyway.

You don't have to be nice, but you do need to be respectful. Insult someone all you want, but don't rip up the drawing that they spent four hours on, and don't deny their right to share the space. Let them speak.

Mark the first entry of each day with the date in YYYY-MM-DD format (see footnote 4). Days start at 00:00.

If two entries are separated by time or topic within the same day, then leave a blank line between them.

You do not have to use timestamps, but you may note the time if you would like to. 24-hour timestamps are preferred for clarity.

Doodling in the journal counts as journaling.

Taping things into the journal counts as journaling.

Sticking things into the journal's inside pocket for safekeeping counts as journaling.

Completed journals are archived for safe-keeping and future reference.

Our journaling setup might be pretty personal to us because everyone likes to journal for different reasons and in different ways. We journal to process the contents of our head, talk to each other, brainstorm, problem-solve, and keep a grasp on time passing.

Many of our rules are compromises that allow us to accomplish our goals while sharing pages with each other. Sharing space means that we have to respect that shared space. Someone else's entry can be written over or destroyed, for example. The physicality of the journal entries was something we had to account for.

I'd honestly say that sharing physical space in our earliest journals taught us the basics of getting along with each other. Crossing out someone else's entry tends to upset them, and we each eventually learned that leaving a snarky comment in the margin was given a lot more tolerance than crossing out someone else's entry. That opened space for snarky margin conversations where we could try to understand each other a little better, albeit in a slightly hostile way. Nowadays, we're talking in the center of the page, and the snark is considerably more good-natured.

I hope some of this helps you all figure out what you want your system journal to be like, Anons.

Footnotes

1: We put a lot of effort into making this journal feel like a consistent place or home. We use a journal cover to make it look mostly the same, we buy multiple of the same journal so it's not jarringly different, and we write a phrase on the first and last pages when starting and finishing the journal to pass the metaphorical torch. It really is the main journal because of this, the one that feels like relief to sit with.

You don't need a journal cover or luxury supplies to pull that sort of consistent journaling environment off, though. Many people swear by journaling in ordinary composition books or spiral notebooks. They're consistent, easy to find, and cheap. You reliably get the same thing every time. If you want a journal that stays essentially the same even when you replace it (especially one that's not likely to go out of production in the future), then you might want to consider your local generic school notebook.

2: The trouble with self-censoring yourself to look good for the imaginary future historians is that you might wind up avoiding any topic with much depth or roughness to it, tinting the whole thing to avoid judgement. This has a way of skirting around all of the things you'd get the most benefit from journaling about.

When we introduced this rule, we wrote everything that we wouldn't want a future historian to see on the front page of the next journal to ensure that we'd have no reason to self-censor. It was very effective. Why hide anything if you've put your personal brain garbage in the front for whoever reads it?

3: Various ways to mark who wrote an entry:

Writing utensil type (pencil, pen, crayon, marker...)

Color

Signatures and printed names

Name symbols, sigils, emblems

Doodles of your faces

Speech bubbles

Position on the page

Handwriting quirks (voluntary or involuntary)

Indexing it in the back or front

Marking entries is absolutely not required, and we actually don't do it too often at the moment. That said, if you like marking entries by using different ink colors, multi-color pens have gotten a lot better and some of them feel glorious to use. We like the Pilot Dr. Grip 4+1 personally. This isn't an ad, we genuinely just like the pen.