Journaling as a Thinking Process

I’m the kind of person who really loves the -ember months, you know: September, October, November, December, spooky season, PSLs, sweater weather, cosy throws, piles of books and cups of tea. Even as an adult, I still treat myself to shopping for back-to-school supplies, my set of new pens, a beautiful notebook, a pad of notecards. And as is so often the case this time of year, I’ve been thinking a lot about writing lately—not the big writing projects, not my next book that has been hovering in draft form for too long, but the more intimate, private act of journaling. The kind of writing that doesn’t begin with an audience in mind, but with a simple intention: to notice, to clarify, to think. Writing to get cosy with.

This practice has been quietly foundational for me. Some days it is a place to record the traces of a dream before the day sweeps it away. Other days, it’s a notebook page where I sketch out the shape of an idea, a plan, a dream that feels still just beyond reach. And sometimes, if I’m honest, it’s little more than the banal recounting of my to-do list, things I need to buy, or minor annoyances still weighing on me. But even in those moments, journaling does something important. It reminds me that thought is not just an invisible current in the mind; it is something that can be externalised, shaped, and returned to.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote that thinking itself is a kind of dialogue, an inner conversation between me and myself. Journaling, in that sense, is a way of giving that dialogue a more durable form. It’s a way of ensuring that fleeting insights don’t evaporate, but have the chance to develop into something more sustained.

There’s a temptation to imagine journals only as records of the past, those childhood diaries with locks and keys, filled with secrets that we might cringe to reread, or those teenage of angst and whingeing. I have many examples of both. But even in those examples, a journal is still always a tool for invention. The monks who kept commonplace books weren’t merely keeping records; they were building repertoires of thought that could be recombined in new and surprising ways.

When I journal, I notice that same shift. I might begin with the day’s details—what I’m reading, what I need to do next—but somewhere in the act of writing, connections spark. A line from Woolf collides with something I overheard on the bus. A fragment of a lecture I once gave resurfaces beside a description of the changing light on my balcony garden (sadly now largely barren as I prepare to leave this flat after several years). The page becomes less about recording and more about thinking with.

This is one of the reasons I encourage students and coaching clients alike to develop their own journaling practices. It’s not about producing beautiful prose; it’s about cultivating a space where the mind can stretch into unexpected directions.

At the moment, my own journaling practice feels especially necessary. September has always been a transitional month for me: the academic year begins again, new projects gather momentum, and the end of summer invites reflection on what has—or hasn’t—shifted over the past few months.

Recently, I’ve been writing in the mornings with coffee that I’ve started brewing with increasing precision with a V60 and scale, sometimes before the world is properly awake. I’ve found that this time of year asks me to slow down, even when everything around me is speeding up. My journal becomes a place where I can give shape to that paradox.

In these quiet pages, I notice the themes that recur: what it means to balance leadership and teaching; how to weave contemplative practices into daily life; where writing itself is pulling me next. These aren’t polished arguments—they’re more like fragments waiting to be assembled. But without journaling, they might never find their way into language at all.

Several thinkers have shaped the way I understand journaling as a thinking practice. Julia Cameron, of course, is central: her practice of ‘morning pages’ in The Artist’s Way remains one of the most accessible and transformative ways to encounter journaling. She invites us to write three pages, longhand, every morning, without editing or censoring. The point is not literary craft but mental hygiene, clearing away the clutter that keeps us from more original insights.

Another companion is John Dewey, whose philosophy of education placed such emphasis on reflection. Dewey argued that genuine learning happens when experience is turned over in the mind, tested, connected. Journaling is, in many ways, the simplest technology for making that reflection visible.

And then there is Joan Didion, who once said, ‘I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking.’ That sentence could be the motto both for journaling as a practice, and for my entire life.

One of the questions people often ask me is: What happens to all this writing? Do you go back and read it? Do you publish it?

The truth is that most of it remains private, and that’s part of the point. Of course, there are occasional fragments that spark something bigger, and find their way into a draft or an article. But there is something liberating about knowing the page doesn’t demand performance. More often, I find that themes crystallised in my journals resurface later as a sort of inspired spark in a lecture, a coaching session, or a blog post. The journal becomes a kind of compost heap for thought, where scraps and off-cuts break down into fertile soil, ‘breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire’ to quite Eliot’s eminently autumnal Waste Land.

If you’re curious about beginning—or rekindling—a journaling practice, here are a few approaches that I’ve found useful:

1. Set a container. Whether it’s Cameron’s three pages or simply ten minutes with a timer, give yourself a boundary. Paradoxically, limits make the practice feel more spacious.
2. Write by hand if possible. The slowness of handwriting often brings a different quality of attention. That said, typing can work too—especially if it helps you keep pace with fast-moving thoughts.
3. Don’t censor. The journal isn’t for anyone else’s eyes. Let yourself be clumsy, repetitive, contradictory. That’s where the interesting material often hides.
4. Return to your entries selectively. You don’t need to reread everything. But every so often, leaf back through your notebook. Notice what recurs. Pay attention to what surprises you.
5. Link journaling to other practices. For me, journaling often dovetails with meditation or with my reading life. It’s less a stand-alone ritual and more a node in a larger web of reflection.

If journaling is, at its heart, a practice of listening—both to the self and to the world—then it naturally lends itself to creative community. That’s why I’m so looking forward to starting a new Artist’s Way Circle on 23 September.

For twelve weeks, we’ll walk together through Cameron’s classic text, supporting one another as we experiment with morning pages, artist dates, and the many other tools she offers for creative recovery. Journaling will be our daily companion, but the circle itself will be a space for sharing insights, frustrations, and breakthroughs along the way.

If you’ve been feeling the tug to reconnect with your creative self—or if you simply want to explore how journaling might change the way you think—I’d love for you to join us. You can find the details here.

Ultimately, journaling reminds me that thought is not finished before it appears on the page. Writing is not simply a vehicle for communication, but a method of discovery in its own right. In a world that often prizes speed, certainty, and polished outputs, there’s something quietly radical about sitting down with a notebook and allowing thought to unfold in its own time.

For me, it remains one of the simplest and most profound ways to live more reflectively, more attentively—and perhaps even more creatively.

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