Spending ten minutes a day journaling has a lot of benefits to the author. Early in the morning the journaling process can help you set aside mental garbage that can negatively impact your day. The journal is for your eyes only. This is a perfectly okay place to dump your frustration about friends, family, co-workers, work or anything else that is bothering you. It is a place to be honest with yourself about your thoughts and feelings. Keep your journal safe so that your privacy isn't violated and your secret thoughts are kept safe. Your journal writing helps keep your brain and mind free from clutter.
I've always known that keeping a journal is a good, healthy practice. That knowledge was confirmed in Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. Ms. Cameron suggests writing a minimum of three pages a day, as close to waking up as possible. Ideally, the work is done longhand. This has a benefit in itself - scribing longhand is a physical endeavor and it ties motor skills to memory. On another post I mentioned that this was one of the primary ways I studied. I listened, wrote, then read what I wrote.
Some people may not have the time in the morning to write three longhand pages, but you can write for ten minutes. See how far you get. I recommend you get a notebook of some sort that can be standardized by it's size. Spiral notebooks are good but I really like the marbleized composition notebooks that are mainly seen in black but if you are shopping in the fall for school supplies you can find them in yellow, blue, green and red. I like them because they aren't super big, and they are stitched, so the pages stay together. They also stack nicely, or you can put them vertically in a file or bookshelf (remember to keep them safe and private). They have a semi hard cover and so they keep their shape well.
If you are not able to write in a composition book
There has been a lot of research done on the benefits of journaling. If you are honest with yourself, journaling can be a terrific self-assessment tool. In your journal you can record goals, ideas, creative sparks, dreams, any thing that occupies space in your mind. A week, month, a year later take a look at your writings and see ... evaluate where you have succeeded, where you've been stymied, where you have overcome blocks. A critical self-assessment will allow you to see what has worked and what hasn't. I've read that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. You can't get different results if you continue to take the same action. Rereading your journal can show you what actions have yielded results and what has gotten in your way.
Here are some of the benefits of journaling according to the Huffington Post:
1) IQ improvement due to the further development of language skills and vocabulary
2) Grounding so that one is more mindful and engaged with ones thoughts usually in the present
3) Achieve more of your goals
4) Management of your emotional state
5) Strengthening memory and comprehension
6) Increased self-discipline
7) Increase of and improvement in communication skills
8) Physical benefits that include better sleep, less stress, lowered blood pressure, decreased anxiety
9) Boost in creativity
10) More self-confidence, especially as you relive as relive the positive experiences you write down.
The more you write early in the morning the more you will see your creativity increase - you'll remember ideas that came to you in dreams, those random thoughts that hit you right before you go to sleep, or those thoughts that sometimes tickle you awake. The journal can help you create a structure for story ideas, safe keep important events in your life (you know in case you want to write an autobiography...wait, you are writing an uncensored autobiography!), increase your comfort with the writing process.
A journal is a great place to keep a list of the things you are grateful for. An attitude of gratitude is something we hear about and journaling these things is a way to remember the big and small things that bring us happiness. Journaling has been prescribed by psychiatrists, psychologists, dieticians, trainers and all sorts of professionals just to keep track of the things that will help us have a better understanding of ourselves and bring us better mental clarity. Writing has been prescribed to those suffering from PTSD as a way to handle the mental stress of the life events that have had a negative, powerful impact on our lives.
The power of writing in a journal also brings an improvement in overall mood, lowers stress levels, lessens the negative symptoms of depression, brings clarity to problems and often solutions to those problems. When we write we also gain insight into not only ourselves but others as well. This insight helps us understand situations and others in a way that is less reactionary and results in better treatment of our friends, families and co-workers.
Even if the act of keeping a journal did very little of this, the one thing it is guaranteed to do is give you a truthful, accurate picture of where you were and where you are now. Sometimes that's enough.