“…many things have been omitted which should have been recorded. . . .  It is not easy to write in a journal what interests us at any time, because to write it is not what interests us.” –Henry David Thoreau

Still?  Haven’t started yet?  For an introduction, or a refresher, see https://memoriesofatime.com/2015/05/18/journal-keeping/

No expensive blank-page, hardcover or leatherette book: use notebook paper, a speckled notebook, or some similar writing book.  (Avoid notebooks wire-bound that flatten or break or can scratch or poke.)  

Keeping it regularly?  Faithfully?  A few times a week?

Stuffed with “stuff,” like receipts, greeting cards, pictures, favorite essays from magazines, emails from friends?  or also filled with dreams and bads and goods?

Are you conversant with your soul?  Do you confer with those who have crossed over to the Other Side?

Can you/do you capture life as you see it, the now, the past, the present?  (You are not stuck in the past, are you?)

Do you connect the few facts you know, the slim insights you have attained, the “chance extensions of sensibility into which you have been once or twice tempted into a larger enough context to make sense of the world…or the works of art you encounter”?–[Leslie Fiedler]

Chronological order: date, day, time.  A good record (for reference, a place in time).

Not boring details.  But details.  What is that saying about details?  “The idiom “the devil is in the detail” refers to a catch or mysterious element hidden in the details, and derives from the earlier phrase ‘God is in the detail,’ expressing the idea that whatever one does should be done thoroughly; i.e. details are important.”  — [Wikipedia–and other sources]

No day is bereft of material to write about…about which to write.  See, hear, touch, taste, and smell.  Then understand, react.  Then WRITE.

Note the particulars that make you your journal, your journal you.

Need more than this?  Need a book for starters?  “If you want to change your life and know that you have the answers within, then learning to journal as a tool for rediscovering what you already knew, is the best way I know how. This book stands alone; and if you want to have a master teacher guide you into the depths of your soul, get this book and the companion workbook.”  [Marcia C. Bliss comment in 2013]:  Journaling for Joy: Writing Your Way to Personal Growth and Freedom by Joyce Chapman, 1991, 2013.