It's a bit intimidating, isn't it? Twenty four hours in a day. How can you fit all twenty-four hours into a single journal entry?

Oh well the answer is simple there: you can't.

Granted, on the average about seven of those hours are spent sleeping. So let's break it down to 24 minus 7 which is 17. You don't HAVE to talk about all three meals you had today (or even whether or not you had three meals) so let's take out a half hour for breakfast, and a half hour for lunch and a half hour for dinner. We're down to 15.5 hours now. Didja go to work or school? Was it rather uneventful? You've written about that before haven't you? Same old same old. Okay. Cut out another eight just for grins. That brings us to just seven and a half hours. Not as stressful as it looked at first, is it? But what did you do for those seven hours? Errands you had to do? Spent time with your family? Maybe went to see a show? Maybe just watched television?

Maybe breaking the day up like that can help you conquer the day in your online diary. Maybe it just makes everything more intimidating. What if work was terrible today and you really want to get that off your chest, AND you had a strange dream last night, AND you do night school too so you have to work that in AND your son or daughter said something funny that you have to add in there before you forget it AND you witnessed a car wreck that day. Maybe today was really super-eventful and you don't want to miss any of it.

So what do you do? You're sitting there trying to contemplate the recent past and there's so many things going on. Do you have to count the loads of laundry? How many times you folded those towels? Of course not. You can skip a lot of stuff. In fact, you don't HAVE to list the whole itinerary of every day. That gets tedious. I mean you CAN if you want, but there's no rules laid in stone for journaling. It's YOUR journal. You can make up the rules for yourself as you go along.

There's just too much time in 24 hours to cover everything. Might I suggest you take a different approach? It might make some days less unwieldy. It might help you sort through the mess and get to the good stuff.

Got a question for ya.

Clear your mind before you answer. There's no right or wrong here, and the answer might differ from one moment to the next. This is a sort of "choose the first thing that pops into your head" kinda response. Like if a shrink were to say the word "blue," you might say "sad" or "yellow" or "berry" depending on your mood and state of mind at the time.

Simple question. Here goes: What single thing today most comes to mind? Just pick one thing. Why does that stand out? What is it? Can you describe that one thing? Maybe it's something you bought today. A CD you're pleased with, or a movie you rented. Maybe it's a person. Maybe you visited relatives, or the landlord came over for the month's rent. Focus on that.

Whatever stands out today, try making that the focus of your journal entry. If the rest of the day makes it in there, fine. If you miss something, it's no big deal. Don't knock yourself for overlooking that date you had with someone special, if the real major point of the day for you was that excellent breakfast you had with someone who maybe isn't as special but no less important in your life.

Don't be afraid to short change friends or events. Don't spend too much time dwelling on what you're going to say. Should I say that? Is that relevant? Will I find it relevant six months from now?

Just pick a moment in that 24 hours and focus on it. See what comes from that. If that doesn't help you, come back next week and we'll try something else.