Comments on: Ask Unclutterer: What should I do with old journals?

By: Jill

Jill — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:57:06 +0000

Personally, I have destroyed every one of my journals. (I do regret throwing away my journal that my mom and I would write together each night when I was little…. (I would tell her what to write and she would write it) besides, my grandma gave me the actual journal…it was so pretty.

By: handwritten journals « catwrangler

handwritten journals « catwrangler — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:29:37 +0000

[...] I just found this post with a large amount of journal burners. It is on a site about uncluttering so the ones that do [...]

By: Mom25dogs

Mom25dogs — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:26:44 +0000

I’m also into genealogy and love whatever bits and pieces of real life I have of my ancestors. I’ve got a place to keep them, so I keep them. I try to keep it in boxes and organized somewhat. I have a staircase attic and so it’s easy to store things there and I keep my attic in good order. My Grandma’s old collection of recipes in a shoebox, a box of poems that she clipped from the newspaper, my Grandpa’s little spiral notebooks that he was never without and into which he put all his farm and work related items (the hours he worked, how much he sold the cow for, how much hay he made, etc), hand drawn quilt patterns, etc. I kept journals a lot up until I got into scrapbooking and blogging. My blog is like a combination of a journal and scrapbook of everything that interests me. I try to print that out which creates big ole notebooks so I might just copy into a Word document and then save on a disk. It’s just that as technology changes, you may lose the ability to read that disc. My blog includes a recipe I tried, some genealogy, a Bible study I did, some house decorating ideas, etc. I’m a prolific writer. It’s just all on my blog now. My old journals, I went through and tore out some stuff but I’ve kept them and maybe (or maybe not) someone will be interested. I can understand if you don’t have room to store things like that or if your journals are too gut wrenching. But, nows the time to start new journals and you can write memories in them from now. And you are mature enough to know what to include and what to exclude.

By: Julia

Julia — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:11:07 +0000

If your journals were written during an interesting time period, the Library of Congress may be interested in having them for research use. Check with them.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:34:45 +0000

I am the Kelly who wrote the note to Unclutterer, and I am thrilled to get Erin’s feedback as well as so many reader comments! (I was traveling for a bit and just logged into my google reader to see my note was published a couple weeks ago.)

It’s so interesting that this question generated so many opinions and thoughts – the very ones I have been struggling with as I debate this topic in my mind.

I am going to take some time to make the decision, but I think I will be letting go of the journals. I like the idea of preserving some pages and passages and drawings for myself and any future generations, but I also am loathe to crack the spines and read these books of my youth! However, I think the idea of having some edited pieces of my own history is a good one.

Asking myself why I wrote these is the most helpful piece (thanks Erin!) My journals really were mostly written in moments of anger and frustration, and as someone above mentioned, this would present a really unbalanced picture of my life as a kid. I was not a daily journaler mixing the good with the bad! The journals make it look like it was ALL bad.

Anyways, very cool that so many other unclutterers are devoted to the clean out, but unsure about this type of sentimental object. Thanks everyone!

By: Bigscotty

Bigscotty — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:00:26 +0000

I recently started snapping pics of the writing journals in which I scribble down sketch comedy notes, stories, one-act plays and such. What do I do with them after that?

1. Snap photos of each page with iPhone.
2. Synch the photos to iPhoto.
3. Create an Evernote notebook.
4. Drag all of the photos into the Evernote notebook.

For the most part, I’m done at that point. The default file naming keeps the pages in order, but sometimes I’ll renumber them.

While these aren’t hi-res, they’re good enough for me to go back and review as needed. Evernote does text recognition, but my handwriting isn’t great when I’m in a hurry.

Sometimes I have notes about something I’m writing strung across two or three notebooks. Now I don’t have to carry them around.

In short, it’s not a perfect solution, but I now have access to 20+ journals as long as I have an internet or 3G signal.

Here’s a public notebook for an example:
http://www.evernote.com/pub/bi.....NotebookX/

Another Example
http://scottrogers.tumblr.com/.....d-evernote

And Yet Another Example
http://scottrogers.tumblr.com/.....hoto-notes

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:08:20 +0000

De-cluttering is a very positive thing in multiple ways. But journals are not clutter, they’re historical records.

Your journal was just “venting” your way through a problem period? Would no one benefit later from seeing at least some samples of your thoughts as you worked your way through such a period?

Censor if you will, selectively scan if you must, but a journal (especially hand-written) is a treasure-trove to someone wanting to learn about an ancestor or relative from long ago. Seemingly-superficial comments in journals often give invaluable facts, or even just clues, about family relationships for someone trying to piece together a family history.

Unfortunately, for many, the value of such references seems not to occur until middle age.

Before you part with a journal, try to find out something, anything, about a great-grandparent and his or her immediate family. Then re-visit the notion of journals as clutter.

For something as unique and personal as a journal, I think it’s reasonable to take the position that you can _always_ dispose of it later. Unlike someother physical objects, though, once gone, a journal can never be replaced.

By: Samir

Samir — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:34:31 +0000

do you have a backyard? can you bury them in a time capsule?

By: Daree Allen

Daree Allen — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:35:56 +0000

I’ve kept some form of a journal for the past 20 years (I’m 32). My teen and young adult years will form my upcoming book that I am working on. I am grateful that I saved all this information. No matter how good or bad situations were in my life, I can use them for good now. I am remind myself how far God has brought me, and I can inspire others to be better in spite of their shortcomings.

By: Daree Allen

Daree Allen — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:33:14 +0000

I’ve kept a diary/journal consistently since age 13. That’s 19 years of history. It has help me craft my upcoming book. I didn’t know years ago that my experiences would be able to help people in 2009 and beyond. This is a case where I’m glad I kept them– all of them. No matter what I was going through, good or bad, I’m glad I have them. I can see how far I’ve come and inspire others to keep going, too.

By: Jill

Jill — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:30:26 +0000

I recently shredded most of my journals, but couldn’t articulate why I felt it was the right thing to do, but Erin summed it up best:

* If you wrote them for therapeutic reasons, as a way to work through problems in your life, then go ahead and burn them.
* If you wrote them as messages to your future self, then keep them.
* If you wrote them as a record that you were alive in that moment, then keep them.
* If you wrote them to vent your frustrations, then burn them.

Mine were therapeutic and venting in nature, and so I am comfortable with having destroyed them.

By: Michele

Michele — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:35:03 +0000

I found that I tend to wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to the past. When looking at old journals, I was dismayed to remember some miseries I’d previously forgotten. I was glad to destroy my old journals and let sleeping dogs lie.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:20:30 +0000

Keep the old journals! You may not be interested in reading them but your children and grandchildren will. Those old journals will help them understand what life was like for you at different ages. They will see your struggles and triumphs. They will know that you had similar concerns to their. Keep old journals!

Blessings,
Elizabeth

By: goldsmith_ie

goldsmith_ie — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 13:13:12 +0000

I have kept journals, in a sporadic fashion, since I was 11 years old. I shredded some of them, which recorded a very unhappy period of my life. It was a liberating move, where uncluttering equalled confirming that this period was past and would not return. I kept all the others. That said, over a period of 32 years (from age 11 to 43) they take up only half a foot of shelf space, attesting to the fact that I was never the most avid journaller.

However, I can also see the point of shredding journals which, from your adult point of view, are full of banalities that you cannot see the value of any longer. I never wanted to practice the piano, but that emotion was not journal-worthy even to my teenage self.

By: Nat

Nat — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:57:40 +0000

I haven’t read every single comment yet, but I had to share my experience about reading my mother’s journals. Granted, 70 percent of it was very dry daily log type information, which I have since destroyed, but the pages during my parents’ divorce and right afterward were very enlightening. Those entries explained a lot. I was very glad to have them as a reference.
I myself have several journals that I may one day edit, but I would still want to keep in some of the angst. All of it is a part of who I am. If my daughter wants to chuck them in a dumpster someday, that’s her business.