I get told all the time in comments and emails that people feel as though their days are boring. They don’t do anything everyday. Their days are the same and mundane, nothing changes day to day. “I don’t know how to draw”, is something I hear almost daily. So I want to ask the question, should I be documenting my days? What’s the point? In this post I will share with you what I believe comes from documenting your days.
(Earlier work in my Fauxbonichi pictured below)
I have been documenting my days since I was 8 years old. When I look back at these journals I just love and cherish them. Not only is documenting your days great when you look back on them but it’s also important to realize that the things that you do ARE important. YOUR life is important. The things that you do every single day are great. Once you start writing it down and sketching little bits of your day you will start to realize just how important your days are. When you sit down with your journal each and every night you will be forced to sit down and reflect back on your day. Does a conversation with a coworker come to mind? A funny story? Did your kids do or say something that made you happy or made you angry or sad. Did you have a great coffee? Did you have a cheat day or did you work out and stayed healthy for the day? When you stop to think about it, it makes you aware of your present moment. You begin to realize that life is now, it’s happening all around you and it’s great. The good, the bad the ugly it’s all apart of you and it tells your journey. It tells the story of you and your life and the people that are in it. It’s the most important story that you have to tell. What better way to tell it than to sit down everyday and write about it. Draw small doodles to help jog your memories about something that you want to remember.
(My journal drawings in the beginning, pictured below)
I started a new way of journaling in 2014 and I called it a fauxbonichi. I came up with the idea exploring pinterest and tumbler. I found alot of images of something foreign to me called a hobonichi techo. Everything that I could find on this was in Japanese. I scoured pictures for hours even days. I was obsessed with the pictures. Little tiny images and stickers and drawings of food and cups of coffee. Little people and cute little embellishments, I just could not get enough. Loved every picture that I saw. So I made a version of my own and called it a fauxbonichi and shared it on youtube. Now, today, 2017 you can purchase a hobonichi techo on amazon!! The craze for the little book is just awesome and I love it. The only problem that I found with using it was that because it was daily it would limit me to one page. Some days I like to fill many pages and other times I like to skip a day. I can see the benefit of having a daily so that it pushes you to at least jot down something for each day but I have found over the years that this was unnecessary for me.
(My more recent drawings in current Fauxbonichis pictured below)
As for drawing, well I finally believe it when people say “it just takes practice”. It’s true! The only way that I can say this is because when I look at old journal entries I could really see the improvement in my drawing. Now I don’t think twice about drawing something. I just draw because I care more about the memory then I do about what the drawing looks like or how perfect it is. This mindset has really helped me to not be so focused on the perfection of a drawing and more on the memories. With that mindset I believe that my drawings have improved because I keep doing it. I do it every single day because I want to remember my days and my life. To see the true benefits of this way of memory keeping. You need to do it for at least two weeks. After the two weeks just grab the journal and flip through the pages. Look back at the days, did you notice things on the pages that you already forgot about? Yup, you did, now imagine what it will feel like when you pick up a journal that you have been doing this for 6 months and a year or years later. It’s pretty amazing! If you would like more on how to do this check out my eclass and I hope to inspire you to capture your memories and your days!!
