Consistently journaling has been my most valuable habit over the past 5 years.
It's the only way to relive thoughts I'll never have again because I become jaded. It's also a great way to grasp just how much of everything I forget. I wonder if I'd even have any personal stories to tell from the time I studied in Prague if I hadn't written so much of it down while enamored by it all.
I'm also in the habit of journaling. But for me it is much easier to write than to read my journal. I write almost everyday and some days I write several entries in the journal. Now I'd like to have a good method to retrieve the knowledge buried in the journal. For some entries I set alarms (after one year, three months, ...) but the rest is just buried. How do you effectively retrieve and review old entries? Do you have a consistent method?
Any sort of system I've tried to come up with for reading and writing only ensured that I didn't do either.
I rarely read my stuff. And much of it I don't really want to read. — Once I have the power of hindsight, reminding myself of squandered opportunities and silly apprehensions I once had (in great cathartic unending detail, no less) can be a hard pill to swallow.
But those couple days each year I spend a moment flipping back to a random page in my life — however so infrequently — are rich with perspective. There seems to be a lot of wisdom in that delta between then and now. Like reliving how terrified I was of some impending event in my past and now, years later, really being able to internalize the reality of "That wasn't so bad, was it? You could've just relaxed that whole time. Next time, just relax."
I don't think it's essential to revisit your writings regularly. I reckon most of the value in writing is the self-reflection necessary to serialize your mind to paper in the first place. It forces you to confront yourself when it's far easier to perpetually avoid yourself up until the very end. I think when you're analyzing yourself from the outside, you have no choice but to grow in some way.
As long as you're writing at all, I think you're doing fine.
Get the computer to read old entries to you while you're doing the dishes (or stretching). The Mac OS computer voices are not bad at all. You can set the speed to medium-fast and it becomes quite good.
I practically don't read any text anymore---it's so much easier when the computer reads to me... also easier on the eyes.
It's the only way to relive thoughts I'll never have again because I become jaded. It's also a great way to grasp just how much of everything I forget. I wonder if I'd even have any personal stories to tell from the time I studied in Prague if I hadn't written so much of it down while enamored by it all.