Keeping a Self Care Journal

How To Start A Keep A Health Care Journal....

For some of us, self care comes naturally.  However, there are those of us who either never discovered the importance of 'taking care of you.'  Sometimes, in times of extreme stress, or depression, even those of us who know and practice 'taking care of ourselves,' may lose the time, and even the desire to engage in the self care activities we need.  That's where keeping a self care journal comes in.

A self care journal not only helps you to choose the self care activities you want to practice, it also helps you to keep them scheduled, and, gives you a place to write down your thoughts and results, helping to keep you motivated and also, when to add, remove, or change any of your activities. It also helps you to create a 'self care routine,' so 'taking care of you,' becomes a 'habit.'

While you can easily find a ready made self care journal on Amazon, making your own gives you so many more choices, not just in how you lay it out, but also, in how creative you can get with it. And even better than that, if you use the free Google Drive Office Suite, you can print it out so you can 'write' in it, like a journal, yet, also keep it online so you can easily reference any links or YouTube videos you need for any of your self care activities.

Here's what my personal template looks like before I fill anything in...

You can download the my personal, bare bones, self care journal template here....

And here's an example of how I would fill in my self care activities plans for the week.

And by using the Google Drive Office Suite, I can print out these sheets, and use a 3 hole punch to make a binder for a physical journal, plus, I can also keep it online, where I can access links, such as the links to the YouTube video tutorials on the various activities, such as 'Learn Italian."

And, if I incorporate this spreadsheet into my Google Calendar, I can also get 'reminders' sent to my phone.

Finally, if I print my sheets out, I can 'write' in them, or, I can simply incorporate my plan into an online journal or blog, and keep my self care journal on the web.