Varsity: Do you keep a diary?

From varsity.co.uk/arts

Freya Roodhouse encourages readers to get their diaries out and start writing again 

In the last couple of years, my social media has been inundated with Pinterest-style, perfectly curated, well-designed journal spreads. In the summer of 2025, it was all about the leather-bound travel journal, complete with personalised colours and charms, and purchased in Paris for an eye-watering price. And who could forget, before that, the pastel-coloured and painstakingly organised bullet journal? Call it what you want – a diary, commonplace book, or journal – but keeping one has been en vogue, and an essential aspect of the author’s arsenal for centuries. For many, it is the cornerstone of creative practice. For the creative and essay-weary student, keeping a diary can be the difference between writing in term time and not writing at all. But most people don’t bother, or instead fall at the first hurdle. Why is that the case? And how should you use the infamous diary?

“There is no correct way to use a diary”

Keeping a diary can be the difference between writing in term time and not writing at all

Freya Roodhouse for Varsity

1. You can write what you like!

There is no correct way to use a diary: people use them as sketchbooks, scrapbooks, journals, traditional diaries, commonplace books, or simply as a place to store creative excerpts and ideas. Because of this informality, your diary makes an excellent place for experimentation. Whatever you want to write, short or long, fact, or fiction, has a home there. Your diary is nothing more than an outlet. One of the keystone practices in the popular The Artist’s Way are morning pages (a few pages of unplanned, unstructured writing done first thing in the morning). The appeal of ritualising something like morning pages, or your own take on the idea, is that you can exercise your creative muscles and keep practicing without pressure, and instead simply see where the writing takes you.

For the essay-weary and mentally exhausted Cambridge student, diaries are even better. It can be difficult to have the imagination, time, and creative energy to produce a formal piece of writing, even a short story, at the end of a long day of work. With a diary, it doesn’t have to be formal. It doesn’t even have to be imaginative – you can literally just record what happened that day. What matters is not the product but the practice of flexing your authorial muscles. There’s a reason why many famous writers – think Anais Nin or Virginia Woolf – felt compelled to keep diaries even when they were not working on a larger project.

2. You never know, you might write something good!

Lots of writers use their own lives as inspiration for their works. Your own diary can be great creative fodder, especially in a few years when you’re reflecting on it. Characters and events just leap off the page to be altered and fictionalised. If you’re lucky, you might find a section that you can use verbatim – F. Scott Fitzgerald lifted description from his wife’s diaries and letters. Some authors even publish their diaries unfictionalised. Sheila Heti’s Alphabet Diaries are a fascinating example of what you can do with a diary as a creative work.

“What matters is not the product but the practice of flexing your authorial muscles”

3. The page is a place for mindful reflection.

Carving out time to explore your emotions, especially when you’re feeling stressed, is valuable for your mental health: it’s what talking therapy teaches you to do. The page can be a great outlet for anxiety or anger. Knowing that nobody else will see it, you can be totally honest in your reflections and come to terms with yourself. On days when you’re overwhelmed, setting everything out on the page always makes it less intimidating than it felt in your head. And exploring emotion through stream-of-consciousness writing will make you a better writer in the long run!

4. You don’t have to write every day.

I think the biggest deterrent for many would-be diarists, including myself, is the idea embedded somewhere in our childhoods that a diary is something you write in every day. This concept is unappealing and pressurising: what if you have nothing to say? What if you’re too busy and miss one? If you think like this, ‘falling behind’ can be fatal. But this is a misconception. Buy an undated diary. Write when you want to. If you don’t want to, then don’t. The pressure relieves itself when you let go of this myth. You don’t need to beat yourself up when a pile up of pre-reading derails your efforts for a week. Something once in a while is always better than nothing.

I have been successfully keeping a diary for two and a half years now. The practice has been wonderfully grounding in releasing and rationalising stress, but also in giving me a chance to write at the (regular) times when I lack the time or creative energy to produce something more formal. In my time at Cambridge, my diary has become the creative and emotional outlet that keeps me sane.

https://www.varsity.co.uk/arts/32202

Country diary 1951: Grey squirrels are doing serious damage to the trees

From theguardian.com

11 October 1951: The agricultural committee is offering farmers three cartridges for every squirrel tail

A grey squirrel on a tree, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. Photograph: Paul Marriott/REX/Shutterstock

HEREFORD: I often see the white owl in the early morning mist, skimming over the grass in search of mice. I fear the big barn is too busy a place for her now, and there are so many good ratting cats.

Grey squirrels are another matter, and seem to have no enemies. I hear that the damage they are doing to young trees in some places is serious. The agricultural committee is offering three cartridges for every grey squirrel tail, but lack of time is the trouble; farmers have none to spend watching for squirrels and certainly none to traffic in tails. The harmless red squirrel has gone from here; it never seems to survive once the grey get established.

Bumblebees, at any rate the smaller ones, seem to have a longer working season than honeybees. Possibly the English wild bee is hardier than the Italian bee. A most interesting insect is the bumblebee moth; its appearance mimics that of a bumblebee. It has no sting. Birds seem to know that a bumblebee is to be avoided, and they would have to be very clever to distinguish the difference between this moth and a bumblebee. It is possible that seen upside down the rings on a peacock butterfly represent eyes on a face that would frighten away a bird; there is a moth (foreign) that represents faithfully the eyes and face and colouring of an owl.

Guardian Country diary, 11 Sept 1951.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/05/country-diary-1951-grey-squirrels-doing-serious-damage-to-trees 

Vatican to release “The Private Diary of Pope Francis”, a book by Cardinal Fernández

From vaticannews.va 

The Vatican Publishing House will release The Private Diary of Pope Francis, a book by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, on 24 November in five languages across 94 countries. It will offer insight into the late Pope’s inner life through notes he kept between 1992 and 2024.

(

(Vatican Media)

On 24 November 2026, the Vatican Publishing House will publish The Private Diary of Pope Francis, a book by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, presenting and commenting on notes Jorge Mario Bergoglio kept between 1992 and 2024.

The book offers a deeper understanding of the personality and inner life of the Jesuit Pope, who led the Catholic Church from 13 March 2013 until his death on 21 April 2025.

The Private Diary of Pope Francis will be released simultaneously worldwide in five languages and distributed in 94 countries on 24 November. The Italian edition will be published by the Vatican Publishing House; the Spanish, English and Portuguese editions by the respective branches of Penguin Random House; and the French edition by Éditions Albin Michel.

Understanding the Argentine Pope’s inner life

“We are very honoured to publish this text by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, which presents Pope Francis’ Diary to the public,” says Andrea Tornielli, Editorial Director of the Dicastery for Communication. “Through this book, which we believe readers around the world will appreciate, we will be able to gain an even deeper understanding of the Argentine Pope’s inner life.”

Bringing the words of the Popes to the world

“The Vatican Publishing House works to bring the words of the Popes to readers internationally,” says Lorenzo Fazzini, Editorial Director of the Vatican Publishing House. “This year, we oversaw the publication and distribution of writings by Robert F. Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, from his time as Prior General of the Augustinians, in the book Free Under Grace, which has already been published in several languages. We are truly pleased that we will soon be able to make these personal pages by Pope Francis available to readers in Italy and, through various publishers, around the world, in a book written by one of his closest collaborators, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández.”

The Vatican Publishing House will present the book to international publishers at the forthcoming Frankfurt Book Fair, which takes place from 7 to 11 October 2026.

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https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2026-10/pope-francis-personal-diary-a-book-by-cardinal-fernandez.html

In 1972, Washington teacher Robert Shields began recording his life every 5 minutes; by 1997, his diary had reached 37.5 million words

From economictimes.indiatimes.com

Synopsis

For almost 30 years, Robert Shields meticulously documented every facet of his existence, utilizing six typewriters to ensure uniformity in his writing. His impressive archive comprises around 37.5 million words, which are set to remain sealed until 2057. Despite some psychologists labelling his journaling habits as counterproductive, his dedication to self-tracking is undeniable.

Somewhere in the basement vaults of Washington State University, there are 97 boxes containing documents that, by the terms of the family's original deed of gift, could not be opened for research until after the deaths of both Robert Shields and his wife, Grace Hotson Shields; Grace passed away in April 2024, and separate reporting has put the date for a full, exact accounting of the diary's word count as far out as 2057, fifty years after Shields's own death. Inside those boxes are approximately 37.5 million words, single-spaced, chronicling the life of one ordinary man, written in five-minute instalments, over the course of nearly three decades. Washington State University Libraries' own archives put that word count and box count on record, and it was Washington State Magazine writer Adriana Janovich's deeply researched 2025 profile of Shields, built from his archived diary and interviews with the people who knew him, that went on to win the writer several journalism awards; not, as an earlier draft of this piece implied, a face-to-face interview with Shields himself, who had died in 2007, years before she wrote about him. 

It seems that, more than fifty years later, Shields' particular obsession with recording his life in such granular detail still fascinates us, and it's easy to understand why. Long before we had smartphones to quantify every step we take or every tweet we post, a small-town Washington teacher was out there conducting the social science experiment of the century, finding out just what it costs to have such an existence.

Man, six typewriters and no vacation

Robert Shields was a retired minister and high school English teacher when he began, in 1972, systematically recording every aspect of his daily life in an extraordinary self-documentary. From the scant details he gave to the Washington State writer, it becomes evident that he kept six typewriters in his office in case one of them malfunctioned, so that he could keep recording without missing a beat.

Robert Shields. Image credits: Wikipedia

He got less than two hours of sleep at a time so that he could wake up every couple of hours and dictate his dreams onto the page while he still remembered them for another five minutes. He spent about four hours every day doing this, and a stroke finished the task in 1997. He died in 2007, leaving behind a legacy which people today are only beginning to appreciate.

Long before there was technology to quantify our lives, there was Robert Shields

If you think that Shields was just a strange figure from a bygone era, you would not be alone. He is often called the grandfather of the quantified self, someone who, decades before pedometers and fitness trackers existed, meticulously logged the raw material of an ordinary life by hand: sleep patterns, bodily functions, receipts, junk mail, even the weight of the daily newspaper, all in pursuit of some vague notion of completeness. A University of Washington-led 2014 study titled “Understanding quantified-selfers' practices in collecting and exploring personal data,” published in the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings, followed dozens of self-tracking enthusiasts and concluded that, for many of them, it was the collecting of the data that mattered most.

The paper specifically cited that many of these people engaged in self-tracking for data collection as an end in itself, rather than for specific goals, which sounds suspiciously like what Robert Shields was doing forty years earlier. It seems that, for him too, the goal was just to have it all down somewhere, just to have it all recorded, with no particular reason beyond that desire for completion.

What the science actually says about tracking everything you do

Now, here's where it gets interesting. If you've ever tried self-tracking or writing down everything that happens to you in pursuit of some kind of goal, there's a decent chance that you've stumbled onto something strange and counter-intuitive. Psychologists have studied diary keeping, and the results are mixed on whether recording everything is beneficial.

According to a landmark 2005 review titled “Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing,” published in the journal Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, writing about your emotional experiences in a focused, concise manner for a short period of time (15-20 minutes per day, over a span of a few days) can have beneficial long-term effects. But Shields was not writing about his emotional experiences, and he certainly wasn't doing it concisely. He was recording everything that crossed his mind with equal attention and effort. It's this latter approach that psychologists have found to be not particularly helpful to people who are trying to process their emotions.

A diary for journaling the small, insignificant details of day-to-day life. Image credits: Wikimedia Commons

In this corner of the scientific world, Robert Shields' approach has also been labelled as counter-productive. Computer scientists specializing in information retrieval published a paper titled “Beyond total capture: a constructive critique of lifelogging,” in 2010 in the Communications of the ACM, that directly tackled the concept of total capture, arguing that the idealization of capturing all of our digital footprints misses crucial details about how we think and process information. Memory is not simply recorded and played back like a video, and attempts to capture everything may interfere with how we remember. A record that tries to remember everything for us may miss the way memory actually works.

The inconvenient truth about keeping records

Of course, none of this means that people like Robert Shields aren't doing something worthwhile.

Whatever the diary's value as a personal coping strategy, its value as a historical record is a separate question, and it's on that second front that Washington State University Libraries are currently working to catalogue and preserve his writings for future researchers. There is, still, an undeniable irony in reading about this strange man and his obsession, given everything the research above suggests about total-capture recording.

If you've ever kept a journal yourself, whether to track fitness goals or for something more introspective, it's easy to understand why this might resonate on a personal level. Robert Shields spent four hours a day writing about everything that happened to him in five-minute intervals, in an effort to better understand his life, and by his own account he never felt he'd spent enough time on it to make it worthwhile. In our own small ways, we may all be a little like him.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/in-1972-washington-teacher-robert-shields-began-recording-his-life-every-5-minutes-nearly-30-years-later-the-diary-had-reached-37-5-million-words/articleshow/134567640.cms?from=mdr

Dear Diary: 4 Historic Journals and Memoirs

From savingplaces.org

By Emma Peters

Dear Diary...

As autumn leaves fall and a new school season begins, Dear Diary Day encourages people to capture their thoughts on paper. The commemorative day, which takes place each year on September 22, serves as a reminder that personal writing is a creative, expressive act. In a world that is becoming increasingly fast-paced, writing provides people with the opportunity to slow down and reflect on their experiences.

While Dear Diary Day is a recently established observance, the practice of personal writing has existed for thousands of years. As historic sources, diaries and journals are a uniquely intimate source of information, often encompassing details about one’s daily life, thoughts, tasks, and personal notes. They help contemporary readers understand how everyday people lived in the past by capturing what they did, thought about, and ultimately valued.

To celebrate Dear Diary Day, we asked staff at National Trust Historic Sites and Historic Artists' Homes and Studios to share information about the personal writings in their collections. Read on to explore a selection of diaries, journals, and memoirs preserved at historic sites around the country.

Edith Farnsworth House (Plano, Illinois)

photo by:Edith Farnsworth House

Six of Dr. Edith Farnsworth’s journals are available to view at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois.

photo by:Edith Farnsworth House

In her journals, Dr. Edith Farnsworth reflects on her life, career, and the construction of her home, the Edith Farnsworth House.

Dr. Edith Farnsworth left six journals behind, all of which are currently available to view at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois. In the first three volumes, Farnsworth writes about her life and career. She also reflects on her work with architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe during the construction of her home, the Edith Farnsworth House. The remaining three volumes contain Farnsworth’s translations of poetry and prose, including her translation of The Little Locksmith by her friend Katharine Butler. Two recent publications, Nora Wendl’s Almost Nothing: Reclaiming Edith Farnsworth and Michelangelo Sabatino’s The Edith Farnsworth House, use Farnsworth’s journals to recount her perspective on and collaboration with Mies van der Rohe in designing her iconic Modernist home.

“The glass house took on life and became my own home.”

Dr. Edith Farnsworth

Belle Grove (Middletown, Virginia)

photo by:Belle Grove

Frances Hunnewell, who kept a diary while living at Belle Grove, reads a book in his library.

Frances Hunnewell, the last owner of Belle Grove, left one diary behind. In it, he shares details about his life at Belle Grove, including guest visits and his daily activities. While he worked as a lawyer, in his personal time Hunnewell was a passionate and accomplished botanist. His diary reflects his interest in botany and includes information about plantings on the property, some of which continue to live onsite today. Learn more about Hunnewell in the video above from Belle Grove, which delves into some of the entries in his diary.

“Feb. 23: Min 42 - Max 57 degrees. Clear & windy. Draba verna in blossom, also alders. Silver maples back of house just coming into bloom. Walked along creek in morning. Motored to Elizabeth Furnace in afternoon. ”

Frances Hunnewell

Gari Melchers Home & Studio (Falmouth, Virginia)

In 1908, artist Gari Melchers was commissioned to paint a portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt. Melchers kept a diary during the two weeks he spent at the White House, offering a glimpse into one of the most prestigious commissions of his career. In his letters and diary entries, Melchers documents his observations and experiences at the White House and comments on how his painting is progressing. In a letter to his wife, he recounts, "… Mrs. Roosevelt took me around upstairs and downstairs to find a suitable studio and we decided on the small dining room which has a north light." Melcher’s diary entries, which are available to read online, provide detailed information about his painting process and day-to-day activities as the president’s guest.

“Monday, March 2, 1908 / worked on the head today – but got my beginning too heavy – Mrs Roosevelt came in and entertained the President until later Mr Loeb came in to take her place.”

Gari Melchers

photo by:National Museum of Asian Art, The Smithsonian Institution

While painting President Theodore Roosevelt’s portrait, artist Gari Melchers kept a diary during his two-week stay at the White House.

photo by:Bonnet House Museum & Gardens

Frederic Clay Bartlett’s reflections on art and travel were published in his memoir “Sortofa Kindofa Journal of My Own.”

Bonnet House Museum & Gardens (Fort Lauderdale, Florida)

During his life, artist and art collector Frederic Clay Bartlett wrote a memoir. Titled Sortofa Kindofa Journal of My Own, it was published posthumously in 1965, 12 years after Bartlett’s death in 1953. In it, Bartlett recounts the wonder he experienced at the World’s Columbian Exposition, also called the Chicago World’s Fair, of 1893. He attended the exposition with fellow artist Robert Allerton. Inspired, Bartlett and Allerton left Chicago to study painting overseas after the exposition. Bartlett, who was born and raised in Chicago, reflects on this pivotal experience in his memoir. He also shares his musings on art and travel, including his time studying fine art in Munich, Germany.

https://savingplaces.org/stories/dear-diary-day-historic-journals-and-memoirs 

The wonderfully forgetful diary of life at almost 60

From citizen.co.za

By Sonja Brown

Growing older is filled with small quirks, quiet joys and a healthy dose of forgetfulness

If I had to produce a personal journal at nearly 60, I imagine it would read less like a profound reflection on life and more like a mildly confused instruction manual written by someone who keeps misplacing their glasses which, incidentally, would be mentioned on every third page.

Picture: iStock

I can picture one entry: Woke up early. Not by choice. My body now runs on a mysterious internal alarm clock that refuses to acknowledge weekends. Lay in bed debating whether my knee pain is from ageing or from that one ambitious squat I did in 1997.

A few pages later: Spent 10 minutes looking for my phone. It was in my hand. Decided not to tell anyone. This will go to the grave with me, along with the reason I walked into the kitchen earlier. Also made a cup of tea this morning. Forgot about it. Found it later. Reheated it. Forgot about it again. I am now in a committed relationship with lukewarm beverages.

Here’s one that reads: I said “oof” while sitting down. No one warned me this would become a personality trait. Later, I opened a cupboard and forgot what I wanted from it. Stood there like a philosopher contemplating existence, except with less dignity and more questions than answers.

Ooh, this is definitely a regular entry: Had a strong opinion about something. Can’t remember what it was, but I’m not sure who won.

One day later: Noticed that I now have a “favourite burner” on the gas stove. This feels like a turning point. Not sure in which direction. But there it is.

Two weeks ago: Received a message with a new slang term. Had to Google it. Still not entirely sure what it meant, but sent a smiling emoji in response. I am now fluent in pretending.

Yesterday: Put on reading glasses to look for my reading glasses. After finding them, I cancelled plans with a friend and felt an unreasonable amount of joy. Socialising is lovely, but so is not wearing shoes.

This morning: Realised I’ve become the person who turns the volume down in the car to see better. Science cannot explain this and frankly, neither can I. Am scattered between forgetfulness and a gentle decline into comfortable oddness.

I suspect there would be more entries from here onwards. Quieter ones.

Notes about people I love. Moments that mattered. Small victories that no one else noticed.

Because perhaps that’s what a journal at nearly 60 really becomes – less about remembering everything and more about holding onto what counts. Even if you can’t quite remember where you put it.

https://www.citizen.co.za/news/opinion/the-wonderfully-forgetful-diary-of-life-at-almost-60/