The Pensieve Diary: Using journaling to calm your mind

Some magic is real

Some magic is real.

In the Harry Potter books, Albus Dumbledore uses a rare magical device called a Pensieve to remove his thoughts and memories from his mind.

By pointing his wand at his temple, he extracts something that looks like “light made liquid — or like wind made solid” – and places it in the Pensieve.

Later on, he examines these thoughts by visiting the memories in person, reliving them as if he were there again.

I was always fascinated by this, because it would be so great to remove some of the thoughts that take up too much space. And to retrieve them once you’re ready to deal with them.

It turns out such a thing exists: we call it a diary.

There are many different ways to write a diary, but today I want to talk about what I call the Pensieve Diary.

It’s something you use only when you need to (instead of every day like a normal diary).

Anytime you find yourself thinking about something over and over again, or there is something on your mind that is stressing you out, you can use the Pensieve Diary to get more clarity and peace of mind.

Take a blank piece of paper (or an empty document), and write down exactly what is bothering you and why. It’s just like telling a friend about it. From there you can think about what you can do about those thoughts, such as seeing that you don’t have to worry.

When you’re done writing, you’ll find that your mind is much calmer and clearer. It feels just like extracting the silvery light from your head. And best of all, you can revisit those thoughts whenever you’re ready to deal with them.

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With that in mind, enjoy today’s Retro and Planning! ✨

✏️ Retro

(Like always, you can download the Notion template to take structured notes.)

What goals did you set for yourself last month, and how well did you achieve them?

Make a list of your goals (even if they were only implicit) and score them from 1 (low) to 10 (high). You are not allowed to pick a 7. Take notes as you go.

Is there something that is blocking you?

What held you back last month? What can you do to avoid this next month?

What did you learn?

Did you learn something about yourself, your environment, or about the work you do?

🔭 Planning

What are your top 3 priorities next month?

Why are they important to you?

What goals do you set for yourself in light of these priorities?

To beat procrastination, make sure to split every higher-level goal into small subgoals.

What are potential obstacles or challenges you may face?

How can you prepare for them?

🌈 Bonus

What do you need to write down and get out of your head?

Think about problems you are constantly thinking about, unresolved thoughts, or things that are stressing you out.

🙏 Thanks!

Thank you for being a part of Mental Garden. I sincerely hope you found this email useful.

Since I’m already talking about Harry Potter, I might as well tell you about the one Harry Potter book you’ve probably never heard of.

It’s my favorite Harry Potter book, and it’s called Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

In this unofficial spin-off, Petunia married an Oxford biochemistry professor instead of Vernon Dursley. Harry grows up with books on science fiction and hard science and comes to Hogwarts as a rationalist, questioning all the things that don’t make sense in the original books (like when McGonagall turns into a cat, exclaiming “The laws of thermodynamics are wrong!”)

Have a great weekend! ✨

With gratitude,
Marc