We encounter problems everywhere, and most of the ones that affect us most frequently are mitigatable or solveable by us. The tricks to solving a problem are:
- Notice the problem.
- Remember the problem.
- Think about the problem.
That’s all! It’s hard to improve your own life in meaningful ways, but it’s far easier to generate solutions to abstract problems. Instead of thinking to yourself “Why do I stay awake so late every night? I’m a fool!”,
think “What is preventing me to go to bed early and how can I reshape my life to overcome or remove that obstacle?”.
When you become problem-oriented, you become solution-oriented.
This is extremely helpful at work too. Work problems can look like “I’m spending too much time at work,” “work is stressing me out,” or “this process at work is extremely inefficient and ineffective”.
In much the same way that journaling about ideas will make you have more ideas and make you think about and remember and brood more upon your ideas, journaling about open problems in your life will help you do the same for those. When a problem is in the back of your mind, inspiration for fixing it can come in many different forms from many different sources. The trick is to keep it in the back of your mind, and a journal lets you do that.
A Thousand Roads 