I’ve been doing quarterly reviews for about three seasons now. The first season I tried it I had no expectations. I thought that it would be interesting, but I didn’t think that it would yield anything life-changing.
I would say that it has changed my life and given me a better handle on where I am emotionally and spiritually than any other practice I’ve tried. I have been coming out of a few rough years personally. Between the pandemic and being postpartum while we waded through that madness, as well as a job change for my husband and moving into our first home, it almost feels like this is the first time I’ve really been able to breathe in years.
One of the things that helped me through those seasons of change and upheaval was pouring everything out in morning pages (if you haven’t heard of morning pages, this is the gist of it). On the days that I didn’t do it, I could almost feel the words crowding up in my head, tumbling over each other trying to get out. I’d find myself scribbling out notes before bed, my brain composing poetry about the unfairness of womanhood or the way that the peace settled around me while waiting for my toddler to fall asleep.
However, once I’d written everything down, I never went back to it. Unless it was a poem and even then, rarely. I’d remembered reading about morning pages and that you were supposed to read them periodically, but I never got around to it. Until last fall.
As soon as “winter quarter” started, I took a break from my morning pages and the other books I was reading for a few days and went through all the entries that I’d written during the “fall” (I split my quarters into seasons, and “Fall” being September, October, November.) As I went through the quarter I had a piece of paper where I took notes. I wrote down the topic or theme that I saw in every entry or multiple if more than one came up. Then as I was reading I would place a star next to each one that was mentioned again later. I also highlighted any sentences or phrases that were lovely or that seemed important to me. With a bird’s eye view of my life for the past three months, it was easy to see where my heart was getting caught up. It was easy to see the places that I had grown, worries that had smoothed over with the passage of just a few months.
It felt like hope. I could finally make sense of myself little by little. I felt like telling everyone that I could find how important it is to write down a little bit of what’s in your head, as often as you can.
In those early days of morning pages, three pages never seemed like enough (or thirty minutes). I had so much to say, all of it piled up inside me so deeply that I was sure I would never run out of words. These days I don’t always get three pages in, and I don’t always make it every day. I’ve still found in the quarters since then when I’ve written less (including this last quarter where I had probably fewer than thirty entries total) that I still learned so much about myself.
I highly encourage anyone who is looking to find a little more insight into themselves to set aside some time to journal, every day if you can manage it, but really as often as you can. Even ten minutes can make a difference. For me, I rotate through typing, writing longhand in my notability app on my iPad, and writing in a journal with a fountain pen. Whatever works for you and the time that you have is enough.
You can set your own time frame, I like three months because it feels long enough to see change and growth and notice patterns while still being actionable. The things that were on my mind three months ago are often still on my mind to some degree now. The growth is still something I can celebrate because it is recent enough to feel new. You could easily do it monthly or every six months. Feel free to play around a little bit and find what works for you.
Whatever you try, I think you’ll see that something is always better than nothing, and starting today is one more day added to your entries. Don’t ever worry about missed days or imperfections, this is a practice that is just for you. Start where you are. Move forward. You’ve got this, Magic Makers. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them in the comments!