LangJournal Blog 
“I started an English diary but couldn’t keep it up.”
“I lost motivation and quit after three days.”
“I want to know how to stay motivated with my English diary!”
For those facing these challenges, this article will thoroughly explain the reasons why it’s difficult to maintain an English diary and offer tips to keep your motivation high.
If you’re struggling with your English diary, read on!
Table of Contents
- Reasons Why You Can’t Keep Up with an English Diary
- Not knowing what to write
- Not feeling the effects
- Lack of compulsion
- 5 Tips to Stay Motivated with Your English Diary
- Decide on a theme in advance
- Write at the same time every day
- Post on social media
- Use notebooks or apps that boost your motivation
- Use correction services
- Examples of English Diary Themes
- Weather
- Daily events and impressions
- News
- Continue your English diary using correction services!
An English diary is a study method that shows its effectiveness through continued practice, but many people struggle to maintain it and eventually give up.
Here are the three main reasons why:
- Not knowing what to write
- Not feeling the effects
- Lack of compulsion
If you’ve tried keeping an English diary before, these reasons might sound familiar to you.
Let’s dive into each one in detail.
A diary lacks a predetermined theme, which often leads to the dilemma, “What should I write?”
Many people enthusiastically start writing for the first few entries but gradually run out of topics and feel stuck.
In fact, this freedom in writing content can become one of the obstacles to continuation.
We will provide some example topics for your English diary at the end, so please use them as a reference.
Another reason for not being able to continue an English diary is not feeling its effects.
To be precise, it is not easy to feel the results in a short period.
However, many people have reported feeling an improvement in their English skills by continuing with the right methods.
In “The Remarkable Benefits of Daily English Journaling,” there is a story about someone who improved their TOEIC score by over 200 points after keeping an English diary for a year in Japan.
If you don’t feel the effects yet or are interested in keeping an English diary, please check it out.
The Remarkable Benefits of Daily English Journaling
An English diary is free and can be done at your own pace, which is an advantage, but it also has the disadvantage of lacking compulsion, making it difficult to maintain motivation.
Some people are good at continuing things diligently every day, while others are not.
In fact, we are creatures who often fail to continue without some form of compulsion, and we tend to slack off.
Therefore, it is important to find ways to maintain motivation and keep going even without external compulsion.
Next, here are five tips to help you stay motivated with your English diary.
Use these strategies to manage your motivation for learning.
- Decide on a theme in advance
- Write at the same time every day
- Post on social media
- Use notebooks or apps that boost your motivation
- Use correction services
The first tip is to “decide on a theme in advance.”
If you try to decide what to write after opening your English diary, you might end up spending time without knowing what to write.
Eventually, the task of thinking up themes becomes bothersome, and you stop writing the diary.
However, if you decide on a theme from the start, you can start writing immediately, preventing a drop in motivation.
If you write your diary at night, it’s good to decide on a theme in the morning.
Or you could decide on a week’s worth of themes at once.
To ensure you can focus on “writing in English” during your diary time, prepare themes in advance.
The second tip is to “write at the same time every day.”
While it’s fine to write whenever you find some free time, it’s recommended to write at a fixed time.
Ideally, add English diary time to your daily routine, like mealtimes or brushing your teeth.
For those whose daily routine varies, prepare a few patterns.
For example, write at a certain time on day shifts, another time on night shifts, and another on early shifts.
Or you could use the 15 minutes before bedtime.
The third tip is to “post on social media.”
Posting on social media creates an awareness that someone might be looking at your English diary.
Maintaining motivation alone can be difficult, but getting encouragement and recognition from others can boost your enthusiasm.
You might even find English diary buddies on social media.
Strive together with your buddies and continue your English diary.
The fourth tip is to “use notebooks or apps that boost your motivation.”
Some of you might be surprised by this, thinking, “Such a thing?”
However, surprisingly, this is an important point and one of the factors that influence the improvement of motivation for your English diary.
For example, those who cook might feel more motivated cooking in a spacious, easy-to-move-in kitchen rather than a cramped one with lots of stuff.
Car enthusiasts might enjoy driving a car they like, both inside and out, more than driving a stranger’s car.
Similarly, it’s important to use notebooks or apps that you like to boost your motivation.
The fifth and final tip is to “use correction services.”
In the article “How to Write an Effective English Diary? Introducing Ineffective Characteristics,” it was mentioned that getting your writing corrected is important.
Not only can you learn from your mistakes, but using correction services offers other benefits as well.
Especially with paid services, there’s a motivation to do things properly because you paid for it.
Even with free services, you can correct mistakes and learn more natural expressions.
Start with a free correction service.
Lastly, here are three examples of themes for your English diary.
Whether you’ve already started a diary but are struggling with themes, or you’re about to start and want some references, try writing on these three themes.
- Weather
- Daily events and impressions
- News
This is a recommended theme for beginners.
You write about the weather of the day in English, but it doesn’t end with just one sentence like “It was sunny today.”
You can describe:
- It was sunny when I woke up, but it got cloudy after lunch.
- The rain that had been falling since early morning stopped when I left work.
- It got hotter than yesterday, feeling like summer already.
Writing like this shows how even the same sunny day can be slightly different.
For an easier approach, you can write about the weather in the morning and afternoon separately.
Advanced learners can try adding expressions like “finally stopped” or “feels like summer has arrived.”
This theme is recommended for all levels, from beginners to advanced learners.
Start with specific examples like these:
- Morning activities
- What happened at school or work
- What you did after school or work
- Something that made you happy
- Troubles
- Something that made you sad
- New challenges
- Regrets
- Conversations with family, friends, or colleagues
- Things you were thankful for
When writing, focus not only on the actions but also on the situations, locations, times, and feelings.
If you can incorporate “when,” “where,” “who,” “what,” “why,” and “how,” your level will definitely improve.
It’s difficult at first, but try to gradually pay attention to the 5Ws and 1H.
Finally, here is a theme for advanced learners.
Summarize the day’s news or write your opinion based on the news theme.
Summarizing the news is good practice for writing summaries in English, and writing your opinion helps you develop the ability to logically express your thoughts on a given topic.
You can find various genres of news in newspapers, TV news, online news, and social media, so use your free time to check out the news and decide on a theme.
This time, we introduced “5 Tips to Stay Motivated with Your English Diary.”
- Decide on a theme in advance
- Write at the same time every day
- Post on social media
- Use notebooks or apps that boost your motivation
- Use correction services
Among these, especially using correction services is recommended.
Beginners should use them to build a foundation of English basics, while advanced learners can use them to learn high-level vocabulary and expressions.
Next time, we will introduce “Recommended English Diary Correction Services and Apps.”
Find the correction service that suits you best and continue your English diary.
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