My Daily Journal

Archives from Les Treasure Hunters — travel diaries, photography software reviews, book notes and creator stories — sit alongside my daily writing. Explore the sections below.

One real thing a day  ·  Saint-Pierre, La Réunion

“When I feel like it” never happens. That single sentence is the reason this journal exists, and the reason it has the shape it has.

This is where I write. Not for an audience, not for an algorithm — though I welcome both — but because writing keeps my thoughts from circling and turns them into something I can look at.

The format is simple: one post a day when I can manage it, shorter when energy is low, longer when something needs working out. There is no pressure to be polished. The point is to show up.

The four archive sections

The journal is also a home for older material. Each section has its own page:

• Europe Travel — stories, photos and videos from an Interrail journey across Europe, archived from Les Treasure Hunters.
• Photography & Software — a working notebook on editing images and the software I use.
• Books & Ideas — book summaries, philosophy, psychology and practical guides drawn from personal journeys.
• Creator & Life — the messier, more personal side of building something online while living in La Réunion.

+------------------------------+
|   ONE REAL THING A DAY       |
+------------------------------+
               |
       +-------+-------+
       |               |
+-------------+ +-------------+
| LOW ENERGY  | | SOMETHING   |
|             | | TO WORK OUT |
| a paragraph | | a long essay|
+-------------+ +-------------+
       |               |
       +-------+-------+
               |
+------------------------------+
|   BOTH COUNT                 |
+------------------------------+
               |
+------------------------------+
|   MAIN BLOG FEED             |
+------------------------------+

Three threads in the daily writing

The journal itself runs across three main threads, which sometimes overlap:

• Teaching and language — observations from lessons, ideas about methodology, and the gap between what textbooks say and what actually works in a room full of real people. More in English Teaching.
• Mental health and neurodiversity — living with ADHD, bipolar disorder and PTSD in a working life that demands consistency, and how the stability-first approach plays out day to day. The longer story is in My Mental Health Journey.
• Life in La Réunion — a small island in the south-west Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, with its own mix of cultures, languages and rhythms. A good place to build something quietly.

The 60-Day ELT Masterclass

If you arrived here from the ELT Masterclass posts, this journal is the companion to the course. The masterclass gives the framework; the journal is where I test it, question it, and connect it to what happens when you close the theory and open the classroom door.

Why daily? What the evidence says

Because “when I feel like it” never happens. Because, with my ADHD, irregular tasks disappear from my attention entirely. And because everything I have seen in my own life, and what I have read in the research, points the same way: consistency at a lower level beats brilliance at a high one.

Here is what that research actually shows. In a study at University College London, Lally and colleagues (2010) asked volunteers to choose one simple eating, drinking or activity behaviour and repeat it every day in the same context. Repetition gradually made the behaviour more automatic, people varied widely in how long that took, and missing a single opportunity did not materially affect the process. It did not study writing, so it supports a modest daily routine rather than proving that steady work always beats bursts of brilliance.

Writing itself has a longer research history. Pennebaker (1997) summarised a decade of studies in which people who wrote about emotional experiences showed improvements in physical and mental health, while noting boundary conditions on the effect. That matches my reason for writing — turning circling thoughts into something I can look at — though it is not a promise that a journal will help everyone. As for ADHD, the US National Institute of Mental Health lists difficulty keeping on task and staying organised among the signs of inattention, which is why a fixed daily slot matters more to me than motivation.

One real thing a day. That is the system. Some days the real thing is a paragraph. Some days it is a long essay about what happens when you try to learn a language and your nervous system is braced for threat. Both count.

The takeaway: a habit is built by turning up, not by waiting for the right mood. Keep the bar low enough to clear on a bad day — one real thing — and let the good days run long. A missed day is not the end of the habit; the next entry is.

Follow along

New posts go to the main blog feed. For the wider ideas behind the mental-health thread, start with Philosophy & Mental Health, and you can read more about me on the About Me page.

You can also reach me directly at sourovdeb.is@gmail.com or through the contact page — I read every message.