Online journaling helped me realise most of my stress comes from avoiding things

I noticed a pattern in myself recently. I get stressed about things I haven’t started yet. Not even big tasks. Emails, uni admin, small chores. My brain turns them into something huge, and then the second I finally start, the stress disappears and I get it done way faster than I expected.

I only realised this because I’ve been talking through my days on this little journaling app on my phone called Layers. I don’t use it for anything complicated. I just ramble for a minute about what I avoided and what I actually did. After a while I kept hearing myself say the same thing. I was stressed all morning about something that took ten minutes once I finally started.

Having that pattern reflected back at me made me more aware of it. Now when I feel stress building up, I try to remind myself the task is usually smaller than the feeling. It has helped me start things sooner. I’d recommend it if you’re into low-effort journaling.