By now you have heard of journaling but what exactly is it? Why is it beneficial? How and where do you start? Journaling is the process of recording one’s journey. For hundreds of years, records were kept as ships logs. A journal is often referred to as a diary to keep records of daily events, thoughts, ideas, inspirations, and interactions. But the modern journal is so much more. With it you can record your systems, experiments and observations as well as how the outcome made you feel and ability to metric or measure the results of the experience.
How to use a journal for life
By now you have heard of journaling but what exactly is it? Why is it beneficial? How and where do you start? Journaling is the process of recording one’s journey. For hundreds of years, records were kept as ships logs. A journal is often referred to as a diary to keep records of daily events, thoughts, ideas, inspirations, and interactions. But the modern journal is so much more. With it you can record your systems, experiments and observations as well as how the outcome made you feel and ability to metric or measure the results of the experience.
Why is journaling beneficial?
There are many reasons to keep a journal for family, for yourself to review your life and works, as well as a great place to keep ideas. People often forget fleeting thoughts that come into their short-term memory but never make it to their long-term memory. This is perfect for writers, artist, musicians, songwriters, scientist, etc. A journal can also be a place where you keep your deepest emotional pains that you need to get out of your mental system so you can move forward.
Modern-day journals allow one too for setting, tracking progress toward them, and celebrate as you accomplish them. You can use your journal to track your progress, after all, how can you possibly track it if you don’t have data to support where you are in he first place? The journal can help you to identify your important achievements and milestones that are often overlooked in the business of the day. The journal can allow you to identify your mistakes and failures so you can make teaching moments valuable and useful. For example, if you are trying to lose weight you can keep a weight journal to track your weight loss. You can document what you are eating with an eating journal and what physical exercise you do with a workout journal. Then you can study what may have worked and what doesn’t. Then you can do more of what worked to reach your goal more efficiently.
Journaling can help to improve your writing skills. If you write every day even for only 5 minutes a day after a year you will have practiced your skill for over 30 hours that’s a lot of practice. The advantage is that it offers a creative outlet where you can put ideas; many writers keep a journal or book small enough that they can take it anywhere. I often use my notepad application on my phone. I write down almost everything from book ideas, to what I need to get at the store.
Journals can be effective in the attempt to become more organized. Planners and timekeepers can be a profound way to communicate to the subconscious mind what your objectives are. The process of using planners is like creating a map allows your conscious mind to better interact with the world around you to allow you to become less distracted by the struggles of the feelings that may be holding you back or causing you to procrastinate. The metric allows you to see your strengths and weaknesses as you accomplish each item you can cross it off or check the box on the to-do list. Hanging onto completed list can boost your self-confidence as you take
on larger and larger task and plan for bigger and bigger projects.
How to start Journaling
There are many versions of modern journaling. It’s not necessary to be formal or use a specific system. The easiest way is to grab a notebook and start writing. The hard part is to create motivation or a purpose for the journal.It’s portable if you choose a smaller notebook. Studies have shown that writing things down tends to help the mind process better. The best way I have found to do this to first create a goal or outcome. If nothing else you may just wish to explore your feelings to figure out if you may need a therapist or perhaps if you think you can figure out what you’re trying to achieve on your own. The advantage to handwritten is that it’s nearly impossible for it to get hacked. However, it may be more likely to be read by others if you leave it sitting around where they can access it. The biggest downside is that if you are careless, you may lose it forever because there are no digital backups.
If you’re not a writer, there are other options. For starters drawing pictures that describe how you feel or an incident you are trying to figure out. Can’t draw? Try cutting out pictures from magazines and newspapers or printing photos that you can cut out and glue together in a college. You can write labels by hand or even print them out with a computer. Ok if the art gig just isn’t for you then perhaps just talking into an audio or video recorder. Audio and video Journals are quite popular. With the new phones, it has become much easier to do just that.
Using a journal to improve your life
A journal can be a tool to allow you to create a system that accommodates your emotional values and the needs for a static system. You don’t need to be an expert writer to use a journal. It can be a simple notebook or notepad, while others practically scrapbook their journals. It’s up to you how you decide to journal. The Journal is no longer just a diary; it can document or journal an entire project including goals, metrics, and results.It doesn’t need to be only written. You can use any of a number of other forms of expression. If you aren’t a writer, you may choose to create art drawings, photo collages audio or even video Journals. Once you decide what the purpose of the journal is it’s much easier to determine what kind of journal you wish to keep. Even if it’s just a simple diary to keep track of your ideas and emotional records of an event you are dealing with. You don’t need to be the world’s best writer to use a journal. The beauty of it is that if you are in control of what goes into the journal.