Why Keep A Journal or Diary?

I urge all of my weight loss clients to start keeping a journal from the day they come to see me. But a journal is worth much more than a weight loss tool.

Here's an article from Right Mind Logic. (rightmindlogic.com) [This is a commercial website that sells a program called iwrite.4.life. If interested, check it out. Truth to tell, even though I write everything else on the computer, my journal is always hand written. But, your mileage may vary.)

Basically, there are two advantages of keeping a professional journal:

The process of writing something down forces you to think it through until you understand it.
Storing pieces of knowledge or experience saves you from reinventing the wheel.

Journal writing is an investment
The basic concept of journal writing is simple. You write down any information now that may be useful or relevant in the future.

Think of it as an investment. A few moments now might save you hours in the future. This applies to all kinds of journal writing, private or professional. The "usefulness" of a private journal may simply be the ability to indulge in fond memories. However, in this article I'll focus on a certain aspect of professional journal writing: Don't reinvent the wheel!

Don't reinvent the wheel
While there are many more reasons why professionals keep journals (e.g., to prove what has been agreed upon) I believe the "don't reinvent the wheel" aspect to be one of the most important ones. As a modern professional, you are constantly solving problems. Some are small; some are bigger. Some are challenging to solve, as they require you to mobilize all your creative potential; some are boring but the solution is no less important.

The truth is that we would all like to deal with just the creative and enjoyable stuff, but too much of our time is taken up by the repetitive procedures we can't ignore. That's the area that needs to be fixed in writing: Solved once and for all! So next time you'll just look it up and do it. The best candidates for this "programming yourself" (because what you write up is nothing but a program to solve a known problem) are those tasks that are mildly difficult and occur intermittently. Inevitably, the exact moment you forget how to do it will be just before the problem creeps up again!

But again, these are only potential benefits and they will not come to you automatically. Writing a journal is an investment of your time. Unless you find that you get more out of it than you put into it you will quickly stop doing it. But like with most investments it is not always easy to know if you should get out of it or if you should be doing it differently. That's why you should follow some rules...

Five simple rules of journal writing
Rule number one
You have to stay with it for a while before you make a decision whether to continue. An empty journal has no value. Depending on how much you write, you should give yourself at least several weeks before you can expect to be able to see the benefits.

Rule number two
Make it easy for yourself to enter text. Maybe the most neglected issue in this context is that you have to learn how to type using ten fingers. This is actually a minor investment that will pay off big. It will not take you longer than two weeks to get used to it. The nice thing is that you'll get enough exercise while you write your journal. Only learn the basics and keep writing! There is no excuse at all for not learning how to do this.

Rule number three
Start writing now and get organized while you write. Keep iwrite.4.life™ open and take some notes whenever you come across an activity that gives you the feeling that you will be doing this again in the future and may have difficulties remembering the exact steps. A good idea would be to collect this kind of notes in a How To... Topic. Here are some categories that have proven useful again and again:

How To...
Favorite Mistakes (How Not To...)
Goals
Achieved
To Do
Done
Ideas
And talking about getting organized, you want to check out Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. Really.

Rule number four
Review what you wrote on a regular basis. Take a little time at the end of the day to go over your daily notes. Do you still understand what you wrote? If you wrote down a procedure or a How To... Topic, follow the steps mentally to make sure everything is correct and complete.

Rule number five
Invest some time in learning or improving the fundamental skills that all professionals need. Keep yourself up to date about topics like self-management, goal-oriented planning, project management, (technical) writing, and others. These are all basic tools of the trade for any professional - no matter what the specific profession. For starters, you may want to have a look at How to Write, Speak, & Think More Effectively by Rudolf Flesch.