There are so many ways of keeping a journal, that any guidance given won’t make sense to someone. The blog Inspired to Journal talks about a number of tools people use to write their journals. All I can do is talk about what I use and ways I’ve tried.

Let’s start with my tools.

• Notebook - I use notebooks approximately 6″ X 9″ in size. I prefer lined pages with clean white paper. I buy the notebooks in a variety of places, often under the title ‘Composition Notebook’.
• Pens - I usually use a black pen to write or draw in the notebook. I usually use whatever is at hand when I want to write, but I particularly like the Pilot G2 pen to write & draw with. I keep a set of Black, Blue, Red, and Green pens handy. I use Black the most, closely followed by Blue, then Red and Green.
• Notebook Cover - I purchased a leather cover for my notebook which makes it look good when I’m in high level meetings. Since I move from the front-line to the board room at times, making my notebook look good is important.
• Large White Sticky Labels - I keep a set of large white labels to paste on the front of the journal. On this label, I put my name and the dates covered within this volume of the journal.

There are lots of other ways to keep a journal, some of which I’ve tried and some I haven’t. Any way that makes sense to you is worth using. For example, I’ve tried:

• Keeping my journal in my dayplanner - I found this to be a problem, mixing things. Eventually, I decide that my dayplanner is for scheduling and short notes, the journal is for more extensive writing, researching, and so forth.
• Keeping my journal on the computer - General applications - I’ve tried using Notepad, Word, and other general applications for keeping a journal. It just didn’t work for me. I’ve got too much I want to put into my journal and sometimes, my computer just isn’t available.
• Keeping my journal on the computer - Journaling applications - I’ve tried several journaling applications. Unfortunately, these didn’t work for me because they weren’t available when I wanted to make entries. Further, I couldn’t make all the kinds of entries I wanted to. The application I liked the best was LifeJournal which introduced me to a number of very interesting journaling techniques, but it did require me to be at the computer to use them.
  
  
• Keeping my journal on the computer - Special notebooks - I tried keeping a journal using OneNote & Outlook on Windows and NoteBook & Entourage on Macintosh. All of them were good, OneNote and NoteBook especially came close when using them from my laptop. Unfortunately, I lost many of the files when moving to a new computer and no longer had OneNote available.
  
  
  
  
  

  I love both of these applications. I did A LOT with OneNote, but when I moved to a Mac laptop, it was no longer available. Since it had come preinstalled on my Windows Laptop, I couldn’t transfer it to another Windows workstation, so I lost it. On the Mac, NoteBook has turned out to be an exceptional application, but not for Journaling. I’ll talk about it some time.

Over time, I’ve developed my tool set to support the following needs:

1. I like to have the notebook with me all the time and add thoughts to it anywhere.
2. I like to record quick notes about what’s going on during the day that I want to remember
3. I like to draw freehand at times and the notebook keeps these scribblings together
4. I often use colored pens and highlighters to draw attention to things. I found shifting colors and highlighting awkward on the computer. In my dayplanner, the colors distracted from the purpose of the dayplanner which is to keep me focused on what needs to be done today or this week.
5. I have a strong negative reaction personally to people who use laptops in meetings. Too often you find them with their head buried in their laptop instead of participating in the meeting. One fellow I used to work for would be chatting with people through the Internet while in meetings. I resolved to never do that myself.

Categories: The Basics