Tracking Your Success: Why You Should Keep a Daily Journal
It may seem a self-centered pastime, but keeping a journal is actually an excellent career-building tool. It can help you figure out new directions for your life and then guide you as you go.
It can also be a very satisfying hobby. I've been keeping journals for more than 30 years now, and the pleasure of writing them has only increased over the years.
In my earlier years, I kept journals sporadically, usually when traveling or involved in some interesting project. I kept a journal for two years when I lived in Africa teaching English and philosophy at the University of Chad. I kept a journal twice during summer vacations -- once in the French countryside and another time in Rome.
But when I started writing ETR about 10 years ago, I began journaling every day. I have done so pretty much nonstop since then.
I used to write my journals in a leather book with a fountain pen. I liked the feel of writing out my words. And I enjoyed the way the sentences looked on paper. I also drew illustrations -- cartoons, caricatures, and scenes. And sometimes I pasted parts of letters or newspaper clippings or ticket receipts on the pages to remind me of important experiences.
Since my thumbs became arthritic, I can't write longhand anymore, so I use a computer instead. The result is not as aesthetically pleasing as the old leather journals, but I find that I write much more these days and I don't have to worry about losing the record of my life in some flood.
Over the years, my journals have evolved from the random observations of my first travelogs to a more formal but more comprehensive format today.
At the top of each journal entry, I keep my monthly, weekly, and daily goals. These I update daily, changing the color of the tasks from red to black as I complete them.
My most important tasks are highlighted in yellow. I make an effort to complete them first -- and when I don't, I work late until they are done. The less important tasks can be pushed to the next day or even the next week if necessary. I've found this simple system has greatly increased my productivity.
Beneath my goals, I include certain daily tasks that I consider critical to my personal development. I write a poem. I learn a new word. And I record a useful or interesting (to me) thought.
I've been writing poems on a daily basis for almost three years now. If I keep this up, I'll have written more poems than Emily Dickinson by the time I'm 65.
Learning a new word every day is simply fun. I make an effort to select only words I might possibly use. Esoteric words have only passing interest for me. I believe that a good vocabulary is a personal asset. It helps you communicate ideas with precision. It conveys experience and conviction. It gives you power. It helps you succeed.
It's not easy to come up with a useful or interesting new thought every day, but it has become much easier since I started doing it. I collect thoughts on business, on relationships, and even philosophical musings. These have been very helpful in developing essay and book ideas. And they make me a better conversationalist.
I transfer all my new words, thoughts, and poetry to separate journals. I edit them once a month and use them, as I said, for books and articles, as well as business memos.
Eighty percent of the good ideas we come up with are lost because we simply forget them. Entering them into a journal and then editing them once a month assures that most of them are remembered and profited from.
The next entry in my journal is a short diary of what has happened that day. I try to keep this short and sweet. I've found, from doing this so long, that most of my daily activities are not as interesting in retrospect as they are the day I experience them. The diary, I imagine, will be a source of pleasure one day when I am old or invalid. I'll reread all the days of my life.
Next, I edit something that I wrote the day before. Often, it's a poem or short story. But sometimes it's an essay for ETR. This requires a bit more mental acuity. After a half-hour of editing, I can feel the creative engine kicking into third gear.
Then I start my real writing. Fiction or non-fiction, this is the most important part of my writing day.
My journal is also the place where I track my health information -- my weight, my blood-sugar levels, my doctors' appointments and results -- as well as the progress I've made on other goals in business and my personal life.
To me, your journal should be like your house. It should be filled with interesting things that reflect the person you are. I hate houses that are designed by professional decorators. You walk through them and they all look the same. You know the people who own them, but you can find no evidence of their personalities where they live.
Keeping a journal can help you change your life. It can help you do better work, achieve your goals, communicate with friends and family, and get your working day moving. And it's a terrific way to leave behind a record of who you were and what you were doing during your voyage through life.
If you are keeping a journal or thinking about starting one, here are three ways to make that journal work for you.
3 Powerful Ways to Benefit From Your Journal
1. Keep track of your goals.
If you keep track of your goals like I do, you will find that it is much easier to complete them. Every morning, all the tasks you want to do but haven't done yet are staring you in the face. They are shouting at you -- "Hey, lazy one... let's get to work!"
At the end of each day, note which tasks you've completed and which you've failed to complete. If you are failing to complete highlighted (important) tasks, put aside everything else the next day until you have taken care of those.
2. Stay creative and keep your writing fresh.
Writing in your journal every morning gets and keeps your creative juices flowing. You can record ideas for new products or services... draft memos to your team or letters to colleagues... jot down outlines for books you want to write... even practice your copywriting.
If you are a marketer, be sure to write marketing copy every day. Copywriter John Forde recommends writing three pages of sales copy a day. He says it will keep your imagination in top form. I believe he's right.
3. Remember things you've learned, books you've read, and observations you've made.
Whether you segregate your thoughts as I do, or simply highlight them in your diary, it's helpful to keep a record of them and then refer to them later.
I also record interesting facts and figures from my reading. (I make it a point to locate at least one useful fact or idea in every newspaper or magazine or business book that I read.) And I use my journal to list recommendations that I read or hear about: a new wine to try, a new book, a new CD from a favorite singer, a new restaurant, an exotic destination that I want to travel to.
It's amazing how much good stuff you can accumulate once you get into the habit of putting things that interest you into your journal and highlighting them for future use.
So those are three important benefits of keeping a journal -- but there are many more. A journal can also be a place to:
- Record snippets of conversations that you can use later when writing your next (or first) novel or screenplay.
- List reasons why you deserve a big salary increase (or reasons why you shouldn't be let go during your company's upcoming layoffs).
- Identify all your assets and their locations, so your spouse or children can get to them in an emergency.
- Index your favorite recipes, quotations, images, etc.
- Record the good deeds you've done and the blessings you've received.
Keeping a journal takes about 5 to 30 minutes a day -- well worth it when you consider the payoff: It will help you make better plans and accomplish more with your time.
And when you get much older, a journal can give you an unexpected bonus: hours and hours of fun, reminiscing about your rich, rewarding, productive life.
(To help you see exactly what I'm talking about, I've included some recent journal entries here.)
Bob Cox, the creator of our Epiphany Alliance program, knows the value of keeping a journal. He has kept one his whole career. And that's why all his students keep one -- a special journal specifically for goal setting. At a glance, you can tell whether you are on track (completing the intermediate goals on the way to your big "life" goals)... or falling behind.
But that's just one small part of Bob's program. Through weekly letters and regular teleconferences -- and even personal coaching from Bob -- you get a complete guide to living your life on your terms. Accomplish anything you want. Follow your most cherished dreams -- and live them. By using the success techniques that Bob talks about in his program, you'll learn:
- How to completely reinvent your life so you can become the kind of successful, on-top-of-things person you always wanted to be...
- The 12 steps to adding more time to your day and getting each day off to the freshest, most productive start...
- How to remain completely stress-free -- no matter how busy you get...
- At least 3 ways of creating an ever-growing second income while keeping your day job...
- The insidious character flaw that could double the time it takes you to succeed (and how to get rid of it)...
- How to make consistent, daily progress toward your most-neglected goals...
And that's just small sampling.
If you asked him, Bob would tell you that all his techniques and strategies can be traced back to one thing: time management. We all have the same amount of time each day to make things happen. But Bob has written a letter explaining how to accomplish more in 24 hours than most people do all week. You can read it here.
[Ed. Note: Michael Masterson welcomes your questions and comments. Send him a message at AskMichael@ETRFeedback.com.]
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