Top 3 reasons to begin a Journal

"First of all, I want to get something straight: this is a JOURNAL, not a diary" is a cliche line that you probably heard of from the Diary of A Wimpy Kid book series and I think that it is an appropriate start to this post. For more information on the differences, there will be a link attached below this post from feltmagnet.com. Personally, I think that journals are used differently by people (seriously, take a look at the link) and this post will talk about specifically how a journal can aid with self-improvement and increase your productivity.

The key difference is that a diary is a record of events whereas a journal retains or rather upkeeps your goals and aspirations and that is our first reason.

1. To keep a track of goals and aspirations

Having goals and aspirations are so important that it deserves to have another post dedicated to solely explaining on why we should be keeping up with it. A goal is simply something you want to achieve, and my advice is to keep these goals as specific as possible. The difference between a vague goal and a specific goal is truly remarkable in a sense on what it can accomplish. An example will help get across what I mean.

Vague Goal :

Become healthier

Specific Goal :

Go to the *name* gym every Monday and Thursday at 3 p.m. and do the following sets

Push ups 5 * 10

Sit ups 5 * 8

Also, eat an apple every alternate day

I invite you to think about which goal is easier. It is most probably the latter because planning out exactly how to do it builds you a path that leads you from your current state to the end goal state. Additionally, just writing down your goals makes it easier for you to follow them because for me, making an effort such as writing something down already indicates a level of importance for the task and makes me more willing to do it. It is important to get rid of the mirage that writing down these goals will simply execute the goals. Writing down these goals reduces the "activation energy" or the minimum energy or motivation required to accomplish your goals.

2. Reflection

If you had read my blog post on what is self-improvement ( https://bit.ly/3hI62mp ),

you should have seen the three vital steps for self-improvement to occur. The second step is reflection and without reflection, the whole process simply would not work. As a matter of fact, we reflect unconsciously all the time. If you buy a meal from a new restaurant and you hate it, you will never go there again, right? Why? Because you reflected and you made a judgement! The same thing applies to the more minor actions. If you find waking up earlier gives you more energy and time for the day, chances are you are going to try and wake up early more often. Because you reflected and made a judgement. Simply writing down your reflection is like making your reflection official and making the process a conscious action, which not only may bring up discoveries of how productive your actions are, but also increase how much you reflect. Of course, it goes without saying that the reflection process will be useless until you embrace your mistakes from each reflection.

3. Reduce brain fog

Brain fog is a term that I learnt about from the youtuber, Better Ideas. You should really watch his videos as he does talk a lot about the topics in this niche. The link to his channel can be found below and a video from his channel on how to cure brain fog is embedded below.

Brain fog is simply a state of mind where you are overwhelmed with stuff to remember or tiny details while having very little to no mental clarity. In my experience, simply writing down the content in your mind takes a huge load of your mind, thereby directly increasing your mental clarity and increasing your productivity. Need to go shopping ? Write that down. Have an idea for a business? Write that down. Want to call your mother when you get home? Write that down. Of course, most of these should be written down in a different section of your journal ( In a kind of to do list ).

If you want to get a better idea on how to organise your journal, there are many youtubers like Matt Ragland and Jamie Paige that can tell you how, but it is vital that you personalise the journal according to you how you use it. I have been journaling for years and not just on pen and paper but also on online platforms like Notion( will be talked about in another blog post). It made me realise that my revision techniques were inefficient and also how I wasn't keeping my diet healthy and those were just the tip the iceberg. Feel free to share your journaling venture and how it benefited you in the comments!

Diaries vs journals - https://bit.ly/2X87mpg

Better Ideas - https://bit.ly/395d5Bw