Have you ever asked yourself the question: what are the benefits of keeping a journal notebook?
You probably have kept a journal of an important event of your life before but are still not sure why people journal and why you should too. There are so many reasons why people will want to keep a journal notebook such as to record important events of their life, keep records of vital information, and more. But there are far more benefits of journaling than you’re likely aware of.
Do you know journaling can be your best tool to work through a challenging moment in your life?
Well, read on to find out other benefits of keeping a journal notebook you most likely haven’t explored before.
Most importantly, keeping a journal notebook has lots of benefits but it all depends on the goals you set to achieve with it and how you plan to use it. For example, college students may find a journal notebook a powerful strategy to improve writing fluency, develop the right skill for responding to literature, and gain more confidence to take on more life’s challenges. There are also benefits of journaling for writers such as helping in generating ideas and boosting their creative writing skills.
As with other classes of people, business owners can leverage a journal notebook as a powerful tool to teach their employees how to plan, schedule, and organize their daily activities such as meetings and events in the organization.
As an individual, journaling can help you improve your time management skills and boost your self-confidence through proper organization of thoughts and information, and scheduling of events.
The benefits are just limitless and can apply to all kinds of people irrespective of career, level, and background. In this article, we’ll look in-depth into:
- What is a journal notebook?
- Types of journal notebook
- 7 Benefits of keeping a journal notebook
What is Journal Notebook?
A journal is known to many people by different names such as a diary, log, or notebook. Also known as a personal journal, a journal is a written document in which you jot down events, ideas, and experiences that are so important to you to forget. Depending on your goal and the users involved, a journal, when used by students, benefits students by enhancing reflection, facilitating critical thought, expressing feelings, and writing focused arguments. There are also the benefits of a journal for writers in using it for recording observations and exploring ideas that may eventually be developed into more formal essays, articles, and stories.
Types of Journal Notebook
When it comes to classifying journal, there can be a bunch of different types you can have based on your goals and your manner of usage. Before you jump straight into selecting one for yourself, it’s important to know what you’re set to achieve so you can select the best format that fits your need. Or you can explore different formats or better still create an entirely new one that you can easily personalize for yourself. Whichever way you choose to go; below are several options of a journal notebook you can choose from:
- Bullet Journal: This type of journal reflects its name in that it’s a type of journal that uses bulleted lists for creating to-do lists, organizing ideas, recording goals, as well as tracking progress.
- Transfer Journal: This type of journal is mostly used by students and it works by letting you jot down a piece of information and idea you gained from what you’ve learned in the class so you can make use of them in the future.
- 5 Ws Journal: The 5W’s is an acronym that stands for Who, What, When, Where, and Why. The good thing about these questions is they help you demystify complex information into a small chunk that you can easily organize and learn by heart. The principle isn’t limited to when you’re studying alone, you can also apply the 5Ws journal in your business, as Ricardo Singh made us realize in this article.
- The Blank Notebook Journal: Just as there are different types of journals for all sorts of goals and uses, the blank notebook journal is a perfect option for writers and other creatives. If you’re serious about being a writer or self-publishing yourself, you should leave the space in your computer or another book for just one purpose: journaling
- Artistic Journal: Sounds like you? If you’re an art enthusiast this type of journal can be all you need for preserving your creative ideas. What if you’re not an art nerd but just want to experiment with paper? It works for you too! This journal can be your best tool to release your creative potential. But there are just a few other things you can use this journal for including jotting down your impressions after visiting exhibitions, museums, theatre plays, concerts, and other art shows. Also, a study has shown that engagement in art-making, and art therapy, among others, can be helpful for people suffering from a psychotic disorder, which helps them build relationships, connect with others, experience a sense of commonality, absorption, sense of freedom, and discover alternative perspectives.
- Food Journal: Are you looking for ways to plan and improve your nutrition? This might be your best option. From meal planning, collecting recipes and photos of nutritious meals, and streamlining your shopping process, there are so many benefits you can get from journaling.
- Travel Journal: You are most certainly not going to embark on a vacation or trip abroad without taking a photo, do you? While you may end up dumping those photos on your Facebook, Instagram, or somewhere on the cloud, there are way more benefits you can derive from travel journaling. Travel journaling can do more than just imagining what you saw or ate during your trip. It can also serve as a perfect and fun way to preserve memories from your journey, and lower packing anxiety, among others.
7 Benefits of Keeping a Journal Notebook
The benefits of journaling are endless but below are a few benefits of keeping a journal notebook:
- Boosts Your Mental Health
According to an experimental study conducted at Michigan State University, expressive writing cools the brain on stressful tasks. Journaling helps improves your mental health and keeps your brain in perfect shape. Also, it helps in boosting your mood and controlling your symptoms by helping you prioritize problems, concerns, and fears. By being on top of your symptoms and internal conflicts, you can identify triggers and figure out a way to better improve your conditions. Additionally, when you start to take charge of your symptoms by identifying triggers, you’ll be able to create enough space within your brain for positive self-talk and rid your brain of negative thoughts that keep spoiling your mood.
Sometimes all you need to improve your mental health is something that can help you remember those funny events of your life. And that is where humor can really be of great help to you. By writing down those happy events of your life in a funny way, you can easily control anxiety when it creeps in. So when you hear people say humor is healing, they’re saying the truth.
- Improves Your Self-Confidence
Have you ever wanted to feel self-confident when you talk or need to address a situation? Journaling can help you take charge of your anxiety by helping you organize your thoughts and schedule in a well-organized and timely manner. The reason why so many people become susceptible to anxiety is that they fail to plan and organize their schedules and thoughts in advance of time.
Remember when we talk about the bulleted journal and its uses in making a to-do list, and tracking progress, among others? This is another way by which journaling can help you enhance your self-confidence by helping you manage your time efficiently. Because with your to-do list, for instance, you can track what needs to be done and when it should be done. And that’s one of the benefits of keeping a journal notebook.
- Prevents Loss of Ideas
I can bet with you there are so many ideas that have come to your mind that you never acted on because you didn’t remember them. By keeping a journal notebook, you can prevent that from ever occurring again. By taking pen to paper, you can preserve all the ideas that pop up on top of your head anywhere anytime, and all in one organized place. So when you need to implement an idea, you can go back to your journal and fetch the idea. Apart from helping prevent the loss of ideas, journaling can help you generate more ideas from the ones you already penned down.
- Helps with Setting & Achieving Goals
There’s this wise saying by Ashley Lemmons on why writing down goals can help motivate people to follow through with their goals. Quoting him in his own words, it goes thus:
“WRITE DOWN YOUR GOALS. DECIDE EXACTLY WHAT IT IS THAT YOU WANT. SEEING THESE GOALS ON PAPER KICKS YOUR MOTIVATION UP A NOTCH.”
If you’re looking for a good place to write down your goals, aspirations, ambitions, or New Year’s resolutions, a journal notebook is certainly what you need. Writing down your goals in a journal notebook, helps you track your progress and gets the motivation to stay focused on every step you’re taking toward hitting your target.
When setting your goals, don’t forget to tick every box against the 5 criteria of the SMART goal. The term SMART was first used in November 1981 by George T. Doran and it entails:
- Specific: Your goal must be clear and specific by answering the 5Ws of What (What do you want to achieve?), Why (Why is your goal important?), Who (Who is involved?), Where (Where is it located?), and Which (Which resources or limitations are involved?).
- Measurable: It must involve milestones and benchmarks so you can track your progress and stay motivated.
- Achievable: The goal must be realistic and attainable.
- Relevant: Ensure the goal is relevant and beneficial to you.
- Time-bound: Set a target date for your goals.
With all these things in place and by journaling your goals, you should be able to track your progress and address any bottlenecks that arise as you progress.
- Unleashes Your Creative Power
One of the ways by which you can inspire your creativity is by keeping a journal notebook. With a journal notebook, you can visualize your thoughts and feeling and unleash creativity within you. For artists or other creatives, for example, journaling can be a great way to inspire your creative ideas through a visual journal, painting, or sketching images from imagination or real life. Again, this is where an artistic journal comes in handy.
- Enhances Your Brain Activity
A study has shown that writing on physical paper can lead to more brain activity when remembering the information an hour later. If you’re a student, you definitely will want to try one of the best journal notebooks out there to aid your memorizing information in preparation for your next exams. And for those who aren’t students but just need to improve their memory, integrating journaling into your life is your best bet.
- Improves Critical Thinking Skills
When it comes to ensuring that you live your best, most successful, and happy life, you first need to understand why critical thinking is important and what you must do to acquire strong critical thinking skills. One of the best ways to enhance your critical thinking skills easily and quickly is by journaling. As national stakeholders continue to express concern over the inadequacy of the U.S College graduates to solve problems and think critically, keeping a journal notebook might be the right tool you need to lay your hand on to help your kids in college improve their critical thinking skills.
Wrapping Up
Journaling offers a wide range of benefits for all classes of people and needs. By keeping a journal every day of your ideas, information, and goals, you can improve your mental health and stay motivated with your goals. Depending on your purpose for journaling, there’s a journal type that fits your needs. Get a journal notebook for yourself today, experiment with it and you’ll be convinced there are endless benefits in keeping a journal notebook.
