If you ask successful people how they achieve their goals, chances are that they’ll advise you to keep a journal. While it may seem silly, or time-consuming, it has many advantages.

The truth is that I felt quite unsure about journaling for a long time. I had been working on my productivity and motivation for years and I often read that journaling daily should be part of that journey, but I just didn’t seem to have time for it. Only recently I decided to put my notebook to good use and I started journaling once a week. Somehow I got so motivated along the way that I journal every day now! Anyone can find time to journal once a week, right?

What is so special about writing things down in a notebook and how can it help you?

Well, first of all, you can use journaling for remembering your good ideas. When we write things down, we can always read them back. Research shows that we have between 60.000 and 80.000 thoughts a day. If some of those thoughts are any good, you should probably write them down before your mind gets filled with new thoughts. Our brains are constantly searching for new information, and that’s why we get distracted all the time. Therefore, it’s simply impossible to remember all our good ideas.

Secondly, you can use journaling for accountability. Writing down goals and plans on paper makes us more likely to do those things. Somehow the fact that it is written on paper makes it feel like an obligation. If we check our notebook and see we didn’t reach our goals, we feel guilty. On the other hand, if we only set the goal in our mind, it’s easy to get distracted again and forget about the goals we set in the first place. Besides, by writing down our goals we can easily keep track of our progress. It’s very motivating to see how we’ve grown when we look back at the goals we’ve already reached. This motivation keeps us going and inspires us to set more goals.

Lastly, you can use journaling to feel more grateful. If you write down the things that went well after a long day, you will focus more on those good things. It’s very easy to lose our minds in negative thinking, that’s why practising gratitude is so important. Believe it or not, but focussing on the good stuff makes you attract more good stuff. Just give it a try!

Let me know in the comments if you have more journal tips. Also, if you got enthusiastic after reading this, get yourself a notebook and start today!