Journaling has been attracting a lot of attention. Its influence on personal growth and productivity has made it worthy of anyone’s attention.
Keeping a journal can be a very effective way to keep track of your progress and thoughts. It can also allow you to find new ways to tackle certain issues and approach your goals.
Are you aware of the power of journaling? Do you know how journaling can help you reach a better version of yourself?
If you are inquisitive about journaling and you want to push towards your goals, you are in the right place. We present to you 6 ways through which will journaling can help with promoting productivity and personal growth. Let’s get started!
1. Write Down Your Most Important Goals
What do you want to accomplish? Who do you want to become? What are your short-term goals?
These are just some of the questions you can answer while journaling. The journal is the perfect keeper of your goals. Writing your short-term and long-term goals in the journal can keep you focused on what you want to accomplish.
What's more, writing down goals has been linked to a higher achievement rate. According to research, if you write down your goals regularly, you are 42% more likely to achieve them.
When you write your goals down, you're activating both the logic-based left hemisphere of the brain and the imaginative right hemisphere. Thus, you'll be more inspired to work on those goals, and you'll also stay on track with your objectives.
Still, we all would like to make our goals and objectives more tangible and goal-oriented, which is why you simply ought to try a helpful app called TickTick. What makes it unique is you can also input your goals in the app's goal-tracking to-do list feature that lets you write them down, analyze, and finally organize them accordingly right inside this handy app!
2. Pick a Daily Motivational Quote
Boost your motivation with quotes. A powerful quote that builds up excitement within you can help you start the day on a positive note.
Every day when you open your journal, write down a motivational quote for the day. By writing them every day, you’ll be consistently invested in building up your positive mindset.
You are what you think. Therefore, fill your mind with productivity-related quotes and quotes that will help you grow.
Here are some motivational quotes to get you started:
- "Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most." — Buddha.
- "Action is the foundational key to all success." — Pablo Picasso
- "Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work." — Stephen King
- "Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly. It’s your masterpiece after all." — Nathan W. Morris
- "Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." — Theodore Roosevelt
If you like to pull out quotes from less ordinary sources, you can try looking into essays. For starters, browse this site with free essay samples, and you can surface quotes from topics you are interested in.
3. Don't Overthink about What You Want to Write
Your journal is only for your eyes. It is probably the only form of expression that doesn’t demand any kind of filtering. What you think is what you should write about.
Spilling all your thoughts in the journal will clear your mind. It will also give you a better perspective on your fears, doubts, frustrations, and accomplishments.
You can do 5 to 10 minutes of "stream of consciousness" writing. Simply sit down and write whatever comes to your mind first. The thoughts can be jumbled or disorganized. It doesn't matter.
It is vital to get your thoughts and ideas sorted because if you focus on the chaos and have ideas scattered all over your journal, it may decrease your creative flow and make it look pressured. Some great things are rather simple after all, which is why journaling acts as a great way to free your mind and make some room for positive thinking and work-related tasks.
4. Use Colors and Shapes To Promote Your Writing
Who says that journaling is limited solely to writing? With the help of color and shapes, you can get inspired and promote your writing.
Get yourself more pumped up about journaling by using different-colored pens, including images, collages, and shapes. Express yourself freely.
Adding color and variety to your journal will make it more personal. Embrace your creativity and let the journal showcase your personality.
Visual prompts can make you more inspired to be consistent in journaling. Besides, your journal can be a form of expression, not just a safe place for sharing your thoughts and dreams.
5. Keep Track of Your Daily and Weekly Objectives
Introducing healthy habits and a productive routine is beneficial for both your personal and professional success. Use the journal to keep track of your daily and weekly objectives.
Staying true to your promise of jogging 3 times a week will be easier if you write that objective down.
The fast-paced life often swallows our short-term objectives. A new habit you wanted to embrace can get lost among your daily obligations. The journal won't let that happen anymore.
When you are dealing with some short-term and long-term goals, remember to keep track of your daily or weekly objectives as well. Some things will be usual to you just like habits while some challenges will seem difficult, which is normal. You can also use the great Habit Tracking feature in TickTick, which is exactly what its name implies – it helps to track down your habits and will train you as you start with something new like exercising or reading a chapter of an important book for your job and the personal growth.
6. Organize Your Thoughts
Is there anything better for organizing your thoughts than a journal?
The journal gives you a retrospective of what you have on your mind and helps you organize those ideas.
But how to keep your journal organized? If you want to be more productive, you also want to display your productiveness in the journal.
What can help you organize your thoughts is using a bullet journal. This journal can be used for many purposes. No matter what you used it for, it will ensure that your thoughts are organized and efficient. You can also create different sections within your journal. One section can be for goal-setting, another for "stream of consciousness" writing, and the third one for essay-like storytelling.
The beauty of any journal experience is that it can easily become whatever you would like it to be. You can simplify the majority of your tasks. For example, using the Note feature of TickTick, you can simplify your note-taking process, which is an essential part of successful journaling. You can organize your ideas and goals all within a single format. Taking notes in TickTick is quite intuitive and is a breeze to work with. It reminds you of journaling with a pen and paper, yet with a comfortable digital tool that will make you feel right at home. The trick is to stay creative and add descriptions to each step that you take to serve as reminders!
Final Thoughts
Journaling is more than writing down your daily activities. If you give it a chance, a journal can embody your life. This seemingly small habit that is journaling can help you grow and become a more productive person.
Give journaling a try, and let us know whether you’ve noticed some changes in personal growth and productivity levels. If you have some other useful journaling prompt, share with us what those are.
Note: This article is written by Marques Coleman, a content editor at Subjecto education website, where he combines his passion for writing with an interest in research.
