Journaling in general has numerous benefits—the kinds of benefits that can spell the difference between success and mediocrity, realizing one’s full potential and merely coasting along, sound mental and emotional health, and maladaptive disorders or somatic symptoms.

These same benefits are true of specific types of journaling, in this case business journaling for those who are running small businesses and are aiming for growth, both personal and business.

A business journal is a powerful tool that many have yet to discover and leverage with serious conviction. Perhaps this is partly because of some lingering tendency to associate journaling with schoolgirl-diary type of writing. Which is not at all the case.

There is no strict, specific format and writing style in journaling. Rather, there are numerous possibilities, all depending on what works for you. However, some practices have proven to enhance the journaling experience and reward the journal writer with just a bit more of what they hope to get out of adopting the habit.

So just how do you go about business journaling the smart way?

Always keep your journal within reach.

Regardless of whether you’re using an electronic journal or a physical version, make sure you can always reach for it if you need to write down some notes. Otherwise, you will just end up writing your notes in other places, and that’s not very organized and will frustrate you in the long run if you have to be all over the place to find something you’re sure you wrote down somewhere.

Write down your ideas as soon as they come to you.

Or to put it another way, do write things down. While some of us may decide to start a journal, we don’t actually try very hard to write down what we’re supposed to be writing down. Rather, we write down only when it’s convenient, or when the mood strikes us. And because our brain constantly has to make room for new thoughts, think of how many ideas and wise thoughts you may have let slip. Promptly writing down our thoughts frees up our brain to tackle more pressing matters instead of partly hang on to an idea that, while promising, is not related to what we’re currently working on.

Improvise, be flexible.

Again, journaling is not “Dear Diary” writing, though one can make it so if one feels like it. There’s no need to restrict your notetaking to one format, one particular type of text, or even to text, for that matter. One of your journal entries, for example, could consist of nothing but several swathes of cloth that you feel you can do something with for your next project. Or you can simply copy a poem for reference while you’re writing web content. Anything is possible. And variety wakes up the brain and nudges you to be creative. Which is, after all, one of the benefits of journaling.

Disparate ideas? No problem.

Having disparate ideas is better than being desperate for ideas. Our brain has this fantastic ability to make connections among random things, so worry not if you’re talking about downright unrelated stuff from one entry to the next. For a small business owner, you may possibly be starting with just one facet of what you may have always intended to be a bigger operation, so don’t be alarmed by the randomness. You never know when you might revisit your notes and see something fully formed out of all the random things you threw in there.

Use your journal for troubleshooting.

Those disparate ideas we were just talking about? They can come in handy for troubleshooting for solutions to business setback and challenges. In addition to that, detailed journaling inevitably results in an archive of possible solutions that you don’t recognize until a particular problem arises.

Use prompts if you must.

Writer’s block? Keep a number of journaling prompts handy. For example,

  • The most mind-boggling thing I encountered today . . .
  • What I’ve accomplished just on the second of half of the day . . .
  • Just reminding myself that I really want to solve this problem someday . . .

Try the bullet journal method.

If you’re not particularly fond of reading paragraph-length journal notes, do it the bullet-journal style. As the name suggests, you track your ideas and thoughts, as well as your plans and goals by treating them as bullet point items. This is great for getting as big a picture as you can get with one sharp glance.

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Needless to say, the practices listed above are not everything. For sure, there are yet more—some of which you will likely recognize yourself as you journal on.

Explore Journalz’s options for you as you write your way toward personal and professional growth and steer your business along with you.