Every businessperson has a number of ideas running through their head at any given time, but the inevitable whirlwind that comes with running a business can make it easy to forget them. This is why it is a great idea to always write your ideas down as soon as they grab you. Even better to be more organized about it. As in keep a business journal.

Because a journal is not just for personal things. It is far more versatile and useful than we think. Strategic entrepreneurs have long since understood how it can be put to good use in business.

What happens when you journal

Journaling, especially if you go old-school with pen and a physical journal, lets you ease your foot off the accelerator and rewards you with a generous amount of scenery to take in, and an equally generous amount of quiet that lets you pick up on things you would otherwise overlook.

From this you get clarity. A better sense of where things are in relation to everything else around them. Of where you are in terms of what you are doing, what you are planning to do, and where you are heading.

This is what business journaling allows you to do:

Visualize

Get a clear picture of what you hope for your business to achieve, where you plan to take it, and what kind of leader you have to be to make your goals happen.

Brainstorm

Analyze, conceptualize to your heart’s content. Free association, mind mapping—whatever does the job.

Explore

Journaling is an exploration. And being an entrepreneur requires you to be game to explore possibilities for partnerships, store sites/locations, delivery methods, expansion, etc., as well as
solutions to problems, new challenges, client/customer needs, etc.

Troubleshoot

Think (write) things through to smartly address the issues and obstacles that challenge your business, or altogether shoot your troubles down the drain with well-considered solutions instead of panic-driven reactions.

Identify

Recognize patterns that are either harmful or great for your business, and pick out the clues they contain for averting problems or taking the next big step. Recognize as well the people who inspire you and you want to work with, those who can help you get closer to your goals, as well as those you can depend on when times are tough.

Anticipate

When you are able to think things through, you gain some degree of both insight and foresight that allows you to identify the likeliest scenarios and plan ahead so you can address them when, or if, they do come. You can also see ahead to the trends that would eventually take over your industry, and be better positioned to make the winning moves when the time comes.

Prioritize

Because you see more clearly, you can go ahead and push aside things that need to be in the back burner or altogether discard ideas that don’t pass muster on closer inspection.

Polish

Fine-tune your strategies. Use the clarity you’ve earned from writing down your notes and ideas to find the weak points and make the necessary modifications.

When your ideas and thoughts are laid out on paper, they tend to assume an additional layer of coherence, and soon you find it easier to connect ideas that complement one another to add up to one smart move.

 

Tips

It doesn’t actually have to be all words. Your journal’s content depends on what your business is, so you can go for anything—sketches, graphs, even collages are great things to integrate into a business journal. So are lists—from things to do, buy, read, watch, or try, to lists of proven mitigation measures in case of disasters, best practices to keep your brand in fresh, the craziest ideas to ever pay off, and so on.

Journaling doesn’t require you to be a writer, nor does it necessarily make you one. But then we’ve established that’s not why you want to journal for your business. It’s simply because journaling is good for business.

Ready to start? Explore business journaling possibilities with Journalz.