I’ve decided to transition from keeping an audio journal to typing my daily journal on my laptop. I still jot down talking points with a red pen in my capture notebook and I still rip off the bottom corner of pages after typing my journal to show those days are finished. I was beginning to feel that I was going through the motions with my audio journal and simply gabbing through bullet points and not adding much more. Also, I wasn’t experiencing any feeling in my body or mind. It was as if I was reporting the news. I want to feel cozy, irritated, pissed, or inspired! I wanted to feel! Also, I can reveal more in my laptop writing - it feels more protected.

I set up a password-protected Microsoft Word document and plan to type a month at a time from the 1st to the last day of the month in numeric order from top to bottom. Then I’ll start the next month above last month. I used to type today’s entry at the top of the document – so the days went in backwards chronological order – which is a pain, so I’m not doing that anymore.

When you write a journal by hand, the feeling is there but it’s a security risk. Everyone should have a safe place for their innermost thoughts. Even if you follow through and keep a journal for decades - which is amazing - now you have 40 notebooks hanging around for anyone to browse.

Also, I’ve begun recording the time spent composing the day’s typed journal entry to see how much time it takes. For example, today I typed the entire entry (personal plus blog) from 7:07-7:45pm.

I’m contemplating whether to change the title of my workbook and course from leadership course to 10 ways to unleash your creativity. I definitely feel creativity is my bigger strength but I can see folks using the course as a leadership journey, too.

Do you journal to feel something or just to record thoughts and events?