An interesting trend. . .
What do Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison and Mark Twain have in common? They all kept a journal.
Journaling is a form of reflection. Reflection is important because it helps humans source creativity from within, forge emotional tranquility, and ultimately perform better at our endeavors.
For this reason, many great thinkers—and leaders—journal. If you're still not swayed, you might consider 'To Be An Effective Leader Keep a Leadership Journal' (Forbes), and 'Want to Be an Outstanding Leader? Keep a Journal.' (Harvard Business Review) for further reading.
The "LIFE" method for journaling
Having kept a journal for 10+ years, I've found myself experimenting with different formats—trigger questions, specific topic for each day of the week, etc.—but nothing really stuck.
I always found myself drifting back to unstructured prose which, although fun, wasn't entirely useful for purposeful writing, or scanning past journal entries for insights or trends.
As a solution, I created a new method to ensure I covered the four topics most important to me: learnings, ideas, feelings and experiences. When I realized these four words formed the acronym "LIFE" I immediately vaulted my hands in the air and expelled a much-too-loud, teeth-clenched "YES!" which evidently scared the crap out of everyone in the SF Public Library.
Moving on.
The "LIFE" method for journaling has four main components:
L - Learnings: What did I learn today? Whether by podcast, book, blog, or conversation, this ensures I capture the most important things I learned today. It also reinforces my daily learning habit for personal development.
I - Ideas: What new ideas did I have today? It might be an idea for an invention, or a nuanced observation. The goal here is to capture creative imagination, or your next million-dollar business idea.
F - Feelings: How did I feel throughout the day? I think of this as taking a daily emotional inventory to ensure I'm reflecting on how I'm feeling: afraid, happy, proud, grateful, angry? At first, this process felt like dredging but it got easier w/ practice.
E - Experiences: What did I experience today? What was fun, interesting, or notable? What color was the sunset? What did dinner taste like? How did the beach smell that afternoon? I try to add a thick sensory layer to prevent myself from laundry-listing the day.
It's going to get a little weird
Journals have historically enjoyed the vaunted status of "strictly private" usually reserved for classified CIA documents. I'm going to break the rules today and show you a page from my personal journal so that you can see the LIFE method in action.
That's it
I hope you find the LIFE method for journaling useful to you in some way. If you give it a try, who knows. . . it might stick.
The opera ticket
Ah, one thing we didn't cover was the opera ticket at the bottom of my journal entry. Since I'm terrible at rereading past journal entries, I've began quasi-scrapbooking every so often which brings the pages to life and makes reading past entries more enjoyable (and frequent).