12 Advantages of Keeping a Journal

Yesterday, I posted an article here about journals. For those who are not yet convinced that they should use a journal, here is my list of 12 Advantages of Keeping a Journal.

1) It’s an Idea Bank, a source for future writing ideas.

2) Journaling counts as writing (not on a Work In Progress, but writing).

3) Since the ideas are your own, you already have a connection to them as you chose them from all the available ideas to put in your journal. So, articles and posts and stories should flow easier from them than from generic prompts provided by other people.

4) You can use any blank page and transfer it to your journal later by tape, glue, or staple. So, loose scraps and pages can be organized and kept where they won’t be lost.

5) Your journal can be any type of blank notebook that suits your style and budget, from thick to thin, leather to hardback to paperback, plain to fancy to tacky in design.

6) You can journal during boring meetings or classes and people will think you’re taking notes.

7) You can journal while on a bus or train or in a public place — and people are less likely to interrupt you than if you were on your laptop or tablet. Plus it’s way less annoying for those around you than listening to your music (even using headphones) or playing a game on your device.

8) A handwritten journal requires no batteries, so you can take it to the beach, to the park, or on any trip.

9) A journal won’t set off alarms when you’re being scanned before getting on a flight or when you’re entering a courthouse.

10) Even if you start the journal as one type, you can change it to another type — or add other content to make it a combination of types. (See yesterday’s article for some ideas of types of journals.)

11) You can donate your journal to a library or university so that future scholars can see what people of your time were writing about.

12) Your handwritten journal may well survive long after printed books have been pulped and ebooks have been replaced by some other technology. Or you can have it tossed into a bonfire at your wake if you want it to disappear with you.