In January 2008, I blogged about a new kind of journal I’d just begun using, the Journal 10+. Four years later (sort of five since I filled in as much as I could of the available previous year after I got it), I still love keeping this journal. Here’s what I said at the time I received my copy:
This isn’t a journal like I’ve thought of journals in the past. I will still have my regular journals to write in, to reflect in, to pray in. The Journal 10+ is something altogether different. It’s a place to note things so that you can look back and see where you were a year ago or five years ago or ten years ago. I’ve always kept track of my writing production in my desk calendar. From now on, I will be doing it here.
On the top right of this post is a snapshot of the page for January 8th (click for larger version). I’ve used Skitch to edit the graphic of a few personal things I don’t think the world needs to know (that’s the hot pink blots & lines). <g> As you can see, I mostly track my writing life, and I could have found some pages with much more detailed entries. I love being able to see where I was in the writing or editing or marketing of a book. I can also see where illness or travel or other life events impacted my life in some entries.
One thing I do that isn’t completely clear on this particular page: Each of my books gets a different color of ink (at least within a couple of years of one another). That has proven very helpful for me to see at a glance what book is what. Sometimes the title I use at the start of the process isn’t what the title ends up being when it’s published, so the color coding is helpful for me to know that the book in pink is the same when I identify it as HOK as when it later is identified as HOG (yes, I often use just the initials and not the full title).
I occasionally remember to enter what exercise I did that day (treadmill or cycle or Wii Fit or resistance bands or stability ball or a combination of two or more). Truth is, I probably remember to enter that info less than 20% of the time. I keep track of my weight occasionally in the journal, and now I use one of the additional features for some marketing notes.
I highly recommend that you pop over to the Journal 10+ web site and see all the info about this great journal. They’ve got many detailed photos of different features. Oh, and you can see what it would look like if your penmanship doesn’t look like my chicken scratches. That might make it more attractive to you.
~robin
