Always Be Journaling
Of the many techniques you’ll pick up over the course of your career, one worth investing in early is journaling. Journaling might not seem like a worthy endeavor at first. Capturing important moments of your life on a daily basis might even seem like extra work on top of everything else you are juggling in your life but, in time, journaling will pay dividends if you stay disciplined and detailed. As you grow older, the details of earlier experiences will grow foggy in your mind. Being able to reconstitute past experiences in order to apply to them to present situations will help you make more informed decisions.
Additionally, journaling serves a dual purpose as it makes you a better writer. This is a wonderful skill to have which shouldn’t be underestimated. In addition to technical expertise, being able to express your thoughts succinctly, supported with documented details, is a sought after skill. Inadvertently exercising this part of your mind, on a regular basis, will allow you to keep this skill sharp.
How you organize your journal entries is up to you. Everyone is different and there is no right or wrong way to do this as long as it makes sense, is easy to add new entries, and can be searched through quickly. To start with, journal entries are meant to be chronological, so it does help to use a date/time structure. Example:
