Thoughts on Journaling/Note taking
Many people become more productive by keeping a journal and taking notes. This practice has always amazed me as someone who never had the patience to sit at a desk for an hour to plan my day or to take notes on important things. For most of my academic journey, I had a cocky attitude towards journaling and taking notes. As a high school student, my self-confidence and ability to learn led me to dismiss these practices altogether. My reasoning was straightforward: Why bother documenting the information that I believed I could easily retain or reproduce and would not read after I noted them down?
This perspective shifted during the first internship, as well as individual and group projects in my third and fourth years of university. As one of the videos by 3Blue1Brown mentioned, working outside academic settings is fundamentally different. My work has directly affected others and has contributed to achieving broader team objectives. This realisation prompted me to systematically document work-related information. As this habit grows, one random day in my final semester of university, I decided to start journaling as a hobby as a "productive" distraction from the real assignments I should actually be doing.
Framework of Journaling
Initial Approach
I started my journaling journey by recording every detail and random thought of the day in a simple text document. My initial structure was straightforward:
Entry 1. Some activities with person 1 ^Before 08.00 Entry 2. Some random thoughts ^Before 20.00
Using Obsidian, a note-taking app, with a special feature called "backlinks". I could create separate notes for individual keywords that appear in my daily journal, effectively creating a comprehensive record for each keyword. This approach transformed my notes into an interconnected knowledge base, building a personal Wiki.
Adaptation and Refinement
Initially, the proposed framework was exciting. I was motivated to avoid "boring" days by documenting even the smallest details to ensure that each daily journal was rich and meaningful. However, as my daily routine became more monotonous after I graduated from university, my enthusiasm for hyperdetailed journaling faded. During one of my blog hop sessions, I came across a blog post discussing the use of text-based documents to increase productivity. in plain text documents. This method integrates random thoughts, to-do lists, and long-term projects into a single text document. I have adapted this approach to my daily journaling routine. The results were surprisingly effective. I gained clarity on my objectives and maintained a better track of my tasks and goals. However, maintaining separate daily files became tedious and not effective, especially when I missed logging entries for several days and needed to catch up on progress.
Future Plans
With that in mind starting from 2025, I decided to change my journal format into a single document like the blog suggested and focus on capturing truly significant moments and insights to lower the effort needed so I can continue even on days when I am at low motivation:
***Motivation shit*** Annual Plan: Some unrealistic goals of the year. ___ ***Inbox*** - Quick notes/ random thoughts (clear at the end of day) ___ ***To Do List*** - [ ] (PiriotityRanking) Title +RelatedProjects @location due:date dateOfComplettion ___ ***Ongoing Projects*** + Title start:date due:date Remarks - Plan/Progress - ___ ***Done List + Diary*** - Move to do list here after completed Date of the day - Record events and random thoughts of the day ___ ***Closed Projects*** Move completed projects here.