When you think of journaling, you probably relegate it to the personal—your thoughts, feelings, and impressions of things that happen in your personal life. You can use journaling to manage stress and for self-exploration, by recording your feelings, and not just noting the event.
Journaling can also be a powerful tool in your professional life. It’s a reflective process that facilitates learning. Using your professional journal, you can capture what you hear, and the questions that information conjures, and how that information can improve your performance.
Professional development activities are the perfect place to keep a professional journal. After each lesson or session, take a few minutes to reflect on—and record—the following:
- How did this lesson or session answer questions for me? What new questions came to me?
- In relation to my professional activities, am I truly learning? What am I learning? Or is this just new knowledge for knowledge sake?
- How can I use the information I have gained to improve my professional performance or advance my career?
- Have I offered the group insights that have surprised me?
- What insights have members of the group offered that have touched me?
- Am I connecting what I am learning with my deepest motivations for my work?
The more time you give yourself to reflect, the more of these points you can tackle. But if you only have ten minutes or so, you will only have time to focus on one or two points. Feel free to use stream of consciousness—just let your pen take the lead. Or you can brainstorm on the fly, and just write word lists or use graphics as ideas emerge from discussion.
Here are some tips for getting your journal rolling:
- Describe what happened in the session—the discussion, the experience, the interaction with your colleagues.
- Think about it from the perspective as an administrator, a colleague, a compatriot, etc.
- Consider its importance in a variety of terms. What are you going to do with what you have learned and experienced? Is this the best path to take? What feelings do I have about this? Can I see a pattern of how I respond to different issues?
Keeping a journal not only gives you a record of what you have learned in a particular activity, but it also engages the brain when you put pen to paper. It stimulates thought, and allows you to examine your feelings and actions. It’s also a place for a brain dump—a place to clear your head. When you return to it, you will have a record of your experience, as well as a picture of how you felt in the moment.
Journal keeping authors Dannelle Stevens and Joanne Cooper talk about their professional journals in these YouTube videos.
Journal Keeping Part II Keeping a Professional Journal
Journal Keeping Part III Using Journals for Teaching and Learning
If you’d like to explore more about journaling, check out:
Writing and Keeping Journals on infed.org
The Benefits of Journaling for Stress Management
The Health Benefits of Journaling
The Benefits of Journaling Daily
