The Importance of Keeping A Journal.
What better place to talk about writing a journal, or posting a blog, using the written word than in this format!
I've maintianed a type of journal ... which could be a calendar with notes, a palm phone with memos, a diary, a day-book, a notebook. But over the past five or six years it has been a journal. My entries are quite often, but random. I'm not compelled to write every day, but sometimes I do for a full month. Often it can be personal or daily experiences, maybe a problem, often a short summary of a book or film, sometimes a complete outline of a recent non-fiction book that I want to remember in some detail. In other words, anything goes.
I also talk about life, planning, vacations, finance ... and particularly my real estate job. Because I write a weekly online newsletter for my buyer and owner clients, I use my journal entries as material for this writing. I now also wite a variety of blog postings which can be helpful by referencing the journal entries.
My journal is almost always with me ... the same leather bound about 2-inches thick, made in China, maybe 8x10 inch journal (always a Christmas gift) from my wife, Leslie. I make entries in the morning over coffee, late at night, or in a store waiting for my wife, at the airport, on the beach. I'm certain it is somewhat interesting to others ... I don't see most people doing that. But I just write.
Every few years I require two journals for a given year ... but mostly one is enough. I also attempt to summarize major topics in the front of the inside cover in case someone, maybe my son, ever gets curious when I am no longer writing journals. I often reflect on what will happen to the journals. But actually "the process is more important than the product."
Back to real estate, it can be an excellent way to remember clients, record some critical information, document great success or sad failures. It's about you ... what you think, what you thought, what you did, and more.
When I was a young teacher married to another young teacher, that same person who now buys those houses over Chirstmas (and the one who buys me my journals), we spent 90 days in Europe one summer driving around in a VW Convertable. A trip of a lifetime! I made a recorde of that trip by photographs and in a simple little flip-up table that I carried in my pocket. I still have that tiny little notebook almost 40 years after the trip.
My Broker, Robert French, at French Real Estate always says: "Keep a paper trail!" I'm not sure he know how long that paper trail can be!
It's important to write because it is truly "a thinking process," and not an easy one. It takes time and effort that often can be shared in meaningful ways. Keep on writing! Dap
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