Timing of Entries
One of the challenging aspects of having a journal is deciding what you want to record; the second one is how often you want to record items and to what extent you want to make the practice regular. Some professionals carry their journals with them all the time since they are never sure when they might have an idea or want to record something that they noticed or started to think about. Many of these professionals have a bound notebook large enough to easily record items and small enough that they can carry it in a briefcase, pocketbook or backpack. Having a huge and heavy journal will discourage you from carrying it with you.

In terms of timing, some professionals prefer to make a commitment to record items at the end of a day or at the end of every other day; others prefer to make sure that they record items at the end of the week, a practice that tends to make them reflect on that week and what they learned or want to remember.

A different approach is to make the entry process irregular and dependent on noticing something or realizing the need to record something important. In this situation, do not make a commitment to record ideas and items on a regular schedule, but rely on your reactions to events, activities to trigger the notion of wanting to record the ideas. Whatever works for you is the best practice.

If you have never kept a professional journal, you might want to work on a regular schedule in the beginning since you might be unused to thinking about recording ideas, practices, successful strategies or questions to consider, and therefore will forget about your professional journal. After a while, you might want to progress to an irregular schedule.

You know what works for you—just make a commitment to maintain your professional journal, and you will learn the best schedule.

The Value and Discipline of Recording
Writing things down in a journal is a very productive practice for several reasons. First, thinking about what you want to include in your journal tends to help you focus on those events, activities or ideas when they happen. Just the notion of having a journal and considering what is worth recording in the journal increases your awareness of what is happening and encourages you to think about it.

Second, the activity of writing things down affects your brain and your memory so that when you write things down, you tend to remember them more clearly and easily. It actually improves the process of recording and recalling events, activities and situations. Therefore, it is important to write in your journal. Even if you lose the journal or cannot find it when you need or want it, having written items down will help you remember them.

Third, writing things down tends to make us reflective of what we are writing. We pause and think about what just happened. Whether you are drawing an image, writing words or composing full sentences, the act of pausing to write things down helps you think about what you want to write and how you will record it.

Fourth, recording things that strike you at the time as something you want to remember encourages you to notice more elements of that activity or that situation. Writing down what happened or what made a teaching practice or cooking demonstration special will help you think about all the aspects of that event or activity and increase the aspects that you record, which will make your journal more useful to you when you review it.

Reviewing Your Journal
One of the best ways to realize the value of keeping a professional journal is to establish a routine schedule of reviewing your journal. Looking it over helps you realize what you have recorded—and what you wish you had recorded—which tends to remind you to record other ideas, practices and activities. It also helps you realize what you have done or what you have learned and how you want to change your practices in light of what you have learned.

Reviewing the journal reminds you to reflect on what you have been doing and what you can do differently or better in the future. Therefore, some faculty members review their journals at least once a week—often on a Sunday evening when preparing for the week’s activities. Others find it more useful to review at the end of the work week or at a time during the week when they can schedule a quiet 15 minutes to read what they wrote.

Summary
Thank you for reading this column about maintaining a professional journal. Try it and you might find it provides a range of insights you never considered or did not take the time to reflect upon and use.

In the fall, we will talk about more teaching strategies and focus on assessment. If you have suggestions for other topics or teaching practices you want to share, send them to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and I will include them in future Mayo’s Clinics.

Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT, was most recently a clinical professor at New York University. Principal of Mayo Consulting Services, he continues to teach around the globe, and is a frequent presenter at CAFÉ events nationwide. His latest book, Planning an Applied Research Project in Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports (Wiley, 2013), debuted last autumn.