You’ve probably heard that you should be journaling, but who has time and what’s the big deal? If you want to be a professional writer and you don’t keep a journal, I highly suggest you start, and I will tell you why.
Tony Robbins has a saying that I absolutely love. He says, “success leaves clues.” If you study the most successful business people, writers, speakers, etc., 99% of them keep a journal. So if you want to be successful, it would make sense to do what successful people do, right? So why don’t we keep journals?
I think when we say journal, people get a mental image of the preteen girl and her little pink, glitter-covered diary. When I speak of journaling, I am not talking about the scribblings of a prepubescent girl. I’m talking about serious journaling for entrepreneurs and writers.
It’s a well-known fact that journaling can help you during times of crisis and trauma. It helps remind you of good times when things have turned bad. Mental health professionals recommend journaling to their patients and see massive results. It only takes 15 minutes a day to change your life. Still, for the most part, the majority of people don’t journal.
Today I want to tell you how journaling can help you become a better writer.
1. Helps Focus Your Thoughts:
Writing in a journal helps you focus your thoughts. A lot of times, people get overwhelmed at the thought of trying to write a book, and they can’t overcome it, and the book never gets written. If you take 15 minutes a day to write in a journal, you’ll find your ideas Will flow easier, and you won’t struggle with writer’s block as much.
2. Keep Track Of Ideas:
I also use my journal to keep track of the new ideas that pop into my head. If you have followed me for a while, you know that I have a tendency towards ADHD, and my mind goes a million places at a time. I will get great ideas while I’m in the middle of an important assignment for my business. I would follow these ideas down the rabbit hole and never follow through and finish the first project. I found that by journaling my ideas, I can keep them in a safe place but not get distracted by them. I will go back through my journals periodically and implement the ideas that I have stored there.
I also like to keep my gratitude journal entries in my notebook. Some people will separate their gratitude journals, their food journals, their idea, journals, etc. I placed them all in one. If it helps you to separate them all out, then I encourage you to do so. The idea is to store the information in a safe place.
I use hard-bound journals, and I found a company that has beautiful ones. They’re usually gold, foiled, and gorgeous. I know all of you guys out there may not like those, so you can find ones that are more “Butch,” I’m sure. I call mine my “golden book of ideas.” I keep it with me everywhere I go.
Get Your’s Here: Get Men’s Journal Here:
https://amzn.to/3gAJJzf https://amzn.to/34zc06O
3. Helps Writers With Character Development:
Journaling also helps writers flesh out their characters. It helps you build your backstory without boring the readers. Too many writers discover their characters along with the reader. Unfortunately, this leads to the bad habit of information dumping. I always tell people to start their books with excitement and chaos. Then you can sprinkle in the backstory later on. If you don’t know your character well enough, you will dump all of this information onto your reader. Journaling helps you flesh out all of those details so you can write a well-rounded character without boring the reader with unnecessary backstory.
4. Improves Communication Skills:
Studies show daily journaling improves your communication skills. As a writer, improving your communication skills should be a top priority. It also helps you work through emotions and be more mindful.
5. Reduces Anxiety:
Mental health professionals encourage their patients to use journaling to help reduce anxiety about upcoming events in their lives. When you write in a journal, it also decreases your anxiety about writing a book. I know that sounds strange because you’re still writing the book. People get overwhelmed at the thought of writing a book but think of it this way. What if you wrote for 15 minutes a day about the topic you would like to see in a book?
If you wrote for 15 minutes a day every day for a year, you would have a book written already! Sure, It would need to be formatted into book form and edited properly, but you have written a book. It literally takes the pressure off to simply write in your notebook versus the thought of writing a book.
Conclusion:
These are just a few of the reasons why you should be journaling as a writer. If those aren’t enough for you, Google it, and I guarantee you you’ll find enough reasons to start writing your own journal. I will give you a link to the company that I buy my journals from, I am an affiliate of Amazon, so I will receive a small commission. Commission. But I would not recommend them if I didn’t use them myself.
Happy journaling!
If you’d like more tips and tricks about the business of writing, check out Synova’s Simply Biz Facebook group and sign up for Synova’s Simply Biz Newsletter.

If you enjoy this content don’t forget to sign up for Synova’s Simply Biz Newsletter and get your copy of her Free Guide: Overcoming Writer’s Block.
If you’d like even more help with your writing business, Synova has recently launched a course for writers.
Author Biz 101 Writer’s Course:

This course will focus on helping writers develop their craft and show them how to build a business from their writing.
For more information check out Synova’s store page HERE
For more free tips about writing check out Synova’s Simply Biz Facebook Group