TEN WAYS TO USE A JOURNAL
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1.  Explore your feelings. Putting your emotions on paper can help you think in new ways and solve problems. Use your journal for reflection and exploration.

2.  Spiritual development. Recording and examining spiritual thoughts is a way to increase your understanding and enhance your journey through life.

3.  Write for posterity. The journal is a valuable record of your life and will be cherished by your children, family, or friends. Some parents keep a scrapbook and journal for each of their children, while other families keep a journal shared by all family members.

4.  Organize. Recording goals and things you need to do helps focus your mind. Journal writing enables you think more clearly as you learn to know yourself better.

5.  Improve your writing skills. What better place than a journal to practice new techniques, record scraps of dialogue, write a character sketch for your next book, or warm up before you begin working on a project?

6.  Record important events in your life. Your journal can be a time capsule for weddings, funerals, the birth of a child, how you spent the first day of the new century, or your favorite things about being alive.

7. Record your dreams. If dreams are a window to the subconscious, keeping a dream journal can help you understand events in your life. And sometimes dreams are just fun to read.

8.  Explore a relationship. Write about a difficult or stimulating relationship with a lover, child, parent, or friend.

9.  Travel memoirs. Planes, trains, automobiles, tents, and cruise ships are great places for writing. Take a journal along and keep a record of your travels

10.  Explore your memories. Write about your childhood, those awful high school years, or your first love.

Here’s one more reason to keep a journal:

11.  Write about your work. OK, maybe your job is boring. But if you work in a busy emergency room, a legal office, or anywhere that’s the least bit exciting you can record material to use later in your writing.