A NEW DAY, MONTH, YEAR, AND PLAN

A NEW DAY, MONTH, YEAR, AND PLAN

Written January 01, 2015, Thursday, 901 a.m.

--- 

{NOTE: Whew. I typed 2015 and not 2014 originally. But, as I typed this to pat myself on the back, I typed 2014 instead of 2015. Sigh. Pride always comes before a fall. Chuckling.} 

---

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015 

Once again, I pray you have a year of many blessings, lots of remembering, great meaning, purpose/intentionality, contentment, and joy. 

---

A NEW BEGINNING

I love a new page in my journal and I love a new day, a new week, a new month, a new year, and a new decade. They all represent a new beginning, a blank slate, where I choose how to fill it and live it. I do my best to grab it with both hands and hold on tight for the adventure to come. 

---

I WANT TO...

I want to remember my present and live fully, deeply, with meaning, and purpose. 

I want to choose every moment to search for the blessings, not the yuck. 

I want to slow down enough to see the wild turkeys (never mind the heron, deer, turtles, and fish) to the side of the walking, while everyone else is zooming by, loudly talking, rushing, acting me-centered, and oblivious to the beauty all around, along with that which is staring them in the face. 

Oh, how often I love that way without realizing. No. Correction. Without thinking. 

I want to slow down, search, stop, take in, enjoy and focus on the bounty of blessings in my life and all around me.

I don't want fast. Fast isn't better. Fast means stressful living, traveling so fast I miss stuff and forget to look for the blessings in every moment. Fast also means pushing past, over, around, and through those trying to slow down and appreciate life and its bounty of blessings. (I don't want to do that either.)

I want to en-joy this year. Live this year in joy. Joy given not by anything or anyone of this world, but by God. 

The only way I can live these wants, and even the don't wants, is through focus. My one word for this year. I want to focus on what is really important, what really matter, and that is a life of meaning found in the Word of God and the blessings of every moment.

---

I DONT WANT TO FORGET, NOT SEE, MISS, OR TAKE FOR GRANTED ANY BLESSING

I'm not sure what I lose to say than that. 

Missing or forgetting any blessing is a travesty. 

~*~*~

I want to focus on blessings this year. (Again. But, more so.)

Hence, Blessings Journaling will be my main focus.
~*~*~
A JOURNALING PROMPT
What do you want and don't want from 2015?

~*~*~

BLOG TO BOOK NEWS

Written January 01, 2015, Thursday, 1117 p.m. 

---

I GOT A BRIGHT IDEA YESTERDAY

Hah. Stop. Famous last words.

Those words were uttered with simplicity in mind. 

Hah! I just rolled my eyes. Now for another phrase which will let you know I got myself into a deeper hole of trouble because of a bright idea.

It all started with this question: "Why don't I publish all of my blog posts on my RYP Journaling blog from 2014?"

It got me thinking, "I could then do the old journaling material from 2012-early 2014 in an additional book. So, in 2015, I will publish at least three books on journaling."

Huh. It sounded like a good idea to me. Yay!

So, I exported my 2014 RYP Journaling material and put it into a document. It took a moment for the page numbers to populate. I twiddle my thumbs. Ho-hum. Then, my eyes almost bugged out of my head when I saw. Fuh-fi-five hu-hun-hundred four pages! Gulp. 

Me and my bright ideas.

I want to build the largest resource library of journaling stuff on the planet. Yes. You bet. But, that's a lot to edit. Sigh. Never mind all of the formatting I need to do and all of the additional writing I want to include to help clarify and add to the material. 

So, the good news is the book should be around 430-625 pages. 

I smile a huge toothy smile, trying to be cute and irresistible, begging you now to read it. 

When I got my bright idea, I hoped to publish it quicker. That ain't happening. Maybe a week or two, but June 30, 2015 is still the official release date. 

I will work on editing the JOURNALING STUFF 2012-2013 material at this time, and in latter 2014. My publishing

I will then start editing 2015, Part A on July 01 and publish it around October.

2015, Part B will be published around April.  

Then, in 2016 and on, I will do the blog to book publishing around April and October of every year. 

This is the new plan. 

My goal is to make available every type of journaling resource imaginable and this is how I will make this happen. 

Again, I feel quite blessed for having more of a vision for what I want to do with my personal journaling, professional journaling, and blogging. I don't think you will get even more out of these resources with this new plan. 

So, stay tuned.

Now, it's time for me to do some editing. (Gulp. 504 pages worth.)

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* 

JOURNALING TEMPLATE, SUMMARIES, AND REVIEW FOR YOUR JOURNALING

JOURNALING TEMPLATE, SUMMARIES, AND REVIEW FOR YOUR JOURNALING

Written December 19, 2014, Friday, 851 a.m.

------------

JOURNALING QUOTE

Your journal is a looking glass. It helps you search for the things you cannot easily see and it helps you to find treasures. Your journal helps you see beyond the surface.

---

THE BIGGEST MISTAKES OF JOURNALING

The biggest mistakes we make with our journaling are:

1 Not journaling every day.

2 Not making summaries of our journaling.

3 Not reviewing our journaling.

4 Failing to get out journals digitized and saved permanently on the Cloud or over the Internet.

Let's look at numbers two and three now. 

--- 

JOURNALING TEMPLATE

Make sure to do a journaling template for the time-frame you are looking at, whether it is daily, weekly, quarterly, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, 25 years, or lifetime.

---

SUMMARIES

Journaling is the most rewarding thing we can do with and for our lives. Therefore, I do not know about you, but with knowing this, I want to see what I can do to get the most out of my journaling. Summaries is one way to accomplish this endeavor.  

First, do a journaling template for the time period you are looking at and are doing. 

DAILY SUMMARIES: At the end of your day, every day, write a summary of your day, or do it for the previous day the next morning. Your summary can be as long as you want or as short as you want. I usually try for one sentence and then one word. Look at ALL of your journaling for the time-frame and remember what all you wrote before you write your summary in your journal. 

WEEKLY SUMMARIES: At the end of your week, every week, write a summary of your week in one sentence and/or one word. Look at ALL of your journaling for the time-frame and remember what all you wrote before you write your summary i your journal. 

OTHER SUMMARIES: Do the same with monthly, quarterly, every 6 months, yearly, every 2 years, every five years, every decade, every 25 years, and for your life (do the life summary at least once a year). Look at ALL of your journaling for the time-frame and remember what all you wrote before you write your summary in your journal. 

THE BARE MINIMUM: Now, let's be honest here. There will be times we just can't do our summaries, for whatever reason, or just don't want to do so. Consequently, what should we do at a bare minimum? Weekly and Monthly Summaries is the answer.

Note I did not say daily or any other for that matter.

If we get no other summaries done, it's okay, since we will have gotten the most important summaries done. However, as you have the opportunity, try to then do the quarterly then yearly summaries. Then, do the daily, decades, etc. 

---

REVIEW

Another useful way to get the most out of journaling is through review. More to the point, a streamlined review is the most helpful. 

A review is different than a summary. However, doing a summary is what we do first. 

A review is pondering/thinking, analyzing, pouring through, trying to remember every detail. It's trying to figure out what worked, what didn't, what was learned, seeing our changed perspective, and how our lives were touched by what we journaled about or what we journaled. As we review, we ask ourselves questions and we journal those questions and our answers.

What does a review look like? And, how often should we do them? I will answer those questions in a moment. For now, let's look at a few more steps we need to do before we do the review.

FIRST: Do a journaling template for the time period.

SECOND: Do a summary of the time period.

THIRD:: Answer these questions with every review:

What jumped out at you the most about your journaling and why?

What were your biggest blessings (list at least three)?

What memories do you want to remember? Why? (List at least three and be thorough.)

What did you learn?

FORTH: Pick at least three to answer--and you can pick a different three with each review:

What was a challenge?

What was your favorite moment and why?

How did your journaling transform you?

What do you now realize?

List more blessings from that time. 

What was a moment of sunshine or bright spot?

What will you cherish and treasure?

List more memories from that time. 

How have you grown from this time, experience, and journaling?

What repeating patterns do you see?

What do you want to share with others?

What was the most surprising to you?

What didn't surprise you? 

What do you want to do more of from this time?

What do you want to do less of from this time?

How was your faith during this time?

How were your relationships as this time?

What happened at home during this time?

What did God say to you?

What did you say to God? 

What did you pray?

---

THE MINIMUMS

Make sure to do a journaling template at least for each week and each month.

Make sure to do a journaling summary at least for each week and each month.

Make sure to do a journaling review at least for each week and each month.

---

END OF YEAR JOURNALING

Do this every single year without fail. Start looking at this around Thanksgiving and complete by December 31.

Do:

1 Journaling template for the year. 

2 Journaling summary for the year. 

3 Journaling review for the year. 

--- 

If you do those things, you will get a great deal more out of your journaling and it will enrich your life. 

Now, go ahead. It's your turn. Tag! You're it.

--------------

DAILY JOURNALING TEMPLATE AND PROMPT

DAILY JOURNALING TEMPLATE AND PROMPT

Written December 19, 2014, Friday, 751 a.m.

I think this is my favorite of the daily journaling templates I have created and used. I hope you will find it helpful and inspirational as well. 

I use it for my day, week, month, quarter, half year, year, two year, five year, decade, twenty-five year, and life review journaling. 

Every day, I count my blessings. It is the most important, beneficial, life-transforming parts of this template. I suggest you do the same. Just a journaling tip.

Feel free to copy and paste this into your journal. Share it as well. Just please attach my credit information below.
---

HOW TO USE THIS TEMPLATE

First, use only one word (or one sentence) and list three for each item. Do at least seven items per day. So, you will have at least a total of twenty-one. 

Do that at the very least each day, week, month, etc. Then, as time allows, do the following:

Then, find three of what you journaled that jumped out at you the most.

Then, do at least one ten minute SOC (Stream of Consciousness) Journaling for each of those three. 

Then, from those, find what jumped out at you most and so another ten minute SOC. Repeat several more times from material from your latest SOC.
---

DAILY JOURNALING TEMPLATE AND PROMPT

Instructions: Do at least seven of these per day, preferably more though, weekly, do all.

Today I... 

Praying 

Bible-ing

Blessings/ Thanking

Learning

Remembering

Planning

Reading

Listening

Eating

Drinking

Wearing

Feeling

Weather-ing

Doing

Dreaming/Wishing/Hoping

Wanting

Needing

Thinking

Enjoying

Seeing/Watching/Observing

Hearing/Listening

Smelling

Tasting

Touching

Saying 

Photographing

Texting

Emailing

Exercising

Forgetting

Fixing

Eliminating

Focusing

Cherishing

Loving

(Template credit: Stacy Duplease and Remembering Your Present, LLC 2014.)

---------------

AN EXTRA BLOG POST TODAY: INTRODUCTION TO JOURNALING

I apologize. I am not sure how to do this any other way. I need to include some extra material to help us get started with journaling. So, here it is:
--------------
JOURNALING: AN INTRODUCTION

Written December 17, 2014, Wednesday, 236 p.m.

JOURNALING IS BEING

Journaling is more than something to do.

It's also more than writing. 

Rather, journaling, when done correctly is a way of life. 

Ask me who I am and I define myself as this: Blessings Counter and Journalkeeper.

I am those--those are not things I do in order to gain an identity. Rather, they define me, just like being a Christ Follower. 

What do I do? I count my blessings, journal, write, and blog. 

I share these things to stress that journaling is far more about being than doing. It's about quality of life and living life intentionally. Journaling is about Remembering Your Present. It's capturing your life and who you are on the page.

There is nothing more important any of us can do with our lives than journaling (other than being children of God). 

Journaling makes us stop, reflect, think, plan, change perspective, analyze, and review our lives. 

The more we journal, the better quality of life we live. 

Journaling ensures we are not just getting by. It makes sure we are not mindless. Journaling makes us live purposefully and prevents us from taking things for granted. 

Journaling is something anyone can do. If you are breathing, can read and write, you can journal. This book is meant to show you how easy journaling can be. It's also to help give you far more material than you will ever necessarily use. The key is you will have all of the material to help you journal if you ever get stuck or do not know what to journal. It's also to help inspire you to go deeper with your journaling through trying new ways to journal and new things to journal about when you do. 

Now, let's see what all we can accomplish between now and December 31, 2014. That's fourteen days for me to write an introduction to you about journaling--and I hope these fourteen days will help you start to make journaling a way of life. 

-------------

Here is the book title of the blog posts to book I plan on creating between now and December 31, 2014:

BOOK TITLE:

"JOURNALING STUFF: A JOURNALING RESOURCE 2014 EDITION

RYP JOURNALING BLOG TO BOOK SERIES, VOLUME 1"

--------------

​JOURNALING: AN INTRODUCTION PART 2​

Written December 17, 2014, Wednesday, 318 p.m.

HOW SHOULD YOU JOURNAL?: THE JOURNALING SECRET (A TIP)

Find a system that works for you today. Keep using it until you get stuck and are not journaling as much, or as deeply as you had in the past, then change your system. 

I will not kid. There are times I change my journaling system several times in a day. Sometimes, i change it once a week and other times, I've changed it once a month, once every three months, or more or less. Nevertheless, I have never kept the same system for more. I am constantly trying to find a way to journal better, more creatively, and where I get the most out of it. 

This is the beauty of journaling.

It's always changing. Always growing. Always getting better and more meaningful.

So, do not think you have to find a system and stick with it. If you want to, do it. If not, don't.

Journaling is simple. It never needs to be something complicated. 

So, how should you journal? There are only four ways to journal:

1 Handwrite

2 Digital (on your computer, tablet, or phone)

3 Audio Record

4 Video

Find whatever works for you and do it. Again, what works for you right now may change. So, change if your journaling ceases, gets stuck, is stagnate, or is shallow. 

GET YOUR JOURNAL PREPARED NOW

Do NOT read any further until you prepare your journal for journaling. Figure out how you want to do it, come up with a system, and have it ready.

KNOW THE RULES

There are two rules regarding journaling:

1 Journal as much as you can, every single day. After all, the more you journal, the more you will get out of it.

2 There are no rules other than #1. 

So, be flexible and experiment. 

That's it. Those are the rules.  

HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU JOURNAL?

How much you should journal depends on if you have journaled in the past. 

If you have never journaled before, I would start with ten minutes a day, seven days a week. I would do that for one to two weeks. Then, I would add five minutes per day for another week. Then, I would add five more minutes for another week. I would make it my goal to journal at least, bare minimum, of thirty minutes a day, seven days a week. Ideally, it would be an hour each day, with four hours one day per week--or more.

I journal about thirty hours a week and at the very least. Some weeks, it's far more. But, this is what I am and do. It's how I make a living. You do not have to be as journaling obsessed as I am. 

When I worked full-time and went to school full-time, I averaged one hour of journaling per day, seven days per week. 

May your goal to always be to journal more, never less. 

WHAT SHOULD YOU JOURNAL?

What should you journal? Now, that is a very good question. I am very glad you asked. 

1 RANDOM, SENSELESS THOUGHTS AND TO DO ITEMS: It never fails. You will sit down to journal and a million other thoughts will go through your mind. So, make sure as you journal if anything like that comes to mind, jot it down in your journal. Even if you are journaling about something else altogether, and the thought is random, write it down. Get it on the page. It's really important if it's something you need to do. Write it down so you can forget about it. The to do item jams up your thoughts. If you put it down on the page, so you can refer to it later, then it frees your mind right now. So, journal. Write down random thoughts, if they come to you, including to do items. Then, make sure to re-read your journaling at the end so you can remember what you thought about and didn't want to forget. 

What else should you journal?

2 YOUR DAY'S LOG, SO TO SPEAK: I always put my schedule for the day down in my journaling. I share thoughts, emotions, to dos, what I dids. I write what I have done that day. I make sure to write anything I learned that day, and all memories/experiences I created/lived. This is the shallow journaling at first. 

3 SOS JOURNALING (STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS JOURNALING): Take five or ten minutes and journal as fast as you can whatever comes to your mind, no matter how strange it is and even if it makes no sense whatsoever. 

4 COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS: Count at least three blessings per day.

5 JOURNALING PROMPT OR EXERCISE: Do a journaling prompt or exercise. I will list several soon, so stay tuned. 

6 WHAT DO YOU KEEP THINKING ABOUT? Make sure to write this down. 

7 Is something bugging you?

8 Are you hurting about something?

9 ETC./MISC. Anything you want to.

10 This is what this blog and book will answer.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE JOURNALING ENOUGH?

Let's face it. There will be a day here and there where life gets in the way and you simply cannot journal. Whatever your journaling goal is per week, make sure you still meet that goal at the very least. Some days you just won't find a way to squeeze it in. When this happens, how do you feel?

If you feel edgy, like something is missing, and even moody, you have made journaling a habit and are journaling enough. So, keep it up. 

If you don't feel edgy or moody for not journaling one day, you aren't journaling enough and may not be going deep enough when you do journal. 

This is how you can tell if you are journaling enough.

SET A TIMER

Set a timer when you are trying to either make journaling a habit or when you want to find a way to journal more. Set a timer for your minimum amount of time you want to journal. Make it a fun game to see how much additional journaling you can do after the timer goes off. 

I'm not kidding. Set a timer. This will help ensure you journal enough and will help you increase how long you journal each day. 

TRY IT

Tag. You're it. Give it a try. 

ANOTHER RULE

Have fun with it.

IT'S YOUR TURN

Journal for ten minutes at least.

Go!

(Image credit: Stacy Duplease and Remembering Your Present 2014.)