I was very proud of my team this morning as a major topic of discussion was journaling.  Some were touting the benefits they are receiving and many others expressing their desire to journal, but acknowledging the struggle to even figure out how to start.

One of the big concerns with even attempting to journal was how long does it take?

Journal entries for me range from 5 to 20 minutes.  Remember, a journal entry can be just a sentence or two.  When I first started, I was simply trying to capture examples of how I met my goal of encouraging those around me.  Many of those journal entries were just a few sentences, maybe even just a short paragraph.  That really doesn’t take very long.

The longer journal entries occur when I really get going on a topic or have something more difficult to wrestle with.  Oftentimes what makes them take longer is that as I reflect on a situation, it generates action items.  I think of things I could’ve done or should do next, so I take an extra moment to write those down, then return to the journal entry.

Now that my goal is to journal three times per week, that means I am spending somewhere between 15 minutes and 1 hour per week reflecting.  That really is not much in the scheme of things and much more beneficial for me that an extra hour of TV.