I began a personal journal in 1974, although that first one was stolen from me shortly after I arrived in France. The first entry in the next journal is dated Aug. 27, 1974 in Salisbury, England. After University, it seemed part of being an educated person was to keep a journal the way Samuel Pepys did. More than 50 years later, I continue to keep one.

These days, journaling takes a lot of forms. Friends use the bullet journal, yet I could not imagine a single destination for everything I want to record. Likewise, paper journals are good, yet there are apps that do a great job of tracking things. I ended up with a five-tier system.

The most used component of my journal system is a spreadsheet where I record financial transactions, health information, books read, garden planting, and a few other kinds of information. The benefit of having this data in a spreadsheet is the ease of searching and data analysis. I have been using spreadsheets — beginning with Lotus 1-2-3 and now using Excel — since shortly after Tim Berners-Lee submitted his proposal for the World Wide Web on March 12, 1989, and before Microsoft Windows 3.0 was introduced on May 22, 1990. Spreadsheets are a workhorse.

The second-most used journal is computer applications. MyFitnessPal is for tracking daily calories consumed and exercise, and Goodreads is where I keep track of my reading. I started using MyFitnessPal while recovering after contracting the coronavirus in 2024. It is easy to use and while somewhat inaccurate in terms of calories, it keeps the big picture in focus. Goodreads helps me track progress in reading at least 25 pages in a book per day. I also get recommendations for additional reading from people in my circle there.

I have a garden journal, which is mostly drawings of plans for garden plots. It helps me remember where I planted what. I began keeping a list of seeds planted there, yet found it is better on the spreadsheet. As this journal evolves, it will mostly be diagrams of plots. I started this one during the pandemic in 2020.

Finally, there is my daily journal where I record things deemed important, yet not for public consumption. Part of this is a health log, and part is whatever ideas I am trying to assimilate. I used these journals while writing my autobiography.

While recipe collection may also be a form of journaling, the goal with recipes is to go though all the notes and instructions and make them into a spiral-bound cook book for limited distribution. Of interest was the arrival of a lot of dairy-free recipes when my spouse began eating vegan. I have hand-written recipes from my grandmother and mother, as well as my own, beginning about 1982.

It was positive to spend time with my journaling process. I believe it will help me be better at it.