In many RPG video games, there’s a concept of being “well rested.” That means that your character slept in a bed for more than 8 hours. The result of this is that they gain experience points at an increased rate, causing them to level up quicker.
Journaling offers you a similar bonus to experience. Reflection accelerates learning.
Because of this, whenever I’m working on a large objective, I start with what I call a “project book.”
Project books are free-form journals that are tied to that specific domain. They capture all the ideas, questions, experiments, and lessons we learn while we work on that project.
I have project books for hiring a new role, building products, and marketing campaigns.
Metrics like KPI’s capture key data, but they’re not enough. They don’t give you a history of why you tried something or how it was supposed to work. And they don’t give you space to create meaning and draw out insight.
Beyond the benefit to the project, project books build your skill because they make concrete your thought patterns.
As an example, last year in June I launched a PPC campaign. I was moving quickly and copied and pasted some ads in from a successful older campaign. After a month, we’d spent three grand and didn’t get any leads. When I reviewed it, I realized that I hadn’t set up the same kind of campaign as I had previously and consequently none of the traffic behaved like actual customers.
The project book captured this screw-up and not only benefited future PPC campaigns, but also helped me to evolve my approach to be more cognizant of the need for care when starting.
Journaling isn’t complex, but just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s not powerful. It will transform experience into insight at a faster rate and give you that level up bonus.
Featured image is a page showing Leonardo Da Vinci’s study of a foetus in the womb (c. 1510), Royal Library, Windsor Castle. Used under Public Domain.