How Journaling Has Helped Me in My Professional and Personal Life
I’ve tried almost every way of keeping track of my thoughts, plans and ideas.
Paper journals. Notebooks. My iPad. Note Apps on my phone. Documents on my laptop. I’ve convinced myself, more than once, that this new system would finally be the one that transformed the way I organise my life.
And yet, somehow, I always come back to paper.
Why? Honestly, because it makes me happy.
There’s something about putting pen to paper that feels completely different to typing. I feel a sense of achievement when I can physically see my thoughts, decisions, plans and habits taking shape in front of me. It feels productive. It feels intentional. And, strangely, it makes me feel a little more educated too — as though I’m not just thinking about my life, I’m documenting it.
Over time, journaling has become much more than somewhere to write a to-do list. It has become one of the ways I manage my time, keep myself accountable, work towards my goals and, perhaps most importantly, make space for myself.
How can something as simple as putting pen to paper actually change the way you approach your day, your work and your personal life?
Before I get into the methods I use every day, though, let’s talk about the journal itself.
The Journal
I’ve tried plenty of journals over the years, and I’ve tried just as many different layouts. But the journal you use is personal. What works beautifully for one person might drive another completely mad.
My current favourite is, unsurprisingly, the one we make — and that’s exactly why we made it.
It’s leather-bound, handmade, and each one is painstakingly cut and put together by hand. Inside, you can choose from lined, plain or dotted notebooks, depending on how you like to work.
Personally, I like a combination of one plain and one lined notebook.
The plain paper gives me freedom. Freedom to scribble, sketch, brainstorm, draw diagrams or simply write without worrying about staying between the lines.
The lined paper, on the other hand, feels a little more professional. That’s the one I reach for when I’m sitting in an important work meeting and need somewhere to capture ideas, actions and decisions.
But having the perfect notebook is only part of it. A big part, but not everything.
The real question is: what do you actually do with it?
How do you use a journal to make the most of your day, stop wasting time and actively work towards the things you want to achieve?
These are the journaling methods I use every single day. To really get in to them, lets talk about one each week and maybe you can try to implement it, review it and then you can decide to keep it or bin it..
The first method is:
Time Blocking
I remember the first time I heard about time blocking.
It was years ago, and I remember thinking, Really? Is this it?
I understood the concept. Allocate specific blocks of time to specific tasks. Simple.
But I wasn’t convinced that something so straightforward could genuinely make that much difference to my productivity at work — or to my life outside of work.
I was wrong.
I don’t use time blocking so rigidly that every single second of my day is accounted for. That would probably make me feel more stressed than productive. Instead, I use it as a framework.
It gives my day some structure. It helps me decide where my time needs to go, keeps me accountable and, most importantly, stops me from reaching the end of the day wondering where on earth the time went.
So, how do I actually do it?
I start in the morning.
Right from the moment I get out of bed, I allocate a rough time window to the things I need — and want — to do.
For example:
- 05:45–06:00 — Wake up
- 06:00–06:30 — Coffee
- 06:15–06:30 — Prep lunches
- 06:30–07:15 — Walk the dog
- 07:15–07:45 — Get ready
- 07:45–08:00 — Drive to work
Now, you’ll notice something immediately: some of those times overlap.
That’s deliberate.
I’m perfectly capable of making sandwiches and drinking coffee at the same time. I don’t need thirty uninterrupted minutes to drink a coffee!
But do I want those first fifteen minutes of the day to be sitting with my husband, drinking coffee, chatting or watching YouTube inspo?
Absolutely.
And that’s an important part of time blocking for me.
It isn’t about squeezing productivity out of every possible minute. It’s about deciding where I actually want my minutes to go.
That distinction has made a huge difference to how I approach my day. (But, lets be clear. I do not and will not time block my weekends. They stay open, they stay fluid.)
As the day goes on, time blocking becomes even more important — particularly in my professional life.
In my current role, I have task lines going in every direction. I run training assurance across more than 16 different courses, each with more than 20 policies that need to be kept updated, reviewed and, most importantly held accountable.
That’s a lot of moving parts.
So I need to use my time well. Not just for me and my own to-do list, but for all of the instructors who depend on me to keep things moving or ‘above board’ in the background. Their job is to focus on teaching, developing people and delivering training — not getting buried under endless policy and paperwork.
That’s where my journal comes in.
Emails? Time blocked.
Deep-focus work? Time blocked.
Writing or reviewing policy drafts? Time blocked.
Meetings? Time blocked.
Basically, if it needs my time, it gets a space in my day.
I even block out the things that might not traditionally be considered “productive” — lunch, exercise, a cup of tea (usually to stop me staring blankly into the policy abyss) and time to be away from my desk, chatting, walking, you name it.
Because those things matter too.
But there is one really important lesson I’ve learned with time blocking:
Be realistic about how long things actually take.
This is where you can very quickly turn a helpful productivity tool into a source of stress.
If I give myself one hour to completely re-draft a policy and it actually takes four, suddenly the rest of my carefully planned day starts falling apart. One task runs over, then the next one gets pushed back, then the next — and before I know it, my beautifully organised day is a complete mess.
And what was the point in spending time planning and time blocking in the first place if the plan was never realistic?
Time blocking isn’t about predicting the future perfectly. It’s about giving yourself a realistic framework to work within.
Some things will take longer than expected. Some meetings will overrun. Some days will throw something at you that you simply couldn’t have planned for.
That’s life.
The trick is to leave yourself enough breathing room that one unexpected delay doesn’t derail the entire day.
So, Why Time Block?
For me, time blocking isn’t really about trying to cram more into my day. It’s about being intentional with the time I have.
It helps me stay organised, focused and accountable, but there’s something else I’ve found over time: it makes me better at my job and better for the people around me.
When I know what needs to be done and how much time I realistically have to do it, I’m less likely to become overwhelmed or distracted. I can focus properly on the task in front of me rather than constantly worrying about the ten other things waiting for my attention.
As a leader or colleague, people rely on you. They need you to be organised, reliable and present. If I’m constantly firefighting because I haven’t managed my own time effectively, that inevitably affects the people around me. Things get delayed, communication suffers and other people can end up picking up the pieces.
Time blocking helps me avoid that.
It also gives me a much better sense of achievement at the end of the day.
I can look back at my journal and see where my time actually went — what I accomplished, what I didn’t get to, and what needs to move to tomorrow. There’s no beating myself up because I didn’t complete an unrealistic list of twenty things. Instead, I can see that I used my time deliberately and made progress.
And I think that’s the biggest benefit of time blocking.
It gives you control over your time, rather than allowing your time to control you.
It won’t make every day run perfectly. But it does give you a framework.
And when you’re responsible for other people as well as yourself, having that framework can make a huge difference. You become more dependable, more focused and ultimately, more available to the people who need you.
For me, that’s what good time management is really about.
Not doing more.
But doing what matters, properly.
So take these points away if nothing else:
- Be realistic with the time allocated to tasks
- Plan out whatever part of the day requires your attention the most - for me that’s my morning and work day, not my evening.
- Take control over your time and productivity
- It requires willpower and dedication to stick to the time lines, but once you do, you’ll be more productive, a better boss or colleague and ultimately more dependable and level headed.
Try it for a week and see how it might change your day. It won’t work for everyone, it may not even help straight away but if it does work, it could change your professional life.
Just like it did with mine.
AB,
Co-founder of BTO.