How to Make a Computer Journal

I have always dreamed of keeping a daily journal but writing a long page of narrative about my day always seemed  boring not to mention I didn't think I had anything of importance to say. Then came the big questions of, where do I start? What do I write about? Do I put it in a spiral notebook or another type of paper diary where my husband or kids can find it? And if I put on my computer how do I keep it organized? Do I write a document for every day or do I just use one document and add to it daily?

See, to much work!

Until today. As I was reading The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin I was struck by an outlandish idea and the more I thought about it the more crystallized it became, why not use the form designer in MS Works Database or Word to make a daily diary?

Opening MS Works I went to the form designer and started adding the elements that I wanted in my journal. I already knew I didn't want to do the narrative route and I wanted some type of prompt so I would know what to write.

 After thinking about it for a bit I came up with five things I'd want to have in my journal. 
1. The date
2. A Goal for the day. If there was only one thing I could get done today what would it be?
3. A quote of the day. It might be something one of the kids said, it could be something I read or maybe even some witty utterance I made during the day. I just know there are times I hear something and wish I wold have wrote it down for posterity.  
4. In "The Happiness Project" Mrs. Rubin talks about the One Sentence Journal.  I know I can write one sentence (or more) about something that happened during the day that I want to remember.  It could be the cute things one of my grandsons said or my adult daughter sharing stories about her new beau. Or it might even be how misty eyed I got from watching Fast & Furious 6. 
5. Years ago I read Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort of Joy  by Sarah Ban Breathnach and was always struck by the simplicity of just writing down something that I'm grateful for today. Every day I work with children with special needs and at night I come home to my healthy children and grandchildren but somewhere in the act of day to day act living I forget how blessed I am and start to dwell on the little irratations that happen in life. 
6. There was one last thing that I wanted to remember and since I had read "The Happiness Project" I wanted to be happier but in the rush of life along with forgetting what I'm grateful for I also forget what made me truely happy during the day. I want to remember those moments. I want to remember the compliment that my coworker gave me. I want to remember something that made me happy during the day. So on the form "happiness" went. 

Now I open my Daily Journal file, click "next record" or go to the last record and fill in the blanks. Sometimes it can be something as simple as setting up a journal form to make you happy.