For those who are participating in the 40 Days of Dating Your Passion Project, journaling is probably the most open-ended part of the challenge, so here are some parameters to help guide you in creating the list of questions. I myself feel as if I’ve wading through the muck in figuring how to get the most out of journaling:
You can design the questionnaire portion of the challenge to do any of the following:
-help you structure your dates
-figure out what is blocking you/getting in the way of your creativity
-hone in on what you want to learn
-journal about your one-hour learning sessions (i.e., reading a book, taking an online tutorial)
You can also add a few questions at the end of each week to help you gain focus for the week ahead.
My questionnaire is pretty basic. As my project is writing fiction, I wanted to keep it short and sweet so I could dedicated more of my time toward working on my project. My questions are:
- What did I work on today?
2. What do I plan on working on tomorrow?
3. What did I learn (any discoveries or pointers?)
Here are some example questionnaires from fellow participants in this first round of the challenge:
Carletta S. Hurt
Projects: Writing a book and an Examiner.com project
- What did I do today?
- Rate my productivity.
- What am I doing tomorrow?
- Open – thoughts, ideas, whatever as it relates to the project
Crystal Hammond
Project: Redesigning her blog Sophisticated Spender
- What did I work on?
- What did you learn?
- What do you hope to change?
- What’s tomorrow’s plan?
Other possible questions:
-What was today’s greatest challenge?
-How I can improve tomorrow?
-What did I have the most fun doing?
Here are a few pointers:
Embrace distractions. Achieving focus is such hard work. When I am feeling distracted and it’s tempting to compulsively sign on to Facebook or check my Insta feed, I’ll take a deep breath. If you really need to take a break from your work, you can do some journaling so you’ll be productive in the interim. I like journaling in my creation cave since I’m already in the flow. If it’s getting difficult, I’ll try to take a deep breath at the top of each minute. This helps me stay on course. I’ve learned that it’s okay to literally twiddle my thumbs or stare off into space. I don’t always have to have my fingers on the keyboard, typing furiously.
Set a limit. This isn’t something I do, but it might help you if you need a little more structure. You can write just one page a day or set a time limit. The important thing during this challenge is not so much the results or end product, but the process and what you learned about the way you work and ultimately about yourself.
We’re almost nearing the end of the challenge. Just four more days!
Photo: <<<<<<<<<<<< turn the page via photopin (license)
LOVE it!!!!!!