How to: Set up your Career Journal for the New Year

New Year. Fresh Start.

It is the perfect time to take the opportunity to set up your Career Journal(s) properly.

Your Career Journal (much like a Bullet Journal) should be set up to meet your own needs and requirements. I use my free-writing journal to create a personalised set up.

My set up includes 3 notebooks:

1. the 2019 Prompt Journal (pocket notebook);
2. a journal for free-writing; and
3. the career progression goals and meetings notebook.

Historically I’ve also had a separate journal for intense journalling.

Contents

To help with reviewing and/or organising your journal at a later date you might want to consider leaving a few blank pages at the beginning of your journal for the purpose of writing a contents page or index.

The Weekly Prompts

We share weekly prompts on the blog. If you missed out on the print or printable version of the 2019 Prompt Journal (which was released as a limited edition last year) you can simply use your free-writing journal or a regular journal to write your journal entries in response to the weekly prompts.

Free-Writing Entries

You can then use the next section of your Career Journal for your goal setting and free writing entries. As with any journal entries you might choose to do these daily, weekly or on an ad hoc basis. I personally do an end of week write up unless I am in an intense journalling period.

If you like using regular prompts – choose your regular prompts for 2019 and include them in your layout (or as a list at the front of your journal). This year I’ve included 3 regular prompts them in my weekly spread.

Summary Pages

You should also include “Summary Pages” in your journal set-up. You might like to include these at the start of the year, the end of the year, or even on a monthly basis. Examples of Summary Pages might include things like Achievements or pages or track and measure your Career Goals.

How have you set up your career journal for 2019?