Journaling is a process, and there is no right or wrong way to do it. It’s definitely a personal choice. There are however five basic rules when journaling. These are often referred to as “The Five W’s of Journaling”.
These basics include: Who, When, Where, What and Why. I guess like a birthday invitation. Now that’s a very simple way to include journaling on your layout. Doesn’t take a lot of time, and is easy to record. Just including this information is helpful when looking at layouts and deciding when the event took place.
So how do you go about journaling the information? Begin simple. Grab a pen and record the five basic rules. Here is quick journaling using this technique about our vacation to California.
Who: Our family
When: Last Summer (2005)
Where: The Beach in California
What: Playing in the sand and building sandcastles
Why: On vacation
Now, you could include that just the way it is if you would like. However, if you are looking for a more traditional way to journal, you might want to tidy it up a bit and make it more personable. Taking the above information and putting it in a journaling format would look something like this:
“In the summer of 2005 our family took a California vacation to the beach. The kids had fun playing in the sand and building sandcastles.”
This is a nice way to tell the story with the basic details.
Of course, I am a journaling nut so my basic journaling block would look more like this:
“After a long hard school year, our family was looking forward to a much needed vacation to California. In June 2005, Mom, Brie and Ryan headed off to the San Diego beach for a day of sandcastles and playing in the ocean. The weather was great and the vacation was relaxing and fun.”
I hope this was helpful to those of you who think journaling can be tedious. It doesn’t have to be. My next entry will be a more advanced look at the 5 W’s.