Journal entries are an opportunity for you to add more details to your check-in. With Inside Feedback, this means clicking on your Journal menu and entering a title for your journal and as many words as you want in the journal entry form. Here is the first point we’d like to make about journal entries: They do not have to be long to be useful. You could write down a few key words about what was happening when you checked-in and be done with it. In the context of our busy lives, less is often more — especially if it means the difference between doing a journal entry or skipping it.
So, why bother with a journal entry? Let’s say you’ve just checked-in and recorded some stronger than normal emotion. Maybe it was the frustration you felt after getting cut off on your drive into work. Maybe it was anxiety about the voice message you just got from your doctor regarding the biopsy results for that little mole you had checked. Or maybe you’re feeling a sudden sadness that you just can’t explain. In the Inside Feedback system, all of these states are captured as data points which can be graphed (see Measure), but chances are that a few days, a few weeks, or a few months later, you may very well not remember what was occurring during this particular check-in. You’ll see a spike on one of your charts and wonder what it was about.