Journaling To Improve Study

Many students are desperate to find ways to be more efficient in their studies. Some might hope that developing a strict study schedule will be enough. However, journaling can help you realise and unlock your potential in your academic career. It could give you a new lease of life, help you explore other areas of interest, and build your sense of self-awareness. Sometimes you need to check the rear-view mirror before driving forward. Let’s explore 5 ways journaling can make you a more efficient student.

Tracking Your Progress

Each entry you make is an opportunity to capture what you feel and think of at a given moment. If you journal often enough, you’ll eventually be able to look back on your history and judge whether your worries were either well-founded or blown out of proportion.

Doing this could improve your sense of judgement in the future. Is your problem today similar to what you journaled about before? Can you learn anything from your writings that may equip you to deal with the challenge better? In the end, journals shouldn’t just be written but also reviewed, building your immunity to certain types of situations. How you perceive certain situations matters greatly in your academic career. It can all inform your decision-making skills. What revision schedule is the most effective and sustainable for you? Which teaching styles do you respond to best?  Journaling can help you answer all of these questions and enable you to approach your learning more efficiently.

Calming Your Nerves

In some cases, journaling can help you heal bouts of anxiety. Writing down your goals and aspirations can help you establish a clearer sense of self and motivate you to get to work. It can be an empowering process that imbues you with a greater feeling of agency.

Some student fears stretch beyond exams and grades too. The pandemic caused a lot of worry for school-aged pupils nationwide. Having a safe place to jot down your thoughts and vent your feelings could be highly therapeutic, giving you more chances to channel positive energy once you’ve shut the journal. You may be able to get a sense of closure from problems that otherwise seemed seismic and unconquerable.

If you’re actively trying to counter your anxiety with your journaling, you can also develop your sense of emotional intelligence too. Are your peers having similar problems to you? How might you empathise with them? Could you support one another? Once you’re more aware of these problems in your journaling, you may be able to respond to them more effectively and help others do the same, building your relationships.

Improving Your Memory

Many people develop a close relationship with their journaling. It becomes part of who they are, an intensive, introspective, and private process. Eventually, many entries can be remembered fondly, almost recited word for word.

It might seem like a simple point, but journaling can boost your capacity for remembering things. Once you have a better sense of your progress and actively fight against certain anxieties, your ability to focus and retain information of any variety will be sharper.

Sadly, it’s not uncommon for teens to have crowded minds. It can be hard to remember even the simplest information during those times. Still, journaling can help you to organise the chaos and keep your thoughts more neatly ordered in your mind.

Developing Your Literacy

Literacy is one of the most important skills to hone while in school. Unfortunately, according to recent reports, many kids are starting secondary school while only having a reading age of six to start with.

Regardless of your current abilities, things can always be improved. Whether you’re a school-aged child or an elderly adult, literacy must be constantly practised in life. Journaling is a great way to refine those skills, writing down your musings without restrictions. You can explore language as you decide how to articulate yourself best, discover new words, and better understand the value of communicating your thoughts effectively, if only to yourself.

Of course, if you’re journaling about the subject of literature specifically, you can greatly enhance your reading and writing skills. What does your reading list look like? Which styles of prose and poetry do the writers use? Is there a critical consensus on these texts that you can unpack further? Are there any additional books that might complement those studies? You can order these thoughts in your journaling and get more out of your literature studies.

Journaling Can Fuel Your Creativity

Many subjects in school have creative elements: literature, art, design and technology, and even science. Journaling can help your aptitude for creativity and improve your engagement with these subjects. Remember, you have full control over your journal. Because of this, there are many routes you can go down when it comes to detailing your experiences. You can incorporate drawings and photographs into your text, write poems about what you’re experiencing at school, and express yourself in ways formal school reports might discourage.

Not every page needs to have an artistic twist, as some people prefer to mostly jot down their thoughts as they are in their purest form. That’s valid too. Still, the odd page can be injected with some of your personality, and there are no limitations when exploring creative ways of expression.

Conclusion

Many students believe that school is all about learning subjects and passing exams. However, it’s also about the study of yourself, too. It’s not uncommon for teens to be uncertain about who they are, but with a journal, you can take active steps toward discovering that for yourself. You can also nurture changes in your development this way. After that, your academic efforts may be more focused and improved.