Business — If you’re a business coach, you might create a business journal that tracks the productivity of your clients’ work efforts. Perhaps they would make daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and/or annual entries to help document what they did or didn’t do. These could be in simple checkbox format, with room to write one sentence that summarizes a particular task or aspect of what you want them to track. Then, at the end of the day/week/month/etc., they’d enter such data into the computer to send to you so you could track what they’re up to or they could bring it to a coaching session with you and read right out of the book. The book idea is great because it lays on the desk, right next to their computer. They can keep all their current work up going on the monitor, so as not to disturb their progress during the day. They simply pick up the journal, make a note or two and put it back down. That’s the secret power of journaling. You document a little, amass a lot and review everything after certain periods of time for reflection and clarity of what you did great and what could use some attention.

Clients/Customers — You could create a journal that helps business owners (or yourself) interact with customers and clients, refunds/reasons, rave reviews/testimonials, challenges/solutions, new ideas, statements made on the phone that attracted a client your way, etc. JOT THAT STUFF DOWN! The journal is there to help make sure they’re documenting their (re)actions to the activities I just mentioned or other aspects that occur between business owners and their clients and customers.

Gratitude — Some coaches, even therapists, deal with people who are looking for purpose and meaning in their life. Well, the first thing I would do, as I welcome them to coaching with me, is to put a journal I created in their hand. Instruct them to write out 3 things every day they’re grateful for. Can be done in the morning, during the day or just before bed. Each day must be something different, although, you could have 1 that overlaps a few times. Then, some day, when they aren’t feeling their best, they just pick up the Gratitude Journal and read through the multiple entries of what they are grateful for. Wow, talk about an instant pick-me-up mental, head and heart medicine for your client, I’d say. Think of the stories they’ll tell you about how your journal helped them get through some tough times.

Goals/Expected Accomplishments — Get your clients to write our their goals (e.g., small, medium and large) and when they would like to accomplish them (i.e., set target deadlines). In this type of book, there’d be questions to answer, such as: What is your ultimate goal? Why haven’t you achieved your goal to date? What’s stopping you from achieving your goal? What do you need to do/have/get in order to achieve your goal? Questions like that, when written out, get your attention and can probably have better success achieving their goals. Having something to reflect back on, i.e., what they wrote down, helps them overcome those future obstacles so they can achieve their goal … oh, and make YOU look good as their coach.

Health, Diet, Workout — Great for fitness/health coaches to give to their clients as a gift. “Welcome to coaching with me. I’m going to give you this health and fitness journal as a gift for choosing to work with me. In it, you’ll document daily what you eat and what you do (or don’t do) for exercise. At the end of each week, we’ll have a call to find out how you’re doing. Be honest! If you lie in your journal, you’re only lying to yourself. This is YOUR journal and YOUR life. IF you seriously want to improve your physical health, then be 100% honest. We must be able to find areas during the week/month that you need help …” You get the idea. Again, there are online journals and phone apps that do a lot of this. Perhaps your journal book could better document how to maximize those apps and programs. Still, writing down what they ate and did for their workout helps them mentally and psychologically. Writing things down gives you accountability. Then, at the end of the day/week if they chose, they can enter the data into the computer program or phone app.

Relationships — If someone’s in the type of relationship that’s not nourishing their heart, mind or soul, I always tell them to write down any verbal, physical and/or any other type of abuse, neglect, sadness they feel, etc. Sure, you could document this in your phone, but writing it out can also be restorative for a client. Then, when the day comes, and they think they have the courage to leave the relationship, which we know they should, your client just has to look through his/her journal at all those entries of negativity and documented misery and use what they read through all those pages as the one and final nudge they need to get out and walk away from that relationship! Plus, you can use such information in court if necessary to justify why you left. On the flip side, if you’re in a healthy relationship, what better way to cement your feelings for one another than by documenting the good things you experience. Then, one day, you and your mate can read through all the happy moments you shared together. Wow, that sounds romantic.

Ideas, Dream, Fantasies — Again, these journals can be gifts to your clients or people you meet at events and so forth. This is your Dream Journal that you give out or sell to people. They simply make the time to write out their dreams, hopes, ideas and fantasies. People often take walks in parks, at the beach, along rivers and streams, hike through the woods … hide your phone and whip out a pen and start writing in that Dream Journal!

Marketing — How many calls did you make today? Jot them down. Sure, you could do this in the computer, but when you see it in writing, it makes a big difference. Plus, it’s faster to journal time, phone numbers, who you called and what happened when you write it versus whipping out the computer and typing it all in. Hey, do that LATER, after you’ve written down a number of actionable items. Again, we close down our computers. We turn off our screens. A journal laying in a convenient place is always ready for more entries. We can open them up and quietly sift through the pages of our activities quickly noting the good, the bad and oops, better not do that again moments. What’s more, this type of journal doesn’t take up wall space how whiteboards or calendars can. It sits nicely on your desk.

Writing / Poetry / Lyrics — This is a great one for authors, songwriters and poets who come up with great ideas and need to write them down quickly so they don’t forget. Plus, reading past notes on what you wrote can help you piece together whole poems, books or songs. You never know! Jot down song ideas, book title ideas, poem ideas, etc. 

Project/Planning — A great reason to have a journal. I, myself, am always writing stuff down on scraps of paper to remember, act on, etc. Why not give your clients a Project Planning Journal to help them plan out their life, business, next project, etc.

Sales/Selling — This type of journal documents a person’s sales and selling activity/history. Jot down who you called, when, what time you ended the phone call, what was discussed on the call or at the appointment, what did you say or do right or wrong. Jot these things down. First, writing them will reinforce them in your mind and subconscious, which helps develop better behaviors and actions later. Typing things out doesn’t always help things sink into the brain. Typing more or less documents stuff you might forget later because you typed it so fast that you forget it as soon as you turned off the computer.