Saturday, August 13, 2005

E-mail Journal

In a hurry? Who isn't? Create an e-mail journal. If you regularly communicate with friends and family through e-mail, those messages contain a hefty portion of information, thoughts and feelings that often go into a conventional journal.

Save all your e-mails as drafts before you send them along to loved ones through cyberspace. Once a week or once a month, print off your e-mails, three-hole punch them and place them in a binder. At the end of the year, you'll have a hardcopy journal of the places you visited, the people you've met, goals conquered, discoveries made and the heartbreaks and happiness that have accompanied you along the way.

Rather not deal with all the paper and storage? Cut-and-paste those e-mails into a Word file and keep them in a special sub-folder on your computer or portable disc drive. Again, you can group the pieces by week, by month, or just thread the whole thing together in one continuous document.

You can do the same thing with the e-mail responses you receive from others. Remember when people packed away stacks of letters in a cedar chest? This is a modern turn on a similar idea. ◦
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Friday, August 12, 2005

Blog Update

A recent story in the Detroit Free Press reported that nearly 6 percent of U.S. adults have created blogs (short for Weblogs) and 16 percent of them read blogs. This 2005 data was gathered by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

A blog is a personal journal published on the Internet where people can write about any subject, including their personal live and jobs.

"Journal Writing Tips with a Twist" mixes a few personal stories in between educational tips on journal writing. The emphasis, however, is strongly placed on tips over the personal.

Some bloggers seem compelled to even venture beyond revealing personal information, by offering inside secrets about or potential products being developed at their places of employment, unflattering portraits of their bosses, or blasts against coworkers.

In more than one instance, such frankness has cost the blogger his or her job. Caution may be the byword when walking a fine line between free speech and slander or peddling proprietary company information for free. ◦
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