Winter 2004, CSE 403 - Software Engineering

Journaling

Keeping a journal of things important to you is an effective way to learn about what is going on for you and the world around you, and to create new possibilities for your future. All the experts I know use journals, and speak very highly of them. It is a simple technique. Even five minutes a day can make a big difference over the long run.

Here are our four journaling rules:

• Journals are private. Instructors will never ask to see them.
• You must use a physical (not an electronic) journal in this class.
• Write in your journal for the first five minutes of each class.
• Write about what is most important for you to write about at that moment.

You can write about what you are working on, your design ideas, your estimated and actual effort for tasks, personal items, people that are enlightening or frustrating you, embarrassing moments you don't want to re-live, things you want but can't figure out how to get, successes you have had, etc. Writing often clarifies things. Simply recording data often changes your behavior. Looking back over data allows you to see patterns.

Why won't we let you use an electronic journal for this? While electronic journals are great for searching, easy to publish, and often a good way to write longer items, they are not as simple and versatile for documenting your thoughts. Here are some of the reason why:

• Writing with pen or pencil uses different muscles than typing, and thus causes us to think differently.
• Writing with paper and pen or pencil is a more expressive medium, requiring less effort to combine text with drawings, annotations, etc.
• Physical journals never run out of power and more gracefully survive drops.
• Physical journals are easy to carry around.
• Physical journals power up instantaneously.
• Physical journals sit visible on shelves for years, whereas electronic ones tend to get lost over the years.
• Physical journals are always readable, whereas electronic ones require particular software for reading.