Christ, Christianity, and Christendom.

Men have an interesting problem today. Here’s how it goes. First, it is undeniably true that recording anything is a marvelous means of quality control. If you could just get yourself to record what you did with your time every day, you would spend that time more effectively. Second, it is considered wimpy and insipid to keep a journal. Now, you could argue that many of the great men in history kept journals, that journal has myriad benefits. Or you can simply short-circuit the entire discussion and use a subtle redefinition to make journaling a male-friendly activity: keep a logbook.

For those who believe in a final judgment (Christians, Muslims, etc.) think of it as practice. If Jesus was right, and I am confident that he was, that “every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof on the day of judgment,” think of your logbook as an pre-giving of account. The more you learn to account for your time now, the less you will have to account for later, and the less you’ll be surprised at how much of your life you wasted. (And if every word matters, of course every hour does.)

Now, if you’ve already got a logging habit, I don’t want to interfere. But in case you don’t, here’s how to do it. First, pick a medium. For the last twenty years or so, my grandfather’s medium has been Microsoft Word, and he prints the documents from time to time. I don’t know if he kept a journal before the advent of the computer. I hope he did. Second, don’t worry too much about what the journal is for. Simply, once a day, write down what you did with your time and who you did it with. That’s all. And if you find anything in the day interesting enough that you’d like a record kept of it, then write it down. My grandfather recently showed me a collection of what must be one hundred pages of entries that referenced me from about age three to age eight. Because it focuses on details rather than on general description, this set of conversations and observations gives me a far more accurate picture of who I was as a child than any generalizes reminiscences from my parents. I’ll give you the spark notes: hyper-active, always learning and repeating odd facts, unusually large vocabulary, strong interest in theology, early ability to spell, late ability to read at grade level. If he ever lets us see the rest of his notes, it will be treasure-trove for understanding him, even if the individual days’ events that he wrote down seemed insignificant at the time.

So get to work. And if you don’t like the term logbook, you can call it a “Book of Chronicles.” Whatever you do, get to work. Think of it as way to account for your life, not a place to write down all your feelings. There: you now have the emotional permission you need as a man to start journaling. You’re welcome.

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