I always instruct students to journal after reviewing a lesson in the library or a classroom session. What you want to do is describe what you learned in your own words down in your journal. Why is this so important? There is a wisdom regarding writing things down that has been known for thousands of years. There is power in the process of taking a pen or any other writing device and processing information in your head and then writing down the output of your process. Whether your notes are 100% accurate to what was taught or not is not the most important thing, you will make mistakes but the process will make you more aware of them and a lot sooner than you ever would, had you never wrote them down.
In today’s society we have computers and phones that allow us to type in information and technology is great for many things but it is not good when it comes to the process of learning something. We have become so used to typing that writing just seems so out of date. Remember what we’ve discussed before about the level of “schooling” we received in our early years and as we grew into adulthood, remember how the process used was not one that worked in our benefit to teach us how to learn anything. Typing is just as harmful to our process of learning as “schooling” was to our process of learning. With that in mind, if you are serious about learning anything, you must take on the practice of journaling.
In my routines, I have made it a practice to journal what I am seeing from the markets as they provide me with incredible information as long as I take the time to view it, process it and then write down what my mind is telling me is important. I may get something from it or maybe nothing, the important thing is that I am doing it. What I have learned is that there is always a reason why I wrote down what I did and it may not become apparent now but it eventually does. The market is my teacher and I will always be its humble student. One last piece of information I can pass on to you, the students here at the school that have been achieving the most understanding and are acquiring skills very quickly… are all journaling!
Kevin Araujo