I've been keeping journals of all kinds for more than a decade now. Travel journals, self-improvement journals, business journals, and daily journals that now form a foot-tall stack under the desk and a box of notebooks on the shelf. Yet none provide that comparative, year-to-year window into the days of life, or answer the question "How am I doing this year versus last year, or the year before that again?"

That's where "The 5 Year Journal" comes in. It's a hardbound, 266-page journal organized so that - as the title says - you can keep 5 years of brief entries in a single book. There are two days on each page, with five years of three-line entries for each day. Now three lines doesn't sound like a lot, but it's enough to capture the essence of the day. And there's no reason you can't keep other journals in parallel for lengthier meditations.

It's a well thought-out book as well. There are logically placed sections for monthly goal planning, and for monthly, quarterly, and yearly reviews. Some of the Quarterly Questions might seem a bit whimsical ("My Favorite... Chuckle... Patience Builder... Tv Show"), but on the whole the author/designer Doreene Clement has exercised admirable self-restraint and thoughtfulness in putting the book together.

I'm looking forward to 2007 to see how things turned out this year.

-- Garry Ray

The 5 Year Journal
$30
Available from
Shared Vision Network

or $25 from Rare Device