LifeJournal™ Newsletter

LifeJournal Newsletter
December, 2005

Most people experience some kind of holiday frenzy: shopping for or making dozens of presents; preparing for a trip or getting ready to welcome guests; cooking special holiday meals or desserts; throwing, going to, or avoiding holiday parties; preparing your house for the right holiday “look;” agonizing over how to have the “perfect” holiday. It’s exhausting thinking about it, let alone doing it. 

And yet, I have the nerve to suggest you do yet one more thing: spend some time contemplating the year just past. I’ve written a short article giving you a fresh perspective of one way to look back at the last 12 months.  Sheila Bender (our partner with LifeJournal for Writers) has written a Holiday Prompt, and we have an article about how to create non-dated journal entries.

As we approach the final days of Christmas, Hanukah, and Kwanzaa shopping, remember to include LifeJournal on your shopping list for a meaningful, easy-to-purchase, and unique gift for friends, family members, or colleagues. We have LifeJournal (for everyone!) at www.lifejournal.com, LifeJournal for Writers (writers.lifejournal.com), and LifeJournal for Educators (educators.lifejournal.com). (See the announcement below to learn about the next “flavor” to join our LifeJournal family.

If you want your LifeJournal CD purchase to arrive in time for Christmas, we recommend that you order by Wednesday, December 14 for delivery by US Postal mail.  If you want overnight delivery (within the US), please order by Thursday, December 22 by 3 PM eastern time. In the special instructions, please note that the CD is a gift, and we won’t include the price in the receipt, and we’ll be happy to pass along a holiday message to the gift recipient. 

Take advantage of a holiday 3 CD special—3 LifeJournal (the original) CDs sent to one address for $109.95 plus shipping, or three LifeJournal for Writers CDs for $122.95 plus shipipng, or three LJ for Writers CDs for $122.95, plus shipping. Buy two gifts and get one for yourself!

Enjoy your holidays.  And, best wishes for a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year! 

Sincerely,
Ruth Folit
Chronicles Software Company
 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Year in Review: A Positive Perspective
Holiday Prompts by Sheila Bender
The Next LifeJournal Edition: LifeJournal for Staying Sober
Question and Answer: Non-date entries
End Quotes
 

Year in Review: A Positive Perspective

During this last year I read a couple of books by Jim Hayhurst, Sr., author of The Right Mountain.  He writes about his adventure climbing Mt. Everest.  During the expedition he noticed that one of his fellow mountain climbers, during their non-climbing time, was often looking back at where they had come from. When Hayhurst questioned his fellow climber about that habit, his colleague’s response was that he felt encouraged by looking at what the team had accomplished.  And that by reviewing what went right, what difficult cliffs and sheer faces they had scaled, he felt more confident that he could go on to climb the next difficult portion of the trek.

So, in reviewing your journal this year, I echo Jim Hayhurst’s question: What have you done right this year? What tricky situations did you navigate well? What were your accomplishments—of any proportion— this year? What worked well for you this year?  Use these successes to write a journal entry that help you see your strengths and give you the courage, motivation, and commitment to reach higher and dig deeper in the upcoming year.
 

Holiday Prompts by Sheila Bender

The Next LifeJournal Edition: LifeJournal for Staying Sober

Sometime in the next month, we’ll have a new edition to the LifeJournal family: LifeJournal for Staying Sober.  Dennis Daley, PhD, has joined forces with LifeJournal to create this program for people who struggle with alcohol or other drug addiction. Dr. Daley is a professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Chief of Addiction Medicine Services at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. 

LifeJournal for Staying Sober helps those with addictions to focus on recovery: to identify goals, progress, and challenges; and to reflect on and develop coping strategies to prevent relapse. Dr. Daley, a recognized expert in the field of addictions, has written hundreds of prompts, gathered quotes, written tips and developed the Topics List to create this new LifeJournal program. As with all the programs in the LifeJournal family—the structure of the program is the same—but the content is targeted to a specific audience. We’ll let you know when this new edition is available, which will be at the beginning of the New Year.

Question and Answer: Non-dated entries

Question: Now that I am trying to put everything into LifeJournal (not just my 'normal' journal, but lists like 'books to read' or 'holiday gifts to buy'), I was wondering what the best method was for non-date-specific entries. I've just been putting them in as normal Daily entries and then searching for them, but I wondered if there were a better solution.

Answer: You do have the ability to create a non-dated journal entry.  Open a journal entry and click on the dropdown arrow to the right of the date. On the bottom row of the drop down area are four icons: the second icon from the left is an "N" in a gray box, signifying "None."  The date that appears is Saturday, December 30, 1899, 0:00 AM.  They will always "float" to the top on the list or "sink" to the bottom if you are sorting by date. (Click the "date" label on the Journal Explorer.)

Another option is to create a different journal type--perhaps called "Lists" or "Notebook" that you use just for these entries when the date is not important. When searching fomr entries in the Journal Explorer you can easily click the "Journal Type" Tab and select the special journal type that you have created. You will then have a list of these non-dated journal entries.

 
End Quotes: 

Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. — Eudora Welty

 "The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."—Benjamin Franklin

 "Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society."—William Makepeace Thackery

 “There is a misleading, unwritten rule that states if a quote giving advice comes from someone famous, very old, or Greek, then it must be good advice.”—Bo Bennett

How to Purchase LifeJournal 2, LJ for Writers (LJW), LJ for Educators (LJE), and/or Upgrade to Version 2.0

You can purchase LifeJournal 2 , LJW, or LJE (or upgrade or expand to ) either by:

-Ordering LifeJournal online: www.lifejournal.com/ordering; writers.lifejournal.com/ordering; educators.lifejournal.com/ordering
-Ordering by telephone: toll free 1-877-456-8762 from 9 am to 5 pm Eastern time, Monday to Friday.
-Ordering by postal mail and pay with a check or money order payable to:

Chronicles Software Company
PO Box 220
Sarasota, FL 34230

To learn more about upgrading to LifeJournal, go to our June 2005 newsletter.

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OTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS: Send mail to info@lifejournal.com  or visit us at http://www.lifejournal.com.

©Chronicles Software Company, 2005. All rights reserved.