1. Use prompts to inspire journal entries
If you have trouble thinking of what to write in your journal, sites like this one offer questions to ask yourself each day. Repeat those questions over and over, or come up with some of your own.
2. Make entries in a datebook
Get a desk calendar or other agenda book that has weekly spreads with a small space for each day. Write just a few sentences in each daily space about what's going on with you and your family that day -- events, an interesting conversation, something funny that happened, what you're feeling or worrying about. You don't have to write a lot to create a powerful record of your family life.
3. Write a blog
Services like Blogger make it easy and free to put your thoughts in the Internet, where other people -- whether just your immediate family or the entire Net at large -- can read and comment on them. Knowing you're writing for an audience can sometimes be a good motivator to keep making entries. If you have a blog or start one now, be sure to submit information about it on the Readers Respond page for parent-written special-needs blogs.
4. Commit to write one short e-mail a day
You don't always have to send a huge missive to keep friends and family members up-to-date about your life. A short note about a specific event, conversation or mood is a fun way to keep in touch. Set up a special folder in your e-mail program to store just those particular sent items. And look at that -- an instant electronic journal!
5. Tweet about your day
Twitter is a terrific low-pressure option for sharing events and observations as you go through your daily life. Since the limit for an entry is 140 characters, you don't have to do much deep thinking -- just Tweet and move on. Looking back over your Tweets offers a spontaneous and fun record of your life -- there's even a service that will turn those Tweets into a printed journal.
