About the word, "journal"
I keep notebooks of good ideas, circuits I saw someplace, and best of all, everything I design and build. You will not remember everything about something you built after only a few months. Just a few weeks ago, I dragged out a circuit I built 30 years ago, changed one resistor, and repurposed the device. I certainly couldn't remember how I built that 30 years ago! Having the schematic kept the job down to less than 30 minutes instead of several hours.