How to keep a strength training journal

So it's pretty hard to mark your progress down in a journal if all you're doing is one rep sets. If you make the lift, it's obvious you would mark the number one down. If you don't make the lift, what would you do? Mark it a zero?

That's why I use a rating system to keep track of my lifting progress. I use a scale of one to five.

Five is perfect form with no glitches in the range of motion.  When I hit a five, I'll add more weight to the bar immediately and try to hit  that on my next set.

Four is completion of the lift but the form was shaky and jittery. If I hit a four in  the lift, I will definitely add five or ten pounds to the bar the next time I train that lift.

Three is a miss. Three means the form was terrible. I might have used other muscles to rack the weight like in the squat where you can use the lower back rather than the legs to complete the lift. If I hit a three, I will do the same weight the next time I train that lift until I get a four or five.

Two is basically a partial. If I'm deadlifting for example and I can only get the bar to my knees,   that's a two.

One is the worst. If I'm bench pressing and I can only get the bar off my chest, that's a one.

Keeping a journal on your smart phone is what I prefer. You can track back to what you used to lift pretty easily. It's also much more convenient than lugging a paper notebook around a gym. Of course, you'll have to worry about thieves who want your phone.