I know new games (such as Oblivion) offer an in-game journal system to keep track of quests, maps, and other pertinent information. That's a relatively recent development, though, and I wonder what good (or bad) memories everyone has of playing through games that required that extra effort on your part.
My first "game journal" was kept during Starflight for the Sega Genesis, and it detailed the journey of my character across the galaxy, meeting aliens and gathering resources. My last one, which I just found in a drawer (prompting this topic), was for Ambrosia Software's EV Nova. Quite similar to my Starflight journal, it was written "captain's log" style, detailing which ports I had visited and what I had done there. That was probably about 5 years ago, and I haven't played a game that needed journaling since then.
Kind of neat to look back and see those. I could envision almost every second of the gameplay as I had recorded it. Maybe I'm just OCD, or maybe I'd like to hear what everyone else did back in the day.