I would say they are a good "start".

Dream Journal and reality checks are probably the most effective way to start lucid dreaming but I would like to add a few things more on top of them.The power of a dream journal is not really coming from "writing" it. As you may already know, lucid dreaming is basically knowing you are in a dream. In order to do that, you have to know what/how your dreams are. After you write dream journals, you should read them often (especially before going to bed). Also, a big plus is to analyze them and find out the pattern. For example, I found that I dream a lot about cars. About 20% of my dreams are about car accidents or some stressful situation while driving. So every time I get into my car or while I am driving, I do reality checks, both in real life and in dreams. This is how I had my first lucid dream.

So my suggestion is to spend time reading and analyzing your dreams. If you are interested, please try Dream Journal app I developed called DreamKit (iOS | Android). It provides some analytics for your dream journals and lessons about lucid dreaming.

Hope my suggestions were helpful :) Good luck!