As I was growing up, I was always interested in keeping a journal to document my life. I tried several times to get into journaling. I still have those journals where I wrote somewhere between five and fifteen entries before either forgetting or losing interest. Never had I been able to journal consistently despite how much I wanted to or how many pretty new notebooks I got.
Sep 27, 2012 Day One 1.7.2 – Maintain a daily journal. September 27, 2012.
When I wasn’t met with “listicles” like, “7 Ways to Keep a Journal”, or encouraged to, “Just try it”, I was left with little to go on in terms of journaling templates. I was left with one option: to draft my own journaling template. Here’s what I came up with.
Then, in 2013, I discovered Day One, and that changed my journaling game.
Day One is an iOS and Mac journaling application. It syncs beautifully across all your devices and lets you add multiple journals, photos and tags to your entries, and create reminders for you to write. You can log your location, the current weather data, your step count, and even the music you’re listening to.
Focus 1 9 14 nkjv. I’m all for the look and feel of a physical journal, but the convenience of being able to journal on-the-go with my phone and instantly add photos to document my day is unbeatable.
Day One 2 0 7 – Maintain A Daily Journal Article
Let’s get into the meat of this post: how I use Day One.
First off I have five different journals within Day One. As you can guess, Daily Musings is where I write my daily journal entries. I have missed a few days here and there, but for the most part, I have been writing daily since the fall of 2013. Writing in Day One has become part of my routine and my day feels incomplete without doing it.
Some of these daily entries are only a couple of short sentences, but sometimes, but when I have more to say, I’ll write a few paragraphs.
I’ll write about what I’ve been up to that day, and about what’s on my mind. If any major event happens, I’ll include that. During the spring of senior year, I would write an entry as each of my college decisions came out and tagged so I could see them all together. I also had tags for entries with my track times, SAT scores (I’m such a nerd, I know), and snow days and delays from school. I even had a phase where I tagged what I wore to school on my daily entry so I could check that I wasn’t wearing the same top twice within a couple of weeks (I’m a little embarrassed about this, but I have to admit Day One served the purpose).
My next journal is Reflections. This is mostly made up of monthly reflections that I write at the end of each month. These personal reflections are pretty casual. I normally write about 300 words about the highs and lows about the last month and what I wish I would have done better. Some months I’m more insightful than others, but in some I end up just highlighting the things that have happened.
I also have a few school year reflections from high school and am writing semester reflections for college. In these, I’ll reflect on the goals I set before the school year or semester began, what I did best, and what I’ve learned for next time.
Writing reflections helps put my life into perspective and make me seriously think about what kind of direction I’m going in, so I’m really glad I started doing them.
I’ve only just started the last three journals recently. Reviews is for my thoughts in books, movies, and anything else I feel I want to write about. In Goals, I really just have some new years’ resolutions. In Notes, I currently just have blog post ideas, but I started the journal with the intent that it would be the place where I would could just jot things down there rather than opening up a Word Document or using stickies.
Most of the time I journal on my MacBook, but I also often journal on my iPad. I usually only journal on my iPhone when I’m traveling or super busy. I prefer to write my reflections on my MacBook since they’re longer and the physical keyboard makes it easier to type.
One of my absolute favorite things about Day One is looking back on old entries. Using its “On this Day” feature, I can quickly find all my entries that I’ve written on that day throughout the years. It is so cool to see what I was up to one, two, and three years ago.
Day One makes journaling more accessible and fun to use. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to start journaling, but has a tough time doing it consistently. I would also recommend it to someone who already keeps a physical journal, but would appreciate the extra features of Day One like adding photos and your location. Additionally, you would never have the fear of losing your journal with Day One syncing your entries to your account!
Do you like to journal? Do you already use or would like to use an app like Day One? Let me know in the comments below!
Day One 2 0 7 – Maintain A Daily Journal Entries
Best,
Angie
Recently, American film director Robert Rodriguez appeared on The Tim Ferriss Show and explained why and how he journals.
This piqued my interest.
Like many people, I’ve always wanted to journal daily, but like most people, I’ve struggled with consistency.
This wasn’t because I lacked the self-discipline to write; it’s because I didn’t know what to write about. I wasn’t a fan of writing stream-of-conscious thought; I wanted consistency in my writing…
I wanted a template.
So, I did what most people do: I turned to Google. I varied my search terms, but my results left me less than satisfied.
When I wasn’t met with “listicles” like, “7 Ways to Keep a Journal”, or encouraged to, “Just try it”, I was left with little to go on in terms of journaling templates.
I was left with one option: to draft my own journaling template.
Here’s what I came up with.
Free Download: Get immediate access to my free Evernote journaling templates so you never miss a day again.
I currently journal once in the morning and once in the evening, and since using a journaling template, I’ve been consistent. I use Evernote to record my entries and use two tags: “Planner” for my morning journal and “Journal” for my evening Journal.
This is what my morning journal looks like:
Note: “TK” stands for “to come”. [1]
Every morning, I copy and paste the above template into a new note, date it and answer the following three questions:
1. “I am grateful for…” According to Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, writing down three new things that you’re grateful for, for 21 days in a row, can actually rewire your brain, allowing your brain to work more optimistically and more successfully. [2]
2. “What would make today great?” I “borrowed” this from The Five-Minute Journal. Here, I write my five most important tasks for the day. This helps me distinguish the vital few tasks from the trivial many, and reminds me that only a few things really matter and I can’t do everything. [3]
3. “What’s ONE Thing I must accomplish today?” This is my focusing question. This, as Gary Keller argues in his book, The ONE Thing, is the best approach to getting what you want. If you want to achieve extraordinary results, you need to narrow your focus and allow what matters most to drive your day.
In the evening, my journal is more thorough:
This is an opportunity to review my day and improve what is already working. I have an alarm on my phone to trigger my journaling habit, and every evening, at 21:00, before shutting down my laptop for the day, I answer seven questions:
1. “What did I achieve today?” This question helps me identify whether I actually achieved what I set out to accomplish in the morning, or if I got sidetracked. One lesson I’ve learned from answering this question is it’s easy to overestimate what you think you can achieve in a day, but I remind myself it’s not what you achieve in a day, it’s what you achieve eventually. This is what really matters.
2. “What lessons did I learn?” This is my favourite question to answer. This is where you journal your “Aha!” moments. Answers can range from personal, “I learned how to say no to dessert”, to skill-based, “I learned how to remove plosives in an audio recording using Audacity”. The more thorough you are, here, the more you can return to it again and again and learn from it.
3. “What am I thankful for right now?” This is similar to Question #1 in my morning journal but with a rather unorthodox twist: I thank my problems and ask myself what’s great about them. This is an exercise I learned from Anthony Robbins in his book, Awaken the Giant Within and it’s called “The Problem Solving Question”.
Last week, for example, I accidently deleted an audio recording I had made. “What is great about this problem?” I asked myself. “Nothing!” I replied. But when I meditated on it, when I really thought about it, I realised my problem was great because I could make an improvement on the original. As Laura Ingalls Wilder writes, “There is good in everything, if only we look for it.”
4. “How am I feeling right now?” This is an opportunity for me to be vulnerable, to let my guard down, to be open without censoring myself. I’m generally pretty happy, but if I’m feeling a negative emotion, I’ll identify the cause by using a why drill. I’ll ask myself why I’m feeling the emotion, in question, five times. This helps me be at the cause, rather than the effect of my concern.
5. “What did I read today?” This pertains to any blog posts I clipped and/or books I’m reading. This helps me track my weekly goal of reading a book a week. [4]
6.“What are 3 amazing things that happened today?” I think it’s important to bookend your day by focusing on your “small wins.” “I said no to a dessert.” “I resisted the urge to give into temptation.” “I didn’t sleep in.” “I achieved my most important task.” … These tiny advantages build forward momentum and remind us that bigger achievements are within reach.
7. “How could I have made today better?” Many of us, when dissatisfied with our day, prefer to write it off, to move past it as quickly and quietly as possible. But by asking yourself how you could have made the day better, you’re forcing your brain to look for improvements. Your day may have been stressful, but don’t write it off until you’ve learned something from it. Look for ONE Thing you can do, either prevent it from happening again or to help you deal with it more effectively.
Conclusion
This has been a departure from my usual writing style, but I wanted to write something personal, and give you an insight into how I journal and what I’m learning from it.
I consider it to be one of the best approaches to understanding your own psychology and documenting the changes you’re making in your life.
You might argue it’s not for you, but I invite you to try, using my template as a model, before disregarding it completely.
Day One 2 0 7 – Maintain A Daily Journal Submission
Free Download: Get immediate access to my free Evernote journaling templates so you never miss a day again.
Footnotes
Day One 2 0 7 – Maintain A Daily Journal Subscription
[1] This is a writing lesson I learned from Neil Strauss in his Creative Live interview with Tim Ferriss. You can watch it on YouTube here.[2] Shawn Achor talks about the research-backed benefits of journaling in his entertaining TEDx talk, The Happy Secret to Better Work. You can read my key takeaways here.[3] This is a lesson I learnt from Greg McKeown in his wonderful book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. You can read my Kindle notes and highlights here.[4] I explain my whole approach to reading in this article: How to Read a Book a Week (It’s a Lot Easier Than You Think).