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- Day One 2 1 7 – Maintain A Daily Journal Report
- Day One 2 1 7 – Maintain A Daily Journal
- Day One 2 1 7 – Maintain A Daily Journal Sample
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.
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: Open source vst.
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.
Footnotes
[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).
For years I've tried to keep a journal for my life and work. I've purchased several paper journals. Despite these attempts, I never established a habit of regular journaling, especially for work.
But it didn't stick. Some days I'd forget to bring it with me, other days I'd get too busy to spend the time to write. I recognized the importance of regular reflection & planning, but I couldn't always get it to work for me.
Then I tried a digital journal.
The app was simple - every day (or week), I'd receive a notification in my email inbox encouraging me to reply.
I'd add a response over email. It was super simple to use, and the habit stuck!
This made me realize that digital journals have massive benefits, especially if you need help establishing the habit.
In the rest of this post, I'm going to share a list of digital journaling apps that you can use to kickstart a regular habit of reflection & planning.
1. The Five Minute Journal App
The Five Minute Journal app is based off the bestselling physical journal. In the morning you receive specific prompts on your iPhone/iPad or Android such as:
- I am grateful for..
- What will I do to make today great?
Then in the evening, you can answer questions like:
Day One 2 1 7 – Maintain A Daily Journal Report
- 3 amazing things that happened today
- How could I have made today even better?
Additionally, you can add a photo to your post and you'll receive a daily quote that you can share on social media. This is an effective structure and covers the key aspects of journaling. It's ideal for beginners who are trying to build a regular habit of journaling, but if you're looking to customize entries, prompts, and the cadence; you may need to look elsewhere.
The app has close to a 5-star review (over 10,000 reviews) on the Google Play store and iTunes.
Cost: $4.99
2. Day One
Day One is a personal journaling app that is available across the entire iOS ecosystem (including iPads and a Mac app) and Android. This app is much more free-form than structured apps like Friday or the Five Minute Journal; it's a bit more like an open-ended digital diary.
There's quite a few useful features you may like in Day One:
- Tagging
- Advanced Encryption/Security
- Various integrations (it will pull in your posts from other systems, available on the Premium plan)
- Location tagging
- Markdown formatting
- Export/backup options
You can see more in this video review below:
The only downside to Day One is that it's open-ended, so you will need to come up with your own journaling prompts. For beginners, staring at an empty page can be intimidating.
Cost: $35/year
3. Friday
Think of Friday as your homepage for work. It's a unique journal and planner for work. It helps you write and reflect, while also planning your day ahead--all in one digital platform.
Unlike the others in this list, we offer a completely customizable way to build any regular habit of reflection--such as a morning routine or gratitude journal. With these check-ins in Friday, you set up specific questions and prompts that you can respond to each day. You can use the Friday check-in builder to setup a perfect cadence for your exact needs.
With Friday, you can customize the check-in to your needs, which means you are much more likely to create the behavior over the long run.
Friday is also a great place to bullet journal and maintain a regular rhythm of journaling.
What else? Friday has Posts, which allow you a free form place to take short notes or to jot down ideas.
That's not all. We also offer functionality that resembles a daily planner. You can connect your calendar and task apps and easily roadmap your day in one place.
Best Features
- Customize prompts for morning gratitude, daily recaps, or whatever you choose. Customizable check-ins will send you a prompt every day or every week, on your schedule!
- Get reminded each day and respond right inside Friday
- Start with Posts for random notes or ideas
- Use it for work journaling or bullet journaling
- Integrate personal and work tasks from the task management apps and see meetings next to your tasks
- Block distracting websites with the Chrome extension & free up more time to focus
Start for free in Friday.
4. Penzu
Next up, we have Penzu, one of the earliest digital journaling apps available (founded in 2008!). Penzu is very similar to Day One, as it's more of a freeform diary app vs. being a structured journal. It boasts more than 2 million users.
Day One 2 1 7 – Maintain A Daily Journal
Penzu offers a free plan, and two paid offerings. The free plan offers unlimited entries, access to mobile apps, and basic font options. Yes, the reminders are included in the free plan.
Unfortunately, the app seems to have lost a bit of its luster over the past couple of years - it looks like only one founder is still working on the project (see LinkedIn company page). The app currently has a 4.3 star rating on the iTunes store and 4.3 stars on the Play store.
The paid offerings have features like:
- Encryption
- Various Journal Covers
- Different Background colors
- Tagging
- Search
- Custom reminders
- PDF Export
Cost: $19-$49/year
Friday might be an interesting alternative worth considering.
5. Dabble.me
Day One 2 1 7 – Maintain A Daily Journal Sample
As I mentioned in the beginning of the article, I used to use Ohlife before it shut down. Dabble.me is the closest alternative I've found to the email-based journaling method. As I mentioned before, this app delivers an email on a regular interval. All you need to do is reply via email. You can see in the screenshot below, it will also show a past update:
If you live in your email inbox, this is worth a second look. The free plan offers restricted functionality, like the email notifications are sent every other week.
The paid offering unlocks the following features, such as:
- Ability to change the frequency
- Attach a photo
- Edit entries
- Rich text formatting
- Year in Review
If you are looking for a simple way to start journaling, Dabble.me is worth a look, or you could consider an alternative.
Cost: $36/year
6. Daybook
Daybook is another journaling app similar to Day One or Penzu. The user experience is extremely minimal (see example below), but it bills itself as a free cloud-based journaling app.
One major benefit is that the app is free. It has over 16,000 reviews on the Google Play store as well, with close to a 5-star rating. There's an iOS app as well.
Cost: Free
7. Journey.cloud
Journey is the new kid on the block and appears to be the most popular regular journaling app in this list, with over 65,000 reviews on the Google Play store and nearly 2,000 reviews on iTunes. Once again, it's pretty similar to Penzu and Day One, but it looks like Journey is a newer, more up-to-date version work exploring.
Similar to other apps, the free plan offers basic journaling capabilities, but you will need to upgrade to access advanced functionality like:
- Formatting
- Unlimited entries
- Create an entry from email
- Pull in social media posts from Zapier
This pricing isn't obvious from their website, which is a little disappointing and a bit sketchy. With that being said, they seem to have many happy users.
P.S. - if you're looking for an alternative to Journey.cloud, we might be able to help.
Cost: $30/year
8. Daylio
Ok, here's an interesting pick. Daylio: a 'micro diary and mood tracker.' I've been using it for a couple weeks and have found it to be an interesting alternative to the traditional journaling apps.
Unlike traditional journaling apps, you are prompted to journal with 'labels' and short snippets of text vs. being a pure 'writing' app. You also share your general mood/sentiment on a regular basis.
This breaks down the barriers to journaling because it's so easy to use. This app boasts a crazy number of reviews on the Google play store - over 250k! Additionally, the iOS app has over 20k reviews.
The free plan restricts certain feature and is ad-supported. The premium plan offers the following functionality:
- Unlimited moods
- Unlimited reminders
- Unlimited goals
- Ability to export entries
- Automatic backups
- Various themes
Overall, I really like the approach Daylio is taking, especially for people who are looking for a new digital journal app. With that being said, I think there is immense power to spending some time writing things down in a structured way. Sentiment tracking is only one piece of the puzzle.
Cost: $9
9. 750 Words
This is called 750 Words and it's based on morning pages from the book, The Artist's Way. The general theme is that you should write in a stream of consciousness. The process can be therapeutic. 750 words will keep track of your word count, sentiment, and how frequently you write, which can be helpful to know.
You can see a bit more of the user experience from this video:
If you are a writer or someone who wants to write more often (like me), you should check this out. If you are a beginner, this habit takes quite a bit of effort to stick.
Cost: $60/year
10. GoodNotes
If you're a visual thinker and you need more than a text-only journaling system, take a look at GoodNotes. A stand-out feature to GoodNotes is how flexible it is. You can quickly take notes with shapes, different highlight colors, and even in your handwriting. Customize the flow of the pen.
Create shapes, move them, stretch them.
Even add photos to your day's events.
It works as a Mac app, on your iPhone, or iPad.
Others use it like a digital bullet journal system, and its flexibility makes it easy to do so. Because of its wide-open format and design, it positions itself both as an Evernote alternative and a digital journaling app.
It's simple to do both, especially with their Notebook feature, which is essentially a filing system. There are different canvasses, including a blank page or grid-style. Can more than 4.8 stars with 17,000+ reviews be wrong?
Cost: $7.99
11. Momento
Momento is an app where you can capture everything that you do in your life. It’s a multi-purpose private journal that can benefit you as a personal life journal, a work journal for keeping track of your tasks, and much more. Memento has many different templates that you can choose from, depending on what you want to journal.
This app is available for all iOS devices on the App Store and was even awarded App of the Year Runner Up in 2011.
Some cool features Momento has includes:
- Add details to your journal entries like specific people and locations to look back on
- Incorporate photos and videos in your entries to bring it to life
- Sync Momento with your social media apps, so you can import different photos and videos directly
- Search feature
Overall, Momento is a great app to “capture everything in the moment”. Due to its ability to sync with your social media, you’ll be able to bring in all your different activities and updates all in one app.
Cost: Free for basic version, Premium monthly subscription is $2.49
12. Grid Diary
Grid Diary is a combination of keeping a diary while also incorporating planner features to help keep you on track when writing about your day. You have many different prompts you can choose from to help guide you through your journaling process. Spend less time worrying about what to write, and spend more time getting into the habit of reflection and insight.
Grid Diary includes the following features, such as:
- Add a password to keep personal entries private
- Different journal templates to direct you
- Sync your data across devices
- Export your diary in multiple formats
- Dark and Light mode depending on preference
13. Diaro
Diaro is a journaling/diary app that allows you to organize your entries in ways that make sense for you. You can organize them by date, add tags to the entries, set a location, and even place them in different folders.
Some great features Diaro includes are:
- Translated in over 30 languages for accessibility
- Sync Diaro online and Diaro on mobile devices
- Search feature
Cost: Free, $2.99-9.99/month/per item
Conclusion: Which Digital Journal App Will You Choose?
In conclusion, there are a ton of various apps to choose from. We recommend focusing on establishing the habit first - the various features won't make a huge difference if you don't make journaling a regular habit.
That's why you should try Friday (get started for free). We are the only fully customizable tool available, which means that you can mold the software to fit your needs instead of trying to create new behaviors that confirm to how the app functions. That won't work in the long run.