Sam Thomas Davies

How to Start and Keep a Journal (The Template That Helped Me Become Consistent)

by | Last updated: | Filed Under: Self-Improvement

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 β€œlisticles” like, β€œ7 Ways to Keep a Journal”, or encouraged to, β€œJust try it”, I was left with little to go on in terms of journaling templates.

Journaling

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: β€œPlanner” for my morning journal and β€œJournal” for my evening Journal.

This is what my morning journal looks like:

Journaling
My Morning Journal.

Note: β€œTK” stands for β€œto come”. [1]

Every morning, I copy and paste the above template into a new note, date it and answer the following three questions:

1. β€œI 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. β€œWhat would make today great?” I β€œborrowed” 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. β€œWhat’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:

Journaling
My Evening Journal.

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. β€œWhat 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. β€œWhat lessons did I learn?” This is my favourite question to answer. This is where you journal your β€œAha!” moments. Answers can range from personal, β€œI learned how to say no to dessert”, to skill-based, β€œI 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. β€œWhat 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 β€œThe Problem Solving Question”.

Last week, for example, I accidently deleted an audio recording I had made. β€œWhat is great about this problem?” I asked myself. β€œNothing!” 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, β€œThere is good in everything, if only we look for it.”

4. β€œHow 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. β€œWhat 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.β€œWhat are 3 amazing things that happened today?” I think it’s important to bookend your day by focusing on your β€œsmall wins.” β€œI said no to a dessert.” β€œI resisted the urge to give into temptation.” β€œI didn’t sleep in.” β€œI achieved my most important task.” … These tiny advantages build forward momentum and remind us that bigger achievements are within reach.

7. β€œHow 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).

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Comments

  1. Crystal says

    I have been searching the internet for a two part journal template and this is just what I was looking for, I will start using your template tomorrow. Thank you for sharing#

    Reply

  3. Marko says

    Hi Sam,

    A few months ago I started curating various self-improvement approaches (gratitude list, empowering questions, morning routine checklist, etc…) into a separate Evernote notebook.

    It’s been really helping me a lot to get into a consistent routine. The one thing I haven’t been able to “achieve” yet, is consistent journaling. But reading your post and looking at your template, this seems very doable now. πŸ™‚

    So, thanks for the templates, I really appreciate it.

    Just a quick question: what’s the difference between “#2 What would make today great?” and “#3 What ONE thing must I accomplish today?” in the morning journal?

    You wrote that you list your 5 most important tasks under #2. And then you have another, more important task in #3? Or do you choose the most important task out of the 5? Or is the One thing completely different, a more abstract, goal-oriented concept that is separate from the 5 tasks of #2?

    Could you please clarify the difference for me?

    Thanks in advance.

    Take care,
    Marko

    Reply

  4. Marko says

    Hi Sam,

    Thanks for getting back with me and for the clarification. Makes perfect sense now.

    Quick update: I haven’t missed a day of journaling since discovering your templates. So, thanks for those as well.

    Have a great weekend,
    Marko

    Reply

  5. Vally says

    hi! this is more than excellent, it includes, being grateful, and being active, I had taken notes when I had first read, nut wanted to retrieve the whole artice, and was impossible yesterday, lucky to have found it today! I would suggest, one more. Sometimes, we may feel wanderful before sleep, and awful next day, as we hadn’r accomplish this one thing, and we had prefered to relax or procrastinate! at the moment we do it, it feels good! i made the commitment , not to repeat it. Thank you!

    Reply

  6. Ted says

    Hey Sam…in the body text of this post, I can’t find what footnotes [2] and [3] point to. (This is what you learned from Greg McKeown and Neil Strauss.)

    I can see [1] and [4]; have used my browser’s search function to find [2] and [3] to no result.

    Help?

    Thank you.

    Reply

  7. Paris Law says

    Thanks for writing this. I’ve been working with a similar method. For a while I focused on ONE thing for my morning journal. This past month I’ve been experimenting with the rule of 3 for what I want to accomplish – Borrowed from 30 days of getting results website. So far so good.

    Reply

  8. Kelson Dos Santos says

    Hi Sam,

    Thanks for sharing. I have been struggling to start my journal for the lack of a simple template. Asking SMART questions in the morning and answering them by expressing my reasoning from my learning experiences at the end of each day, seems doable. I just need to be consistent and keep up journaling.
    Thanks once again.

    Reply

  9. Artem says

    Sam, there’s also a great app and website – writelight.guru, there you get a random writing prompt, set timer, and when the time is up you get a quote that can be used as a second prompt (or it will just help to summarize your reflections). You should give it a try!

    Reply

  10. Cathy T says

    Thank you! This article and your templates have helped give me a focus for planning my day; the link to the Neil Strauss interview is precious. I’ve been struggling with completing a major project and the TK along with some affirmations and encouragement are invaluable for me at this time.

    Reply

  11. Eileen says

    Thank you so much for your outline! I keep a very detailed bullet journal but found I spent so much time keeping that as a “planner” that I was missing something for my day to day mental health. I’m adjusting my format to include a daily entry using the following outline you’ve given. Thank you again for posting!

    Reply

  12. Debi says

    Thanks for an easy to follow template. I’m a DayOne user, so I’ve put it into TextExpander so I can easily have daily access to the template inside DayOne.

    I also appreciate your resource box. I shall be sharing the Ted Talk with my audience because I’m consistently teaching ways to retrain our brain.

    Reply

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