Five Minute Journal

Intro

I’ve always struggled to journal consistently by opening a blank page and writing. My new method is inspired by the “5 Minute Journal” approach, which is to spend just 5 minutes writing a few bullet points in response to some prompts first thing in the morning. This simple, quick habit provides many benefits in just a few minutes a day and is an excellent base for building a writing habit. The hard part is consistency and simply opening your editor to start writing. Some days I’ll write just a few simple thoughts, but often I’ll get on a roll and have a lot more to say.

Why Journal?

Five Minute Journal

These are the prompts I use for my Five Minute Journal:

What Am I Grateful for?

What Would Make Today Great?

What Am I Worried About?

What Am I Grateful for?

I reflect on the good things happening in my life lately. Several psychological studies suggest gratitude journaling, in particular, helps improve mental well-being. These entries include nice weather, sleeping well, or watching a great TV show. They can also be more important things like appreciating your family, having good health, and having a stable job. For me, these entries are sometimes repetitive or ordinary, but the practice of focusing on the good in my life puts me in a positive state of mind for the day.

What Would Make Today Great?

I use this to make a mini-plan for the day. I like to define at least three “must-do” tasks and a set of achievable goals and activities, which, if completed, would constitute a successful day. Before, I was stuck in a cycle of feeling like I never accomplished “enough” no matter what I did, but I realized I never even defined what “enough” was. I also find it beneficial to separate planning and execution since I’m often in a different state of mind coming up with ideas than when I’m executing them. I’m less productive when switching between deciding what to do and acting on it. Seeing everything planned together helps me identify if I’m taking on an unrealistic amount of work. I can also start thinking about how to tackle the tasks early on and throughout the day.

What Am I Worried About?

I tend to worry about things, but writing down what I’m concerned about or problem areas in my life helps me stop ruminating or thinking about it throughout the day. Usually, the time you recognize a problem isn’t the best time to solve it. Knowing I will return and create an action plan prevents me from having intrusive thoughts during the day. Over time, you can look at all these entries to see if there are any common themes. Looking back on things you were worried about that turned out not to be a big deal helps you feel better.

Extra Journaling

I often add a few additional writing practices if I can complete my five-minute journal.

Evening Questions

I have a similar version of my morning journal for the end of the day to reflect on how things went and could be improved. These are some of my evening journaling prompts:

How Am I Feeling?

What’s Something Good That Happened Today?

What Did I Do Well?

What Could I Have Done Better?

How Am I Feeling?

I’ve started something recently where I subjectively rate each day on a scale of 0-10, depending on how happy and productive I was that day.

What’s Something Good that Happened Today?

This is an exercise to put me in a positive state of mind before bed. It’s similar to my gratitude entry, but for at least one specific thing during the day.

What Did I Do Well?

This is self-explanatory, but I like to reflect on what I did well and what I tried that was successful.

What Could I Have Done Better?

I spent some time reflecting on what didn’t go well and how I could do better next time. If I don’t follow through with something or do something that moves me further from my goals, like breaking my diet, I try to acknowledge it and think about what I should have done instead.

Morning Pages

Morning Pages is a practice from a book called “The Artist’s Way” intended to improve creativity. The idea is to push yourself to write a stream of consciousness each morning of 750 words or around three pages. This usually takes me about 30-40 minutes. They say pushing yourself to write the whole 750 words is important because the second half is usually the most interesting. They also recommend keeping them private. This is similar to traditional journaling. I occasionally do this when I have extra morning time, but it’s quite a time commitment.

Writing Prompts

Another exercise I enjoy is responding to writing prompts. The undirected stream-of-consciousness writing is difficult, so I often enjoy writing to a specific prompt. I write a short paragraph response to a different one each day before bed. Writing prompts often focus on creative fiction writing, but I prefer the ones in the form of questions. These are usually floating around the internet in lists called “icebreakers,” “questions to ask yourself,” and “journaling prompts.”

For example:

What life lesson did you learn the hard way?

What do you wish you spent more time doing five years ago?

What’s something you know you do differently than most people?

Here are some lists that I’ve been working through:

365 Thought Provoking Questions

87 Self-Reflection Questions for Introspection

200 Icebreaker Questions

237 Icebreaker Questions to Try with your Team

36 Questions that Lead to Love

119 Journal Prompts

120 Questions to Ask Yourself

Favorite Journal Prompts

1. What’s the best thing you’ve got going on in your life at the moment?

2. What incredibly common thing have you never done?

3. What has taken you the longest to get good or decent at?

4. What food do you love that a lot of people might find a little odd?

5. If you could start a charity, what would it be for?

6. What was the funniest thing you’ve seen recently online?

7. What are some of your favorite games to play?

8. What takes a lot of time but is totally worth it?

9. What is the most amazing fact you know?

10. What website or app doesn’t exist, but you really wish it did?

11. What’s your favorite type of day? (weather, temp, etc.)

12. What is the most clever or funniest use of advertising you’ve seen?

13. How into self-improvement are you?

14. When someone finds out what you do, or where you are from, what question do they always ask you?

15. Are you more productive at night or in the morning? Do you think it’s possible to change and get used to another schedule?

16. What scene in a movie always gives you goosebumps every time you watch it?

17. What topic could you give a 20-minute presentation on without any preparation?

18. What’s something that a lot of people are missing out on because they don’t know about it?

19. What are some of your guilty pleasures?

20. Who is the most interesting person you’ve met and talked with?

Logseq Templates

I use Logseq to do my daily journaling. I expand the template on my daily notes page. I use backlinks so I can link and reference my other writing.

[[Morning Questions]] #daily
[[What Am I Grateful for?]]
[[What Would Make Today Great?]]
[[What Am I Worried About?]]
[[What Am I Thinking of?]] 
[[Evening Questions]] #daily
[[How Am I feeling?]]
[[What’s Something Good That Happened Today?]]
[[What Did I Do Well?]]
[[What Could I Have Done Better?]]

Conclusion

I try to do the morning five-minute journal every day no matter what, I almost always do the evening journal, and I occasionally do the writing prompts and morning pages. I’ve found this journaling process very helpful for improving my overall thinking and self-reflection. The effect is subtle, but I can feel my thinking improving. I enjoy looking back on my old journal entries. I hope to continue for a long time and continue to evolve my techniques.