How to Develop a Daily Journal

Many artists call this "morning pages" as coined by the author Julia Cameron in her Artist Way book. When I do morning "pages" I generally bend from Cameron's instructions to write 3 full pages. I just write a few sentences or borrow prompts from The Five Minute Journal. The Five Minute Journal comes as a book or an app, For a long time, I was using the app until I started getting annoyed that there was one more thing I need to do with my phone. Now I just use a regular journal to write out the prompts.

A Family Affair

My teenage children have also embraced a regular journal practice. My college age daughter, an aspiring musician, writes daily morning pages and my sixteen year old son uses the official 5 Minute Journal book. He finds the fill in the blank prompts for daily and evening journals helpful. Since he is a high performance athlete hoping to wrestle for a Division 1 school, he has augmented his journal practice with a diet and fitness journal of his own design.

My favorite writing prompts

My favorite writing prompts are for gratitude, daily intentions, and affirmations. This practice gets me in the mindset of being in control of my day’s direction and happiness. You don’t have to go buy a special book or an app to create these productive patterns in your day.

Morning prompts

Just make it a ritual to start your day with the following questions: What am I grateful for? What are three things I can accomplish today?

Nightly check-in

Then do a nightly check in to remind yourself of what you accomplished that day. The prompts here are: How could I make the day better? What were the “wins” for the day?

8 Daily Prompts for Mindfulness

Would you like a list of my daily prompts? Here are three morning prompts and 5 nightly checkin prompts that you can use to make yourself happier and more focused! >> download the FREE 8 prompts