Systematizing your journal writing is one way to squeeze more out of the practice.

Here are 5 ideas and benefits that you will gain from systematizing your journaling practice.

//A Thread//

First you might be asking:

"What does it mean to systematize a journaling practice?"

Good question!

Let me explain...

It's simple really.

All you do is ask the same prompts every day.

You follow the same format, though some days you may change a question, or add a new one.

But the point is to have a base of questions and prompts to start from.

Iterating on the base is important.

Here are some prompts to get you started:

Morning prompts:

- What did I dream about?
- What are my goals for the day?
- How will I define success for today?
- What is my growth opportunity for today?
- What lesson from yesterday can I implement today?

Evening prompts:

- Who did I help today?
- Where did I fall short today?
- What successes did I have today?
- How can I set myself up for success tomorrow?
- What can I tweak tomorrow to make it a better day?
- Did I follow my daily plan? If not, what got in the way?

I've been working with this journaling style for a while. Here are 5 ideas and benefits I've experienced.

1. Your journaling can pull double duty.

I'm experimenting with this for my newsletter.

It has the sections

Gratitude
Perspective
Creativity
Writing
Questions

Every day I'll write a little about each.

When Sunday comes, I have all the material I need.

2. This process helps develop a robust perspective on an issue.

Being unsure about something comes from not thinking about it enough.

If you write for 30 days, or longer, about a single topic you will develop a well rounded perspective on the it.

3. Iterative Insight

If you consider questions on a specific topic every day, over time you'll stumble upon ideas that require many visitations to that area of study.

Interesting insights come from considering the same ideas many times in different ways.

4. It saves you from wondering what to write about.

Stream of conscious writing is valuable, and I practice it as part of my daily journaling.

But having certain parts systematized enables you to always have a direction when you're struggling to come up with the last 300 words.

5. Track your mental progress.

Similar to how a workout log is essential to notice the small improvements that would go unnoticed otherwise,

answering the same questions every day will allow you to notice the small mental adjustments you make over a longer period of time.

I hope you give this style of journaling a try.

If you do, let me know how it goes.

If you have prompts you already use please share them below!

And if you found this helpful, please like retweet :)