Actually Structured Journaling (Jan 2025)

I was very excited when I saw Cal Newport’s episode on Structured Journaling come up, but I was disappointed by the recommendations:

• Daily: capture everything you like/see/think/feel on a moleskeine you carry around
• Monthly: distil from moleskeine
• Annually (Oct ish) reflect on learnings and build new personal narrative/goals

This is not quite the kind of structure I want in my life. Journaling is a daily practice, an accountability, reflection, and memory tool. Yes there can be larger structure on the monthly/annual horizons, but there is not enough structure on the daily. I think there should be structure to the point of being able to quantify across days, and to correlate performance/emotions/wellbeing accordingly:

I am going to use this to map out the stuff i have mapped for myself.

• Health
  • Have I slept well?
  • Have I eaten well?
  • Have I exercised?
  • Have I socialized?
  • Have I reduced entropy in my environment?
• Habits
  • Did I do morning pages?
  • Did I answer emails/texts?
  • Did I create music/writing?
  • Did I ship code?
  • Did I plan the next day/week?

and track mood. aella uses daylio