Journal

On the way

Tools people ask for

Journal appOne private place for the day.Habit tracker appStreaks that allow rest days, kept private.Weight loss journalWrite the week down so the trend is plain.

What the Daily Journal is

The Daily Journal is a free journal and habit tracker for your phone. Today has a box for each thing you do in a day: when you woke, food, exercise, liquid, bedtime, thoughts, something you are grateful for, and how the day felt overall. Home shows your streak and days active, and Tracking puts your days side by side so a gap shows straight away.

It is private by default. You can share with one person at a time, or with a group, and stop whenever you like. We do not sell your entries or use them for advertising, and the privacy page says exactly what is collected.

Why a journal helps with habits

Writing a small thing down each day is the oldest habit tool there is. It makes the day visible, it shows the runs you are proud of and the gaps you can fix, and it asks for a minute, not an hour. The research on habit formation is modest: a study of 96 volunteers found a median of 66 days for a habit to feel automatic, with a range from 18 to 254, and missing one day did not undo progress.

A journal is not a treatment, and it does not promise a result. It helps most when it is short, regular and tied to something you already do, like a coffee in the morning or the last minute before bed.

Prompts and gratitude pages on the way

We are writing pages of journal prompts, gratitude prompts, morning and evening prompts and a guide to the daily journal. They will appear here as each is ready, and each will be a single page with a worked example, not a long list copied from somewhere else. Until they are, the gratitude journal printable gives you three lines for each day, and the Today screen has a gratitude box.

Paper or app

• Use the gratitude journal printable if you want three lines a day on paper.
• Use the mood tracker printable if you want one coloured box a day for a month.
• Use the goal setting worksheet if you want one goal, why it matters and three small steps.
• Use the Daily Journal app if you want it on your phone with streaks, charts, reminders and sharing.

What the app does today, and what it does not

The journal is the part that is built. The eight daily boxes, streak, days active, weeks in a row, your days side by side, sharing, tasks, reminders and Mantra affirmation cards all work today.

Photos in entries and AI summaries are not built, and export is only partly there. The journal app, habit tracker and weight loss journal pages show what is built, what is partly built and what is only an idea, and a free sign up tells us which to build first.

Start a journal in one minute

• Pick a time you already have: with your morning coffee or the last minute before bed.
• Open Today and add one line for what you ate or did.
• Add one thing you are grateful for. It can be tiny, like the weather or a text from a friend.
• Tap how the day felt overall, then stop. A one minute habit is one you keep.
• Look at Home the next day to see your streak begin.

What to write when you have nothing to say

The blank page is the hard part. Lower the bar: write what you ate, one thing that went fine, and one thing you want to try tomorrow. If even that is too much, write one word for the day.

Some prompts to try, in your own words: What took the most energy today? What was easy that I expected to be hard? Who made today better? What would make tomorrow ten percent easier? What did I finish? What am I carrying that can wait? Evening prompts work best short, and morning prompts work best when they look forward by only a few hours.

Keep going

• ReadJournal appOpen →
• ReadHabit tracker appOpen →
• ReadWeight loss journalOpen →
• PrintableGratitude journal printableOpen →
• PrintableMood tracker printableOpen →
• PrintableGoal setting worksheetOpen →
• ReadDaily affirmationsOpen →
• ReadPositive affirmationsOpen →
• GuideHow to start a habit trackerOpen →
• GuideHow long to build a habitOpen →
• ReadAll journal toolsOpen →
• ReadHealth disclaimerOpen →