When it comes to journaling we may love the idea of being more organized and clear but in reality let's face it it can be a bit of a chore to keep up with. I like to think of myself as a hyper efficient productivity guru but when i face the hard facts i'm a bit of a lazy slob at heart and when it comes to experiencing the benefits of journaling. I don't want to make it any harder than it needs to be. So over the years i've ended up stumbling upon a method for keeping the most rewarding but zero effort journal possible because really. It's the only way that i've been able to keep consistent by doing the teeny tiniest amount of work physically possible when it comes to journals and journaling techniques. There's really a lot to choose from. You have diaries schedules. Planners bullet journals wellness journals. Habit trackers food journals and handcrafted masterpieces. That are probably closer to art than writing. However if you're anything like me you only need something to help with your productivity and mental clarity so a journal only really needs to do two things organize and track and despite the clear benefits of journaling. The real challenge is staying consistent. I don't know about you guys but i've owned countless journals and notepads in the past and if you're anything like me the majority of the pages just end up empty as i would usually repeat this process of forgetting about them and then starting again. Due to a lack of motivation i often found it easy to get pumped up on quotes. Like you can't manage what you don't measure and fail to prepare and prepare to fail but these principles don't really benefit you unless you can keep up with the habit which was a challenge that i was determined to figure out by reducing friction. I've always had to keep a plain notebook as an architect. And i've always only used it as you'd expect to for notes and the occasional sketch but i've realized that this ad hoc method of keeping my life in order really lacked structure as it didn't really help with my mental clarity and organization so my first introduction to a well thought out journaling technique was as you'd expect the bullet journal and although the added structure seemed really appealing.

I quickly found out that this method wasn't really for me. This was really for a few reasons but the main one being that i make mistakes a lot and when i screw up my perfectionism really throws me off which gets me really irritated and adds a lot of friction which didn't really help with maintaining the habit also all of the freedom on the blank pages posed the challenge of writing out the days one by one which was hard because i'm too lazy to check the date in order to write it down and when i inevitably miss a day or a week because of a holiday it makes things super confusing for my goldfish memory to refer back to as there's no consistency in the page layout also because i can't really lay days out for the future because i don't know where they're going to land. I couldn't think ahead and write down events ahead of time and there was no way that i was writing out the 365 days of the year in advance so basically all of this friction wasn't working for me at all. It's no wonder that journaling feels so hard for so many people as in my short experience i was just setting myself up for failure. What i really needed was something that had the structure to remove my capacity for error and remove the friction involved in laying out boring dates and numbers. So things changed for me when i started using a structured weekly planner instead when i switched over. This provided me with a foolproof weekly view laid out on the left page which showed me the month week number and days of the week while still providing me with the freedom of a ruled page over on the right which when paired together simultaneously removes the possibility of you screwing up your dates without forcing you to stick all of your tasks and notes into the tiny boxes so before we get into how i use them.

I'm just going to show you the one that i'm using. This one is from moleskine and i really like this particular one because it just looks and feels great with warm off-white paper flush edges and flexibility. That you get from the soft cover and i've realized that if i enjoy the way something looks and feels i'm much more likely to use it. You can obviously get these in larger and smaller sizes but for me this one is just right you obviously also get the classic elastic closure to keep things together and a handy. Bookmark for the current week that you're on and i found that as this is something that you're planning to use every single day these small details make all the difference. The main reason i use this though is for the weekly double page spread which is where i implement a technique using symbols for basic entries. I use a bullet point so for things like appointments chores and tasks and this symbol serves as a foundation that can be modified depending on how it's been treated to avoid getting overwhelmed by too many menial tasks i found that it's really helpful to make one highlight. That's my priority for the day so i'll typically indicate this by drawing a circle around one bullet point which provides some hierarchy to my tasks without the need of a highlighter as i accomplish tasks. I'll usually cross them off by turning each bullet into a cross and instead of striking things out this allows me to still clearly identify. What's been finished. Whilst providing me a clear record of my progress that i can refer back to then finally. If i didn't complete a task by the end of the day i'll turn it into an arrow that reminds me to reschedule it for when i'm next available there's also this space at the top of the day next to the date. I'll typically reserve this for a title which will describe anything particularly significant. That's happening that day so if i have something crucial like a deadline i write it here and sparingly underline or draw red boxes around it depending on how important it is and overall all these things together help with my mental clarity by creating a clear hierarchy of importance in my head according to the way that things stand out on the page of course having only a small box for your entire day can be problematic as there are always things which end up needing more space which is why having the freedom of an adjacent ruled page is really handy as it gives you the freedom to write down anything you'd like to for your week like your grocery list or even a meeting agenda without turning the overall structure of your journal into complete chaos even though there's already a lot that can be crammed into this one double page spread.

The one thing that i also wanted to see was a way to track my habits without having to flick to another part of my journal so to avoid adding another layer of friction i incorporated habit tracking into this using a simple badge system as the habits. I'm trying to stay on top of right now are exercise reading and getting outside. What i do is draw a little circle at the top right hand corner of each day and write down the letter of the habit that i've completed so i write a w for a completed workout and r for setting aside some time for reading and an o for making sure that i get outside this allows me to measure my progress so when i'm falling behind it's a great reminder to get things moving in the right direction and overall it's a great bird's eye view of my entire week now of course you could do all of this in a digital journal and i know a lot of people make wishy-washy statements about how they find physical journals more enjoyable but asides from personal preference i honestly have found physical planners really rewarding when compared to their digital counterparts. I found that when you have a digital journal or schedule. It's often out of sight because it's hidden in a dock or a web address which makes it really easy to forget about but when something is physical it can permanently stay open on your desk which means that.

There's no hiding from it and for someone with the memory of a goldfish. It's the kind of structure that i really need to stay consistent. Also this helps me minimize my need for the internet. Which can be a huge distraction for me as the last thing you want is to open your web browser for your planner only to find yourself reaching for youtube or facebook afterwards so i find that limiting. This kind of temptation is really helpful to ensure that i don't end up binge watching cat videos on youtube all day now. The only thing that i don't do in this journal is practice the mindfulness aspect that many people do enjoy when daily journaling. And even though i used to think that i had no need for this kind of diary-esque self-love i've recently found a way to actually squeeze a lot of value out of it and i've been doing this simply by picking up the habit of something coined homework for life by the author matthew dicks which is to write down the most story worthy moment of your day in just one or two sentences. I started doing this after reading his book and honestly at first i was pretty skeptical but what really took me by surprise was that this habit showed me that. My boring life was actually way more interesting than i first thought which really made me a lot more thankful for the little experiences that i have from day to day whilst helping me retain some of these smaller memories and stories much better the real value though comes from the power that improved storytelling can have on your social skills where it serves to make us more interesting people by identifying seemingly insignificant points of interest in our daily lives. There's a quote that goes. Tell me the facts and i'll learn. Tell me the truth and i'll believe but tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever. So storytelling is a skill that is really valuable. If you want to leave an impression on people this is something fairly new for me.

So i'll let you know how it goes but i've been building a digital repository of these single sentence anecdotes which i hope will be great for weaving stories into videos and even if it isn't this 60 second practice has really helped me be more mindful and grateful for my existence of course keeping a journal is mainly to do with organization and tracking which helps to make our lives more predictable and less stressful but life is always full of risks and gambles some of which can seem absolutely impossible to prepare for however i have discovered that it is possible to get a grasp of how real world probability actually works using today's sponsor. Brilliant over there there are a ton of interesting and useful courses to choose from and i've already enjoyed learning about how ordinary household items work in their course on the physics of the everyday as well as getting my head around how cryptocurrency works which is a course in their series on applied computer science. There's a wide range of topics to choose from that mainly involve science and maths including things like logic. Statistics and quantum mechanics and brilliant is a great way to fill unproductive commutes and downtime with activities. That broaden your knowledge of the world around you brilliant make intimidating topics like these much more approachable with visual examples and interactive problems to solve which makes for a fun and engaging experience. So if you're interested check out brilliant.org forward slash daniel titchener to sign up for free and the first 200 people to click. The link will get 20 off an annual premium subscription. But really when it comes down to it there is no right way to journal and you have to find the method that works best for you for undercover lazy people like me. Having this minimal journal has been really cool because it gives me both the structure and the freedom that i crave and i feel like i've had a lot more clarity and focus because of it so if you've been struggling to pick up a journaling habit yourself maybe give it a try.

Thanks so much for watching and i'll see you next time.