PKM Toolkit: End Your Day With This Powerful Personal Review Question
After a lengthy absence from daily personal review, I decided to revisit my four-question Day One review template that I put together a few years ago. In the last few editions of The Journaling Guide, my bi-weekly newsletter, I wrote about how the changes in my life, particularly returning to work, influenced my decision to give it another try. It’s been going well, and I’m pleased to take a few minutes at the end of each day to build this habit.
These are the questions in the prompt:
What happened today that went well?
What happened today that could have gone better?
How did I make a positive impact on those around me?
Is there anything unfinished or that needs to be written down for tomorrow?
Of the five questions, the most valuable one for me right now is the last one, where I ask if anything needs to be written down for tomorrow. This simple question unburdens me of something, and there’s always something I didn’t get to or forgot about. It means one less thing swirling in my head and helps me continue to hone my organizational skills.
I’ve written and talked a lot about gratitude journaling, which I have done daily for years. When asked by someone interested in starting their own journaling habit, my go-to advice is to start by writing a sentence or two about something they feel grateful for and repeat it at an interval that works for them. I haven’t dispensed as much advice about the daily review, mostly because I’ve not been a regular practitioner. However, this experience has me again seeing the value of the process, and particularly of including this question in it. It’s an extremely valuable way to move something from a mental burden to a planned task.
If you’re interested in a daily review process, try these questions and commit to a two-week trial. Find yourself a notebook or journal, or start a note or document on your phone or computer. Take five or ten minutes at the end of the day to reflect on how things went.