Using Notion as a Daily Journal

For the last year or so, I’ve been doing my daily journal inside of *Notion. I’ve been tracking things like my effectiveness, my moods, my happiness, my physical activity, my gratitude, anything that you can imagine that you’d want to track in a diary, I’ve been doing inside of Notion.

It’s been really helpful to create a bit of a routine for myself and to really notice what I’m paying attention to and kind of how my mood is over time.

Using Notion as a daily journal has been helpful for creating routine and decreasing stress. Linking to my Master Database allows me to not only see how I felt on a particular day, but to see what I was doing that day, making me more mindful of how I spend my time.

Creating a visual diary

Tracking my daily emotions & more

My favorite way to view my daily journal is to use the gallery view to make a “visual diary,“ where every day has a single image to represent the day, and then include a few properties underneath the image to track how the day went.

Knowing my daily moods

I track my emotions over time using a multi-select properties, I can view all the words and effectiveness and you can see I can go back in time and see all sorts of different things that I was feeling. I also like to use emojis.

Monitoring my effectiveness & productivity

Every weekday I track what projects I’ve been working on, give myself an effectiveness rating (1 to 5 stars), and then I can notice patterns between my moods, my self-care practices, and my productivity.

Noting how weekdays & weekends have different objectives

What’s interesting is that I’ve noticed my weekday entries are more focused on business while on the weekend, I am making personal entries like what I am reading or where I spend my time.

During the week, I focus on work tasks and track effectiveness, add information like what I am reading to other databases, or choose emojis for my moods. When I don’t leave the house, for example, I add a sad emoji. On the weekends, I track our Meal Planning and personal events and goals. My husband and I track highlights of our weeks which we review annually; it’s fun to see where we’ve spent our time and what was important for us.

My daily routine in my Notion Daily Journal

Morning journal plan

Every morning when I open Notion, I add a new page (starting with either my weekday or weekend template) and set my top 3 priorities for the day. I think through everything I need to get done that day, and add any urgent tasks that are due in the next few weeks into my Master Task Database.

I also have a specific morning routine I try to follow every day — meditation, drinking a glass of water, having phone-free time — and those activities are built into my daily journal template, so when I’ve accomplished those tasks, I can check them off. (And when I haven’t, I notice that they’re missing!)

End of day routine

Before I leave my desk for the day, I conduct a daily recap where I can share my moods and check off any completed tasks, and typically this is the time when I go through some of my favorite journal prompts to reflect on what I’ve completed.

I also check my weekly agenda to set my priorities for the following day & review the calendar for any upcoming meetings.

Rolling daily logs into weekly recaps

My daily agenda template includes about a dozen relational database connections, so that I can connect my daily journaling practice into larger planning & strategy.

I roll my daily journal into my weekly report, then that rolls into my monthly plan; this way I can see the progress that I’m making towards my weekly, monthly & quarterly goals.

Ideas for Notion Daily Journal Prompts

Although I have a daily journal template that you can duplicate, I encourage you to make it your own, so design it as you’d like and in a way that works for you.

Ask questions, make observations, and track gratitude are a few of my favorite daily journal prompts. I also keep a database of ideas from which I can pull, including:

• What are three things I am thankful for today?
• What am I looking forward to today?
• What did I think of an article I read yesterday?
• How did I feel after a client meeting?
• What is my word for today?

Journaling is a simple way to get ideas out of my head and to be mindful of where I am focusing. Whether I need to think about business or personal, journaling guides the process. It also creates a routine so that I can build on what’s here and create a habit tracker or day planner. Not only that but using Notion as a daily journal lets me see where my emotions are tied because it is linked to other databases.

• Was I feeling a certain way after interacting with a particular person?
• When do I feel overwhelmed?
• Am I having anxiety about a particular situation?

In this way, I am able to see what I was working on, where I spent time personally, and what I was journaling all in one place.

Using *Notion is more efficient for me. I no longer need to carry notebooks and pens everywhere or worry that I forgot to do something so, I feel more organized and less overwhelmed.

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[*For full disclosure, I’m a Notion Partner, so when you sign up with my link, you also help support me and my content!]