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.