Ask HN: Do you keep a personal journal?

Here's an example empty page for a week - https://www.instagram.com/p/BPUIKR1Am3o/

I track some things daily:

* quality things

-- mood

-- energy levels

-- activity level

-- productivity

* tick-box things

-- did I wake up before 8am?

-- did I get to work before 10am?

-- did I hit my step goal?

-- did I do any additional exercise like a really long or strenuous walk?

-- did I do some work on a personal project? (taking photos, working on my game, looking at houses, whatever...)

-- did I record my weight and blood pressure?

-- did I follow my morning/evening routine? (pack/empty dishwasher, did I remember to take my pills, ...)

On a weekly basis, I tally up a few things from my activity trackers - how many days did I hit my sleep goal of 8 hours, what was my average weight/blood pressure, how many total steps did I do, and so forth. I also convert the daily quality things into the number of "good" days and "bad" days in that week on that scale - so maybe one very good mood day and two bad mood days (and the rest acceptable).

I then write down any non-technical-work tasks (we have a task tracker already at work for technical things, after all) I want to get done (either in the future, or on a particular day), or events that I need to remember, generally in the bullet journal style. These are things like:

* Collect building badge

* Write talk submission for conference

* Develop the iPhone photos from the weekend

* Remember that the new X book is out (today, on day X) and I should read it next

* On the 30th of January, remember to send out the invite to the event

Then every Sunday I make a new weekly page, migrate all the unfinished entries forward into the next week, and start again. I'll cross out things I realise that I don't care about any more, and move things that are further in the future than the upcoming week into the "future log". Pick two to three main things to keep in mind, schedule some work onto particular days, if appropriate, and the rest into a general weekly tasks list.

I also move things like vacation or camera gear or game idea one-liners onto a dedicated page - either a full page for the idea, or a page that has a list of those one-liners.

It's not necessary. But, it's nice.

Over time, you notice patterns about what really energizes you. For me, this is the high-order bit, more important than any specific time or life hack.

(Examples and analysis here: https://betterexplained.com/articles/life-lessons-10-years/ )

I realize that privacy is an important concern which is why I've taken it extremely seriously. So rest assured, this journal is private.

Basically, every day, write down anything that comes to mind that you should do on that day (possibly by fetching it from a page of a less granular time period, like a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly list of tasks/events), as well as anything that you discover you need to do in the future (put the date of the event, or a rough time period you want it done next to the item, so it's clear you don't have to do it today). Don't feel the need to schedule it on some other page - just write it onto the current day and defer that scheduling work to later.

As you do the things in your list, mark them as completed. At the end of the day, make a place to write down stuff for tomorrow. Move all the stuff you wanted to do today that you didn't to the next day. Move all the stuff you marked for the future to a place where you store tasks for the future - this is called a "future log", and there are all sorts of variations. I'd start with a page for all tasks you want to do in the future, and "migrate" to a new page with those tasks monthly.

Generally you want a book with two (or three) bookmarks - one will be on a "future log" or "monthly spread" page where tasks you want to do soon, but not necessarily right now, in case you want to pull additional stuff to do today, and the other will be on the page with the current day where you'll do almost all your reading and writing.

In order to save migration to a weekly process, I use a layout where I put all days of one week on a single spread - https://www.instagram.com/p/BPUIKR1Am3o/

Then I can put stuff for later in the week onto that specific day, and I only need to migrate to future log, or rewrite the weekly-level tasks every week. And I don't need to do any per-day setup work, just draw the page leisurely on a Sunday night and do the migration work.

There are a ton of youtube examples of people doing planning, and a few tutorials on how the system works. Don't be put off by some of the more complex/artful/&c. stuff - you can do it in a minimalist fashion too.

* Bullet Journal 101 series by Boho Berry - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeTUR5GAuQfupOv-_l16G...

* Engineer Dude's Simple, Minimalist Bullet Journal - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1HerzvUph3FtUsXqsGL9...

There is also a really active set of bullet journalists (as they like to call themselves) on Pinterest and Instagram - just search for "#bulletjournal" and "#bujo" for example future logs, "spreads", trackers, collections, and so forth.

Remember - all you _really_ need is the tasks/goals/planning part. You don't need daily/weekly/... water/exercise/mood/... trackers, weather icons, calligraphy, colours, and so forth. And it's your system, so adjust as you find it works for you. I started off trying to do morning/afternoon/evening mood tracking, but that didn't work out. I also tried a daily timeline thing, and that didn't work out. So they were gone after three weeks.