Daily journal prompts: 365 prompts, one for every day of the year

Daily journal prompts work best when there's nothing to choose. There's one below for every day of the year: find today's date, write for ten minutes, and stop. Each month has a theme that fits its place in the year and its season, and a few prompts point back to earlier dates, so the entries add up to a year rather than a pile.

Each month's list is numbered by date, so prompt 14 under March is March 14's. The last day of every month asks you to reread the month. When you do, copy your best sentence onto the first page of the journal, and by December you'll have twelve. If you'd rather choose by mood than by date, the 300 journal prompts are sorted by the kind of day you're having.

January journal prompts

January is named for Janus, the Roman god of doors and beginnings, shown with two faces, one looking forward and one looking back. Its prompts do both, and the long northern nights keep them mostly indoors.

1. Describe this first morning of the year: where you woke up, who was there, what you ate. Next January 1, write it again.
2. Which habit are you bringing into this year on purpose, and which one just came along?
3. List what's left over from last year. Next to each item, write keep, finish or drop.
4. What was different about the first ordinary workday of the year, and what was exactly the same?
5. What do you want to get better at this year that nobody will see you practice?
6. Describe the view from your window at 5 p.m. You'll look again on June 6.
7. Name three things you'd like to do for the first time this year, and the month each could happen.
8. Write about a winter from your childhood: the coat, the walk, the cold in your fingers.
9. What would you like to stop apologizing for this year?
10. Which date in the next three months are you looking forward to most, and why that one?
11. Take an inventory of your home: one object per room that would tell a stranger who lives there.
12. Who do you want to see more of this year? Write the first message you'd send them.
13. What did you learn last year that you haven't put to use yet?
14. Describe a winter evening at home, from the moment it gets dark to the moment you fall asleep.
15. What would make this year worth writing about in ten years? Describe the scene you hope to write.
16. What do you own that you'd like to use up this year: a notebook, a jar of spices, a gift card?
17. Which piece of advice from last year turned out to be right?
18. What are you reading this month, and where in the house do you read it?
19. Write down three numbers that describe your life right now, with a sentence about each.
20. What did you put off in December because it could wait until January? Is it still waiting?
21. Write about the coldest place you've ever been, and who was there with you.
22. Which routine from last year stuck? What made it stick when the others didn't?
23. Tell the story of how you came to live where you live now, in under 200 words.
24. Which room in your home would you change first, and how?
25. What question would you like to have an answer to by the end of the year?
26. Write the first ten minutes of your day as stage directions for a play.
27. What did January feel like when you were twenty? What's different about it now?
28. List the people who'd help you dig out after a snowstorm, and what each of them would bring.
29. What are you saving for, in money or in energy, and what are you giving up to save it?
30. What's going well this January that you want to protect in February?
31. Reread January. Copy your best sentence onto the first page of the journal and write why you picked it.

February journal prompts

February holds Valentine's Day, so its prompts are about the people in your life: partners, friends, family, neighbors and the ones you'd like to know better.

1. List the people you'll see this month. Beside each name, write one thing you'd like to ask them.
2. Describe your first crush and what, if anything, you did about it.
3. Who in your life is easy to love and hard to live with, or the other way around?
4. Write about a friendship that started by accident.
5. What's the kindest thing a neighbor has ever done for you?
6. Describe your home at 7 a.m. on a weekday: who's where, or what's where if you live alone.
7. Write about someone who changed your mind about something important, and how they did it.
8. How did your parents or grandparents meet? Write the version you heard and the questions you never asked.
9. Describe a gift that showed someone had been paying attention.
10. Write a letter to a friend you haven't seen in over a year. You don't have to send it.
11. Who taught you how to argue, and what did they teach you without meaning to?
12. What do you do for the people you love that they probably don't notice?
13. Describe a meal you cooked for someone else, from the shopping to the dishes.
14. Valentine's Day. Write about a love that isn't romantic: a sister, an old dog, a teacher, a city.
15. What's the most romantic thing you've seen two strangers do?
16. Write about a time you asked for help and someone said yes faster than you expected.
17. Which relationship in your life has changed most in the last five years?
18. Who knew you before you became who you are now? What do they still call you?
19. Write down five things someone close to you says all the time, and what each one says about them.
20. Describe the home of a friend you visited often as a kid: the smell, the rules, the snacks.
21. What do you and your closest friend never talk about?
22. Which of your relationships runs on a ritual: a weekly call, a shared show, a yearly trip?
23. Who have you outgrown, and who outgrew you?
24. Which people have keys to your home? Write how each of them got one.
25. Describe a couple you know who seem happy. What do they do that you've noticed?
26. Write the message you'd send if you weren't worried about seeming too eager.
27. What do you love that the person closest to you doesn't understand?
28. Reread February. Who turns up most in this month's entries, and do they know it?

March journal prompts

Meteorological spring starts on March 1 in the north, and the equinox comes around the 20th. Prompts for change: clearing out, starting again, noticing what's shifting.

1. Meteorological spring starts today in the north. What have you been waiting for the weather to let you do?
2. Open the most cluttered drawer you own and write down everything in it.
3. What have you outgrown this year: a belief, a pair of shoes, a group chat?
4. Walk a route you walked in January and list what's different now.
5. Which opinion of yours has softened in the last few years?
6. What needs fixing around your home? Describe exactly what's wrong with it, and why it's still broken.
7. Write about a decision you made in March of some earlier year. How does it look from here?
8. What would you clear out of your calendar if you didn't have to explain why?
9. Which of your possessions would you replace the day it broke, and which would you never replace?
10. What skill have you been learning slowly? Describe where you were with it a year ago and where you are now.
11. Which friendship or project needs repotting: more room, new soil, a different window?
12. What's one belief you inherited and then checked for yourself? What did you find?
13. Write about a time you changed course halfway: on a trip, in a degree, in the middle of a recipe.
14. Describe something that's growing in your home: a plant, a pile, a child, a project.
15. What's the oldest thing in your closet? Write its story and the last time you wore it.
16. What small change from the past year turned out to be a large one?
17. Write about a time you started something with no idea how to do it.
18. What's one thing you want to stop doing by the end of spring?
19. Listen at the window early in the morning and list what you hear. Is the season changing the list?
20. Equinox, around now: day and night run about equal everywhere. What in your life feels balanced, and what's tipping?
21. World Poetry Day, declared by UNESCO in 1999. Write a short poem about something within reach without naming it. If you want a form, try a haiku.
22. Which piece of clothing makes you feel most like yourself, and where did it come from?
23. Which abandoned project still crosses your mind? Write what it would take to pick it up again.
24. What would you change about your town if you were in charge for a week?
25. Describe a spring cleaning from your childhood: who led it, what got thrown out, what was saved.
26. Which daily task could you do with your eyes closed? Describe it step by step.
27. What do you do now that your teenage self would find surprising?
28. Write about a time the weather changed your plans completely.
29. What are you holding on to just in case? Write about one thing and the case you're keeping it for.
30. Apart from you, who in your life has changed most over the past year?
31. The first quarter is over. Reread January 1. What has already changed, and what hasn't moved?

April journal prompts

April opens with April Fools' Day, and the 23rd is UNESCO's World Book and Copyright Day. Prompts for curiosity, play and learning things on purpose.

1. April Fools' Day. Write about the best joke anyone has played on you, and how long it took you to catch on.
2. Pick a subject you know nothing about and would like to know well by December. What's your first question?
3. Describe the last time you got caught in the rain.
4. What game did you play for hours as a kid, and what did it teach you?
5. Write down ten questions you'd like answered, then circle the one you could answer this week.
6. Plan a small experiment on your own week: a new route, an earlier night, no phone at lunch. What do you expect to find?
7. Write about the last thing you learned from a video, a manual or a stranger.
8. What's growing outside your window right now? If you don't know its name, describe it well enough to look it up.
9. Which of your skills did you teach yourself, and how?
10. Describe a hiding place you had as a child.
11. What's the silliest thing you've done as an adult that you'd happily do again?
12. Write about a book you've reread. What changed between readings, the book or you?
13. What are you bad at and enjoy anyway?
14. Write the most interesting conversation you had this week as a short scene.
15. What would you study if you could go back to school for one year, with the fees paid?
16. Write about a garden you remember: your own, a grandparent's, a neighbor's, a park's.
17. Which tool or gadget did you finally learn to use properly? What were you doing wrong before?
18. List things that delighted you when you were small. Which ones still do?
19. Write about getting lost: in a city, a building, a book.
20. What do you know about your family's history, and what's missing from the story?
21. If you had a free afternoon and a hardware store, what would you build?
22. What's the best question anyone has asked you this year, and how did you answer it?
23. World Book and Copyright Day. Write about the book you've given away most often, and to whom.
24. What are you learning from someone younger than you?
25. Which rule do you follow that you've never questioned? Question it now.
26. What do you do differently from the way you were taught, and why?
27. Write about an animal you've known well.
28. If you could spend a week as anyone's apprentice, whose workshop would you walk into?
29. Which new habit did you start this spring? Is it still alive?
30. Reread April. Which of this month's questions is still open?

May journal prompts

Late spring in the north, late fall in the south. These prompts get you out of the house: walks, places, work with your hands, and the people who looked after you.

1. Plan one thing to do outdoors on each weekend this month, and write down where.
2. What's the best walk within ten minutes of your front door? Describe it at your favorite time of day.
3. Who looked after you when you were small, apart from your parents? Write about one afternoon with them.
4. Describe your street in May: the smells, the noise, who's outside and what they're doing.
5. What physical task makes time disappear for you: digging, swimming, kneading dough, painting a wall?
6. Describe the best meal you've eaten outdoors.
7. Pick a place within an hour of home that you know only by name. Write what you imagine, then go and check.
8. Write about the person who taught you to ride a bike, swim or drive.
9. What's growing that you planted, tended or simply watched this spring?
10. Write about a park, beach or square that was once a big part of your life.
11. What do you always forget to take when you leave the house, and what does it cost you?
12. If you could work outdoors for a day, what job would you pick?
13. When did you last watch a sunset from start to finish? Where were you?
14. Who did you look up to at sixteen, and what would they make of you now?
15. Where did you go to be alone as a teenager?
16. What do you do every day indoors that you could do outside instead?
17. Write about a game, match or race you played or watched, and one moment from it you can still see.
18. Who looked after you the last time you were ill, and what did they do?
19. Which trip on foot, by bike or by train would you take again tomorrow?
20. Describe the smell of cut grass or rain on warm pavement without using the word smell.
21. What do you want to learn to grow, cook or build before the summer ends?
22. Write about an evening outside that went on much later than planned.
23. Who has fed you most in your life? Write about their kitchen.
24. What's the farthest you've ever walked in a day, and why were you walking?
25. Write about a place that has changed since you first knew it: a street, a shop, a field.
26. Describe an ordinary errand in full detail: the line, the prices, what people said.
27. What do you notice about people when you're out walking?
28. Which practical skill do you wish someone had taught you, and who could teach you now?
29. Write about a place where you always run into someone you know.
30. Describe a tree you've known for years. What has it watched happen?
31. Reread May. Which place comes up most often in your entries, and why that one?

June journal prompts

June brings the solstice around the 21st: the longest day north of the equator, the shortest south of it. There's a Bloomsday prompt on the 16th, and the 30th looks back on the first half of the year.

1. Meteorological summer starts today in the north. Write what you want it to hold, without the word relax.
2. What's the latest you've ever stayed up talking, and who were you talking to?
3. Where do you go to sit outside in the evening? Describe the seat and what you can see from it.
4. What did you do with a whole summer when you were a kid? Write about one week of it.
5. Write about a father, a father figure or an older man who shaped you, for better or worse.
6. Look out of the window you described on January 6, at 5 p.m. What has changed?
7. What's the most beautiful ordinary place you've seen this week?
8. Write about a time you were somewhere so hot you couldn't think.
9. Which plan for this year has quietly disappeared? Write its obituary in three lines.
10. Write about a swimming place: a pool, a lake, a river, the sea. Did you get in slowly or all at once?
11. What do you do differently when it stays light until late?
12. Write about a festival, fair or street party and what you brought home from it.
13. What have you meant to say to someone for months? Write it plainly here first.
14. Write about the first time you saw the sea, or the biggest water you'd seen until then.
15. Which outdoor sound means summer where you live: lawnmowers, cicadas, an ice cream truck?
16. Bloomsday. James Joyce's Ulysses, published in 1922, follows one Dublin day, June 16, 1904. Write today the same way: every errand and conversation, in order.
17. Which promise you made to yourself in winter is summer testing?
18. Write about a scrape, sting or sunburn and the day it came from.
19. What's the longest you've gone without a screen, and what did you do instead?
20. Write about a party you remember for the wrong reasons.
21. Solstice, around now: the longest day in the north, the shortest in the south. Write down today's sunrise, sunset and what you did in between.
22. What risk did you take that paid off? Which one didn't?
23. Who did you meet on a trip and never see again? What do you remember about them?
24. Write about a summer when everything changed: a move, a breakup, a new job, a birth.
25. What would you like to do before summer ends that would surprise the people who know you?
26. Write about the night sky the last time you really looked at it.
27. What did you do this month that you'll still remember in a year?
28. Watch the last half hour of daylight tonight and write down what changes as it goes.
29. Write about a wedding, graduation or farewell you went to in June.
30. Half the year is gone. Reread January 1, then write today's version: where you woke up, who was there, what's on your mind.

July journal prompts

In most years July 2 is the exact middle of the year. Prompts for the midpoint, for rest and for travel. If you're away, the travel journal template keeps the logistics out of your entries.

1. Which surprise from the first half of the year are you still thinking about?
2. In most years, July 2 is the exact middle of the year: 182 days behind you and 182 ahead. Write a note to read on December 31.
3. Where would you go for a week if you could leave tomorrow? Describe your first morning there.
4. Write about the hottest night you remember and how you slept, or didn't.
5. How long does it take you to stop thinking about work on vacation? What finally does it?
6. Describe a train, bus or car journey you remember mostly for the view.
7. What's the strangest place you've ever slept?
8. Write about a trip where you got the language, the money or the map wrong.
9. Which souvenir have you kept longest, and where is it now?
10. Where have you been that you could imagine living? Describe an ordinary Tuesday there.
11. What would you stop doing if you had a month off with pay?
12. Write about the best meal you've eaten somewhere you couldn't read the menu.
13. Write about a road trip: who chose the music, who got lost, what you ate.
14. When did you last spend a whole afternoon doing nothing? Describe it.
15. What would you like to be doing on this date next year?
16. Who do you become on vacation, and why can't you be that person at home?
17. Write a postcard to someone who'd love to hear from you: four sentences, and what's on the front.
18. Write about an outdoor concert, game or film you watched in the heat.
19. Write about the best cold drink or street food you've had on a hot day, and who you were with.
20. Write about the most beautiful view you've ever reached on foot.
21. What did you learn on a trip that changed how you live at home?
22. Describe a market you love: the stalls, the shouting, what you always buy.
23. What's the best advice a stranger has ever given you?
24. Write about a time you were homesick. What exactly did you miss?
25. What do you need a break from that a vacation won't fix?
26. Write about a night outside: camping, a balcony, a rooftop, a long walk home.
27. What's the best thing you've found by accident while traveling?
28. Write about a time you were the visitor everyone else was looking after.
29. Which of this year's plans can still happen if you start this week?
30. Look through the photos you've taken this summer. If you could keep only one, which would it be?
31. Reread July. What did you rest from this month, and what did you rest for?

August journal prompts

The last month of summer in the north and of winter in the south. These prompts look back: old summers, old rooms, the people you used to be.

1. What's left on your summer list? Put the one you want most on a date this month.
2. Which summer of your life would you give a title to, and what's the title?
3. Describe the back-to-school feeling from childhood: the new shoes, the classroom smell, the dread or the thrill.
4. What did you collect as a kid, and what happened to the collection?
5. Write about an August afternoon that seemed to last forever.
6. What did your family do in August when you were small?
7. Write about an object you inherited and the person it came from.
8. What did you think was glamorous at nineteen?
9. Describe a photo of yourself in which you're not smiling. What was going on?
10. Which summer would you do over, and what would you change?
11. Write about fruit you picked, bought by the roadside or took from someone's tree.
12. Which family recipe do you know by heart, and who did you learn it from?
13. List what you owned when you first lived on your own.
14. What's the bravest thing you did as a teenager?
15. Write about going back to a place from your childhood. What had shrunk?
16. Write about a time you were bored as a kid and what the boredom made you do.
17. Which sound from your childhood no longer exists: a dial tone, a jingle, a particular door?
18. Write down the street of every place you've lived, in order. Pick one and write about its corner store.
19. What were you doing five years ago today? If you don't know, what's your best guess?
20. Which smell takes you straight back to childhood? Write the room or street it belongs to.
21. Write about a game you played in the street or the yard, and its rules.
22. Write about the first time you were trusted with something important: keys, a baby, the cash register.
23. Who from your past would you most like a letter from, and what do you hope it would say?
24. Which memory keeps coming back this month, and why now?
25. Describe a family gathering where everyone was in one room, and who was missing.
26. Which mistake from your twenties have you finally stopped thinking about?
27. Write about a storm or heat wave that people in your town still talk about.
28. Which of your grandparents' habits have you caught?
29. Which book or film from your childhood have you gone back to? Did it hold up?
30. Write about the end of something: a summer job, a lease, a team, a friendship.
31. Reread August. What do you want to remember about this summer when it's January?

September journal prompts

September runs like a second New Year: school starts, work picks up, and the equinox falls around the 22nd. Prompts about routines, work and learning.

1. Meteorological fall starts today in the north. What are you starting this month?
2. Describe your workspace on the first workday after the summer. What's changed since June?
3. Which routine do you want to rebuild after the summer, and what's its first piece?
4. Describe a school you went to as a floor plan in words: where you sat, where you ate, where you hid.
5. What do you need to learn for your work this year that you've been avoiding?
6. Which teacher's voice can you still hear, and what is it saying?
7. Which hours of the day do you do your best work, and who gets them now?
8. Write about the smell of a new notebook, a pencil case or a textbook.
9. What do you do on Sunday evenings to get ready for Monday?
10. Describe the most organized person you know. What do they do that you don't?
11. If you started your job today, knowing what you know now, what would you do in the first week?
12. Write about the best class you ever took: the room, the people, what you made there.
13. Time one ordinary task today, start to finish. Was it longer or shorter than you'd have guessed?
14. Describe your commute, or your walk to your desk, as if it were a ritual.
15. Who at work would you like to learn from, and what would you ask them?
16. What could you teach someone, and who would you most like to teach it to?
17. Write about going back to study as an adult, or the course you'd take if you did.
18. Which project have you been calling nearly done for longest? If it's your WIP, list what's actually left.
19. What's in season at the market right now? Buy one thing you've never cooked and write about it.
20. Write about a uniform you've worn: for school, work or a team.
21. What are you getting better at without trying?
22. Equinox, around now. What do you want to keep from the last season, and what are you ready to put away?
23. What do your work habits say about how you feel about the work?
24. Write about the moment you knew you'd chosen the wrong course, job or city, or the right one.
25. What would your ten-year-old self think of your workday?
26. Describe a lecture, meeting or class where you learned more from the person next to you.
27. What did you start this month that you want to still be doing in December?
28. Which tool, app or notebook would you give up last, and what does it do for you?
29. Write about someone whose working life you admire, and why.
30. Three quarters of the year are done. What are you doing now that you didn't expect in January?

October journal prompts

Leaves turn in the north, the evenings darken and the month ends with Halloween. Prompts about change, fear and courage, and the stories you tell about yourself.

1. What changed this week that nobody announced?
2. Describe one tree on your street as its leaves turn, as precisely as you can.
3. Which role have you played for years, in a family, a team or a group of friends, that you'd like to give up?
4. Write about a ghost story you were told as a child, and who told it.
5. What scares you now that didn't when you were young?
6. Write about the moment you realized a friendship had ended.
7. Which change did you resist that turned out well?
8. Describe a walk through fallen leaves, real or remembered, using only sound.
9. What are you still angry about from years ago? Write it out, then write what it costs you to keep it.
10. What's the bravest conversation you've had this year?
11. Write about a house that frightened you as a kid.
12. What story do you tell about yourself that may no longer be true?
13. Which fear stopped you from doing something this year, and what was the something?
14. Describe the best costume you ever wore or saw.
15. Write about an ending you chose: a job, a relationship, a place.
16. Write about the last time your heart pounded. What was happening?
17. Which tradition have you dropped, and do you miss it?
18. Describe a night when the power went out.
19. What superstition do you follow, even half as a joke?
20. Write about the last thing you threw away that you'd owned for more than ten years.
21. Write down a dream you've had more than once, with everything you remember of it.
22. How is the person you are at work different from the one at home?
23. Write about a time you were out in the dark and couldn't find your way.
24. What's ending this fall, in your life or someone else's, and how do you feel about it?
25. Describe your home as the evenings draw in: the lamps, the blankets, where everyone sits.
26. Which offer or invitation did you turn down this year, and are you glad you did?
27. Write about the most frightening book or film you've ever read or watched, and where you were.
28. What warning sign have you been ignoring at work or at home?
29. Write about a time a stranger frightened you, and what happened next.
30. List what you've changed your mind about since January.
31. Halloween. Write about the most frightening thing that happened this month, however small, then reread October.

November journal prompts

Dark afternoons in the north, and a month of thanks and remembrance in many places. The prompts are gentler, and some ask about people you've lost: skip any that ask for more than you want to give. For more on thanks, see the gratitude journal prompts.

1. Two months are left in the year. What do you want to have done by December 31, realistically?
2. Write about someone who has died and one ordinary thing they used to do.
3. Which new person, place or habit from this year are you most glad of?
4. Describe the light at 4 p.m. this month, and what you do when it goes.
5. Who's the oldest person you know, and what have they told you about being young?
6. Write about a family member you know only from stories.
7. Write about a meal that brought people back together after a long time apart.
8. Write about a kindness you saw this year that wasn't aimed at you.
9. Who would you like to visit before the year ends, and what would you bring?
10. Describe an object in your home that someone made by hand, and the person who made it.
11. Write about someone in your family who lived through a war or a hard time, and what they did or didn't say about it.
12. What will you do this winter that you can only do in winter?
13. Write about the people who were there the last time you moved.
14. Describe your favorite blanket, sweater or chair, and how long you've had it.
15. What's the best news you got this year, and where were you when you heard it?
16. Write about a building where your community gathers: a library, a hall, a place of worship, a diner.
17. What would you like to say to someone who's no longer in your life, for whatever reason?
18. What do you do with the dark evenings that you'd never make time for in summer?
19. Who has been patient with you this year?
20. Write a thank-you note to someone who will never read it: a stranger, a shopkeeper, the driver of a late bus.
21. What did this year ask of you that you didn't know you could give?
22. Describe the table at a meal you're looking forward to.
23. Write about a time you were welcomed into another family's celebration.
24. If someone at a winter dinner asked about your year, what would you tell them, and what would you leave out?
25. Write about the first winter coat you bought with your own money.
26. Which hard conversation this year left things better than before?
27. Write about the best card or letter you got this year, or the one you wish you'd got.
28. What did someone older teach you this year?
29. Describe the quiet in your home late at night.
30. Reread November. Who did you thank this month, and who did you only mean to?

December journal prompts

The solstice falls around the 21st or 22nd: the longest night in the north, the longest day in the south. Prompts for endings, with the last two days of the year kept for rereading.

1. Thirty-one days are left. What would make this December feel like enough?
2. Write about the best gift you got this year that cost nothing.
3. Which of the three first times you named on January 7 happened? List every other first from this year.
4. What did you buy this year that you use every day?
5. Who's new in your life this year, and how did you meet?
6. Write one December day from your childhood, hour by hour.
7. Which habit quietly left your life this year? Write how you noticed it was gone.
8. What's the most surprising thing you learned this year?
9. Which book, film or album will you always link with this year?
10. What did you lose this year: an object, a person, an argument?
11. What would you like to give someone this month that can't be wrapped?
12. Write the best day of this year as a timeline: when it started, when it peaked, how it ended.
13. Is there an apology you've been meaning to make? Write its first sentence.
14. List everything you finished this year, however small.
15. Write about a winter walk at dusk.
16. What did you get wrong this year, and how did you find out?
17. Which of January's plans would you no longer want, even if you could have them now?
18. Describe the place where you'll spend the last night of the year.
19. What happened this year that you'd tell a grandchild about?
20. Which room did you spend the most time in this year? Describe it as it is tonight.
21. Solstice, around now: the longest night in the north, the longest day in the south. How has the light where you live changed since June?
22. Write about the quietest day of this year.
23. What do you want to leave behind in this year?
24. What sound will you remember from this year?
25. Write about what you're doing today, whether it's a holiday for you or an ordinary day.
26. What do you want to carry into January unchanged?
27. Write to the person you were on January 1. What would surprise them most?
28. Which friendship grew this year, and how?
29. What's one thing you'll do differently next year, and what will you do on January 1 to start?
30. Reread December and copy its best sentence to the front page. Then read all twelve lines in order.
31. Reread your entries for January 1 and July 2. Then write what this year turned out to be about.

Keeping a year of entries

A prompt for every date solves the blank page. What turns 365 answers into a journal worth keeping is what you do around them.

1. Give each month its own page

   Start a new notebook section or document on the first of the month and copy that month's prompts to the top, so tonight's question is waiting when you open it. For a page that also plans the morning, put the prompt under the evening half of the daily journal template.

2. Swap, don't skip

   If a prompt doesn't fit the day, answer tomorrow's and save today's for tomorrow, or take any unused prompt from the same month. A swap keeps the date on the page. A skipped day tends to become a skipped week.

3. Close each month on its last day

   The last prompt of every month is a reread. Read the month in one sitting, then copy one sentence onto the first page, with its date. By December, twelve lines on one page make a short and honest account of the year.

   If you keep the journal in Strokes, one document per month, you can also ask the Strokes Assistant to read the month before you choose and point out what repeats, such as a plan you described three different ways.

4. Write on the same date next year

   In year two, read last year's entry for today before you answer. The prompt is the same and you aren't, which is the point. Put the two entries side by side and the year shows itself.

Answer with things you can see and hear rather than verdicts. “A good day” fades by Friday; the name of the café and what your sister said there won't. It's show, don't tell, applied to your own life. And if a prompt lands on a bad day, or stirs up more than a journal can hold, put it aside. These are writing prompts, not therapy. When a hard stretch goes on for weeks, talk to someone you trust, or to a doctor or counselor.

What a dated entry becomes

You can't tell on the day which entries will matter later. On April 15, 1802, Dorothy Wordsworth walked with her brother William along the shore of Ullswater in the Lake District, and wrote about it in the journal she kept at Grasmere.

In 1804 William turned the same walk into “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” published in 1807 in Poems, in Two Volumes. Her entry already has the scene the poem is known for: daffodils by the lake, dancing in the wind. She wasn't writing a poem. She was writing down a date, a place and exactly what she saw, which is what a daily prompt asks of you. A single entry like hers is a vignette: one moment, held still.

Here is prompt 10 under November, answered in about ten minutes:

The entry starts with the object, moves to the person and ends with a question for later. If it were the best of the month, the line to copy onto the first page would be the one about the blanket knowing a person made it.

Mistakes that stall a year

• Waiting for January 1. A calendar of prompts makes a clean start tempting. Start on today's date; you'll reach January soon enough.
• Catching up in bulk. After a week away, answering seven prompts in one sitting produces seven thin entries. Write today's. If a missed prompt still pulls at you, use it on a day whose own prompt doesn't fit.
• Skipping the rereads. The last day of each month is the one people drop, and it's the one that makes the other days worth keeping.
• One-line answers for weeks. A line is fine on a busy night. If every entry has been a line for a month, give one prompt a week the full ten minutes.
• Forcing a prompt that doesn't fit your life. No snow, no garden, no family nearby? Answer the question underneath, or swap it. South of the equator, swap a weather prompt for the one on the same date six months away.
• Writing only about the big days. Most prompts here ask about ordinary things on purpose. The ordinary entries are the ones you can't reconstruct later.