These three journaling techniques for clarity are my go-to prescription in case of confusion or brain fog. I’ve used them to make the most of hectic days. To survive emotional roller coasters. To find meaning. And they gave me the courage to abandon my engineering career — and start a new one as a writer.
If you need to find clarity in your life, these journaling techniques will help. Here’s a simple breakdown with examples from my journal.
1. How to Prioritize Effectively with The Daily Highlight
Here are two wildly overrated journaling techniques:
- Manifesting big goals
- Defining minuscule tasks
Sure, big goals can be important, but they often hold you back from seeing what you need to do right now. Likewise, breaking down tasks can often feel machine-like and microscopic.
The solution is something Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky explore in their book Make Time. They suggest setting a daily highlight. This is the one daily task you do to get a little bit closer to reaching your goals. The journaling prompt is simple:
What do I want to be the highlight of my day?
Of course, this highlight isn’t the only thing you do the entire day. It’s more like a focal point. Imagine going to bed at night, looking back on your day, and asking yourself, “What’s the activity I’m most proud of? What’s the crucial task I needed to get done? What moment did I savor most?” That’s your highlight.
How to select your daily highlight
Choosing your daily highlight isn’t always easy. But looking at it from the perspectives of urgency, satisfaction, and joy can work wonders. These three questions can help:
- What’s the most pressing thing I have to do today?
- At the end of the day, which highlight will bring me the most satisfaction?
- When I reflect on today, what will bring me the most joy?
I like to make a brain dump of tasks with their estimated time of completion. (Tasks that are between 60 and 120 minutes are ideal.) Then I classify them by urgency, satisfaction, and joy. And finally, I let my gut decide.
Example from my journal: - Urgency candidates: freelance work (45 min), reply to blog post comments (30 min), respond to emails (45 min) - Satisfaction candidates: prepare newsletter (60 min), finish blog post (90 min), start new blog post (120 min) - Joy candidates: brunch in that new cafe I discovered (90 min), read a few chapters in A Little Life (60 min), jog to the ocean and plunge inside (90 min) My highlight of the day: Finish blog post from 10 am to 11:30 am
As you can see, I immediately dedicated a concrete time slot to keep myself accountable. Also, in the long term, it helps to keep each category in balance.
For instance, I pick satisfaction highlights more than joy and urgency. As a countermeasure, I sometimes “force” my highlight to be something joyful or urgent. This creates a powerful equilibrium of daily activities.
2. How to Calm Your Mind with Philosophical Meditation
This is my favorite journaling technique of all time. In fact, I dedicated an entire article to it, but don’t worry — I’ll boil down the essentials for you.
Philosophical meditation was developed by The School of Life. They define it as:
“A practice whose premise is that a decisive share of the trouble in our minds comes from thoughts and feelings that haven’t been untangled, examined or confronted with sufficient attention.”
Here’s how it works. Carve out ten to thirty minutes of quiet time with your journal. It doesn’t have to be daily — even a weekly commitment can yield remarkable results.
The core of the practice is answering these three questions:
- What am I anxious about?
- What am I upset about — and with whom?
- What am I excited or ambitious about?
I found the easiest way is to make lists. Sometimes a single word is enough to describe a feeling, so don’t feel pressured to write a novel. Remember, you create this list for yourself, and nobody else needs to understand it. Nothing is too petty, pompous, or off-limits.
Creating this list alone is like downloading all the clutter from your brain and parking it somewhere else. But, if you want to dig a little deeper, there are some further prompts.
Additional prompts for question one — anxiety
Go through your list of anxieties and imagine the worst-case scenario. Then, create an action plan for the unlikely event that it will come true. Write down the exact steps you’re going to take. And finally, think of measures to prevent this scenario.
Example from my journal: - What am I anxious about? That freelance project... Missing the deadline, doing a terrible job, or making the client unhappy. - Worst case? They fire me and never want to work with me again. I wasted all this time. I lose the payment. - Action plan? I'll remember that if they don’t appreciate my work, we’re both better off that way. I'll kindly ask them for feedback to improve and look for new jobs. - How to prevent? I'll create a schedule for the work I have left to do today. I'll do my best. And everything else is not in my control.
Creating these actionable steps is the ultimate antidote for anxiety because it puts you back in the driver’s seat. You gain control. You notice that, no matter what happens, you’ll be alright.
Additional prompts for question two — upset
Pick the most pressing points from your list, and recount the events in tedious detail. You can talk to yourself out loud, write down your thoughts, or chat with someone you trust. Then, imagine your best friend had told you this story, and ask yourself: Is this actually something to be upset about?
Example from my journal: - What am I upset about? My housemate complained to me about not cleaning the kitchen, and totally exaggerated. It wasn’t that bad. - What happened? He sent a picture, explaining that it was very unpleasant to come home from work and see an uncleaned kitchen. He said we needed to collaborate. He asked to clean it up but sounded passive-aggressive. - Is this worth being upset about? No, he was probably having a bad day. Not worth wasting my energy other than cleaning it up.
It’s crucial to deal with the things that seem too small to be upset about. If we shove down these uncomfortable emotions, they’ll pile up in and transform into a different kind of monster.
So, don’t hold back. Allow yourself to be upset.
Additional prompts for question three — excitement
Pick a recurring or powerful entry, and explore it further. Is this a long-term solution or a quick fix? What steps are required to achieve this?
Example from my journal: - What am I excited or ambitious about? I really want to learn Portuguese and talk to locals. - Long-term solution? Absolutely. - Next steps? Always start conversations in Portuguese. Talk to friends. Find a course or teacher.
Lastly, don’t underestimate feelings of envy —they’re also a form of ambition. And they can be a great indicator of something that’s missing in your life.
Philosophical meditation is the ultimate practice for self-knowledge and calming your mind. Every time I used this technique, I found instant clarity and felt relieved.
3. How to Chase Your Dreams with Fear-Setting
Using this technique, I made the life-changing decision to leave behind four years of engineering, move to Portugal, and become a full-time writer. That’s the incredible power of writing down your thoughts on paper. You see how things really are — not how they surface as fickle thoughts in your mind.
Fear-setting is one of the hardest journaling techniques for clarity. But it’s also the most rewarding. Do this practice monthly (and whenever necessary) to hold yourself accountable and be intentional about your life. Carve out an hour of undisturbed time. Use pen and paper. Don’t edit your entries.
Here’s my time-tested version of the exercise. (You can find the original guidelines on Tim Ferriss’s blog.)
- Proclaim — What’s the one thing you really want to do but hold back out of fear? Every person has a dream like this, so take your time to ponder. It could also be a sequence of actions.
- Clarify— What’s the absolute worst that could happen if you actually did what you’re considering? Flesh out that nightmare. What’s its likelihood and permanent damage on a scale of 1–10? Would you survive it?
- Prevent —What can you do to prevent the damage described in the previous step? How can you decrease the probability of the worst-case scenario to a minimum?
- Repair — Assume the worst-case scenario was to become true. What can you do to get back on track (temporarily)? List all possible countermeasures to repair the damage done.
- Wins — What are the benefits of taking action? Rate their likelihood and impact on a scale of 1–10.
- Costs — What’s the price you pay for inaction? Think about emotional, financial, and physical costs in respective time frames of six months, one year, and three years.
- Action — What’s holding you back? If you don’t have a bulletproof answer to this question, the problem is clear: You’re scared. You’re too comfortable. You’re procrastinating. So, remember the potential benefits and the costs of inaction.
Example from my journal: 1. Proclaim - Leave behind my engineering program, move to Portugal with a backpack, and become a full-time writer. 2. Clarify - I find out that I actually hate writing and can’t earn any money with it. I realize that I have to start my entire life from scratch. While all this happens, I’m in a foreign country with no support system. The only way out would then be to surrender and move back home. Permanent impact: 3 Likelihood: 5 Yes, I would definitely survive. 3. Prevent - Plunge into local life as soon as I get there by attending Portuguese classes and starting surf lessons. Live below my means. Sell my possessions to generate money. Use up some of my savings. 4. Repair - Find a new job. Get back into engineering. Move in with a friend or my parents. 5. Wins - Self-confidence, language skills, adventures, new experiences, ‘all-in’ experience, trying new things, getting to know new people, leaving my comfort zone, earning money by doing what I love, independence, loving my life, emotional fulfillment. Impact: 10 Likelihood: 7 6. Costs - Six months: Burnout, emotional energy, feeling stuck. One year: Writing skills, lying to myself, new hobbies, being able to speak Portuguese. Three years: Life regrets, a full-fledged writing career, sustainable income, a valuable international network. 7. Action - September 30th, 2021. Until then, the travel situation with covid is probably better. I can learn basic Portuguese and improve my writing. Downside: I’m further postponing my decision.
Everything I wrote down for this particular fear-setting exercise became a self-fulfilling prophecy. And isn’t that crazy? At the time, it was one of the scariest things I’d done in my life. But here I am, better than ever.
A Journaling Model for Instant Clarity
Each of these journaling techniques for clarity has radically improved my life.
It may sound like a lot of work — but it really isn’t. Every minute you invest in these journaling techniques for clarity will pay off endlessly. Besides, you don’t have to work through all three techniques every single day. That’d be overdone and ineffective. Instead, use each one to solve different kinds of challenges as they arise.
Here’s how to leverage each method for remarkable results:
- Daily: Define your daily highlight to create maximum momentum in your professional and personal life.
- Weekly: Do a philosophical meditation to inspect your emotions and cope with them.
- Monthly: Define your fears to hold yourself accountable and live a life without regrets.
And maybe only one of them works for you. That’s also great — you can build your own model. But no matter what you do, keep journaling to inspect your ambitions, fears, and other emotions.
That’s how you gain momentum.
That’s how you achieve clarity.
That’s how you find purpose.