How To Increase Your Productivity Through a Simple Journaling Routine

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I like to think of productivity as an art.

Just like every artist has her own tools, practices, and routines, every person needs different rules in order to be focused and effective.

What might be a helpful tool to me might be useless for you and vice versa.

Yet, certain routines apparently help almost everyone.

One of them is journaling.

I was lucky to discover journaling at a young age. When I realized that all entrepreneurs, thinkers, and creators I’ve been looking up to were talking about this magical routine, I thought there must be something about it that makes it worth trying.

Yet, the truth is, there are as many different ways to keep a journal as there are humans on planet earth.

There’s not just one way to do it.

But even though there’s no right or wrong, there are best practices.

The following tips helped me create a journaling practice to be more focused, get things done, and end my days with ease and clarity.

It’s not really about “getting more done”

Even though this post is about “increasing your productivity through a journaling routine,” the real goal of journaling isn’t necessarily to get more done.

It’s about finding out what you really want and making sure you prioritize the right activities day after day.

In some cases, this might even mean doing less yet achieving more.

Above all, journaling is about letting go of thoughts that are holding you back, expressing your emotions without shame, tracking your progress, and most importantly, it’s about bringing the best of you out into the world.

Don’t make this common mistake

Most people who start journaling in order to be more organized and focused make a common mistake: They use a journal to write endless to-do lists and end up with the same problem — they feel overwhelmed.

Instead of using your journal as a place to keep your to-do list, I want you to use journaling as a routine to judge your daily to-do list.

Here’s how to do that:

Differentiate between goals, tasks, and nice-to-haves:

A goal is something you want to accomplish. It usually consists of multiple sub-goals that need to be achieved and takes more effort than a simple daily to-do.

Writing a new blog post or shooting a new video could be goals because they each consist of multiple steps that ultimately lead to a significant outcome — the final piece of content.

Calling your mum, however, is not really a goal. It’s a simple task. It’s done when it’s done. There are no sub-goals.

Most items on your to-do list are neither goals nor tasks. They are nice-to-haves and ideas.

And that’s why you end up feeling so exhausted, drained, and unproductive.

Instead of confusing these three items, I save time and brainpower through my daily journaling practice.

In my journal, I have different sections for all three:

At the beginning of each day, I set goals. One of them is my most critical goal of the day, which, if accomplished, makes the day a success (from a productivity point of view). Depending on the scope of that #1 goal, I’ll either have a few more (usually no more than three) goals, or I’ll just leave it there.
Next, I write down to-dos. These are small and/or repetitive tasks that need to get done. This can be checking emails or scheduling an appointment.
And last but not least, I have some space to jot down notes, ideas, and thoughts.

I repeat this process every single day as part of my morning routine: I look at my cluttered to-do list (which is not in my journal), define 1–3 key goals for the day, write down a few more simple to-do’s that are urgent or important, and leave space for notes, ideas, and thoughts that might come up during the day.

If I come across an interesting resource, discover a movie I’d like to watch, or a recipe I’d like to try, I write it on my “notes corner.”

This might sound like a lengthy process, but in reality, it only takes around a minute.

The key here is to distinguish between tasks and goals that are urgent or important and the rest.

By repeating this process every single morning, I carefully reflect on how I want to use my time and relentlessly eliminate activities that won’t serve my long-term goals — which are, by the way, written down on the first pages of my journal.

In a nutshell: Don’t just write a to-do list. Use your journal as a daily companion to critically evaluate each item on your list and decide what’s really worth doing and what isn’t.

Just because you’re crossing off tons of to-do’s each day doesn’t mean you’re being productive.

Making the most of your time is about doing the right things, not just about doing more.

This is where the magic happens

A key component of my journaling practice is reflecting. At the end of each day, I ask myself the following three questions:

What did I learn today?
What could I have done better today?
What will I do differently in the future — and how?

These are not necessarily related to my productivity, but they help me understand how I used my time and energy and how I want to use it in the future.

At the end of each week, I take a few additional minutes to reflect on the past seven days by answering the following questions:

What did I do for the most important areas of my life (my health, happiness, energy, relationships, career, and personal growth)?
What did I accomplish?
What’s the biggest win of the week?
What didn’t go perfectly?
What’s a big lesson I learned?

What’s important here is that I don’t expect each day or week to be great.

Just because you keep a journal doesn’t mean you’ve always got all your shit together. It just means you’re (hopefully) increasing your self-awareness, confidence, and critical thinking.

Instead of avoiding or sugarcoating bad days and happenings, embrace them and focus on what they teach you.

In the end, every struggle you face can help you master difficulties later in life.

Don’t make journaling itself a task

Most importantly, don’t view your journaling practice as another to-do.

View it as the groundwork.

Create a routine that’s quick, effective, and fun, so you don’t even want to skip it.

I start my days with a large cup of tea and open my journal as soon as I sit on my couch before doing anything else.

Filling out my daily pages takes me less than five minutes, yet, it sets me up for the day and gives me confidence and clarity.

A journaling practice doesn’t need to require lots of time, but if you want it to be effective, it requires consistency.

It’s not journaling per se that will change your life or productivity. It’s the habit of continuously validating your time management and the tasks on your to-do list.

Last but not least…

Now at this point, you might be asking yourself one final question… “Can’t I just do all of that digitally?”

Sure, you can.

But I believe in the power and beauty of keeping an actual physical journal.

And research proves the same: Using hand-writing instead of digital devices is way more powerful.

In the end, journaling digitally won’t help you save much time because the whole routine I described above doesn’t take much time anyway.

It’s the thinking part that takes most of the time, and a digital journal won’t shorten that period.

Over time, a physical journal can grow in meaning and importance.

I use my journals for 13 weeks. After that period, I can flip through the pages and reflect on my progress.

I also keep all my old journals in a small box so I can review them in the future.

Now, how likely is it that you’ll browse through a digital journal ten years from now? Very unlikely.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with using Notion, Evernote, or any other note-taking app as your journal. However, I highly encourage you to at least give a physical journal a try.

You can just start with a blank notebook or try one of the millions of journals you can find. I personally tried (and disliked) so many journals that I eventually created my own.