I’ve written about a weekly review, but what about a daily review? It’s a quick process you can do every day to see if you’re on track.
You can’t measure your goals, if you’re not tracking your progress.
Here are three ways to do a daily recap. See what works for you.
1. Freehand Journaling
Just get a piece a paper, or open a new Word doc, and write.
If you think of something, write it down. If something is bothering you, write it down. If you’re not doing well or you’re doing really well in any given area, write it down.
You’re getting everything out of your head and onto the page.
I would keep this separate from your regular journaling time.
This is a good way to reflect upon the day, but there are better ways to get more specific, and to track your daily progress closer.
2. Guided Journaling
This is one of the easiest ways to consistently keep track of where you are, but you’ll pay for it.
Guided journals aren’t that expensive, especially if you consider the value they add to your life, but they are more expensive than a notebook or a plain piece of paper.
I’ll give you three examples that I recommend. Choose the one that meets your needs.
A. The Mastery Journal
I have this one sitting on my desk. I love it.
You’ll lay out your entire day, and then reflect on how it went.
Here’s what you can expect:
B. The Freedom Journal
The one is less about each working hour, and more about your overall progress.
It’s a great daily reflection… the best, in many people’s opinions.
Here’s what you can expect:
C. The Sunrise Manifesto
I love the name of this one, because I love mornings.
This journal is more meant to plan out and prepare your day, but it’s also great to reflect on after the day is over, since you can compare your plan to how the day actually went.
Here’s what you can expect:
The Five Minute Journal is also a popular option. It’s on of the simplest guided journals.
3. A Series of Questions
If you don’t care to buy a guided journal, and don’t like the ambiguity of freehand journaling, you can simply ask yourself a series of questions every day.
It doesn’t get any easier than this. And it doesn’t get much more effective. This is one of the best options, as long as you stick with the habit.
Here are some examples to get you started:
- What are all of the lessons I learned today?
- What would make tomorrow better than today?
- What did I do well today? What did I do poorly?
- What is the most important lesson I learned today?
- What can I learn from the things that went right today?
- What can I learn from the things that went wrong today?
The idea is to look for areas you can improve in, and make the adjustments.
You always hear things like, “fail forward,” and “there are no mistakes if you learn from them.” True, but easier said than done. Asking questions like the ones above help you actually track this learning-from-mistakes process.
The Most Productive End to Your Day
A daily recap is essential in personal growth.
If you’re reading this, I know you want to become better, and improve constantly. Doing a daily recap will not only help you track your progress, but it will give you the motivation to keep moving forward.
It’s easy to feel like you’re not making progress when you’re not tracking it.
Think about it like someone who is trying to lose weight. Not tracking your progress is like looking at yourself in the mirror every day and not noticing a change, but looking at the progress pictures from last week, and last month, and seeing a huge difference.
You have to be intentional to grow, and especially intentional to see your growth.
A daily recap is the most productive close to the day. Then plan tomorrow morning, and get some rest!