Journaling
Diary entry
A diary entry is a short piece of writing about one day, written by you and for you. It has three parts: the date, what happened, and how you felt about it. Most entries are a few sentences long, and nobody else has to read them.
Last updated
Reviewed by Mohammed Raqeeb
The parts
What does a diary entry look like?
A diary entry looks like the short one below. We made it up for this page.
The date
A greeting, if you like
Dear Diary,
What happened
I missed the bus this morning and walked to school in the rain. My shoes were wet until lunch. In art, Ms. Cole put my drawing of the bridge up on the wall.
How it felt
I was grumpy all morning. Then I saw my drawing up there and could not stop smiling. I hope it stays up all week.
Three more things are true of most diary entries. If you are writing one for school, check for them:
- You write as “I”.
- You write in the past tense, because the day is over: “I walked”, not “I walk”.
- You tell things in the order they happened.
For school, you may have to write a diary entry as someone else, such as a person from history or a character in a book. The parts stay the same, and you still say “I”.
The steps
How to write a diary entry
To write a diary entry, you need about ten minutes and something to write on. There are five steps.
- Write the date at the top. Add the day of the week. A year from now, the date is how you will find this day again.
- Write “Dear Diary”, or leave it out. Some people like to write to the diary as if it were a friend. Both are fine.
- Say what happened, in order. Start with the morning and go on from there. You do not need the whole day. Three or four things are enough.
- Pick one moment, and say more about it. Choose the part you most want to remember. Add what you saw, who was there and what was said. Later, “Sam laughed so hard that he dropped the cake” will bring the day back. “The party was fun” will not.
- Say how you felt, and why. One or two sentences will do. You can end with a line about tomorrow.
On a day when nothing comes, see what to write in a journal.
Examples
Diary entry examples
The four diary entry examples below are made up for this page. Each one is a different kind of day.
An ordinary day
Nothing special happened today, and I liked it. Work was slow, so I cleared out my inbox and left on time for once. I made the lentil soup Dad taught me and ate it on the balcony.
Mina called after dinner and we talked for an hour about nothing. I felt calm tonight. I want more days like this one.
A big day
Dear Diary,
We got the keys today. The apartment is empty and it echoes, and the kitchen is smaller than I remembered. Jonas carried me over the doorstep as a joke and nearly dropped me.
We ate pizza on the floor, because the table comes on Monday. I am tired and happy, and a little scared about the rent.
A hard day
I failed my driving test this morning. I stopped too late at a crossing and the examiner wrote something down. After that my hands would not stop shaking.
Mom said most people fail the first time. I did not want to hear it. Tonight I am still angry at myself, but I have booked the next test for March. I know what to fix.
A three-line entry
Rain all day. Finished the book on the couch with the cat on my feet. A good, slow Friday.
None of these is long. The longest has 64 words, and the shortest has 19. Each one still has a date, something that happened and a feeling.
The journal entry examples show another kind: a whole day written with rough times, and the hours it adds up to.
Try it
Start today’s diary entry
The starter below gives you today’s date and three questions. Choose the kind of day you had and answer each question in a sentence or two. Your diary entry builds up next to the questions.
Your diary entry
Today’s date
Dear Diary,
Your answers will show up here, in order, as you type them.
Nothing you type here is saved or sent anywhere. It is gone when you close or reload the tab, so copy your entry before you leave.
What studies found
What should you write about in a diary entry?
Write about ordinary days in your diary entries, and not only the big ones. Two findings from one group of researchers say why.
People forgot more than they expected to.
In one study, adults wrote for five minutes about a talk they had just had with a friend. Then they guessed how much of it they would remember a month later. Their guess was about 73%. A month later they read it again, and said they had remembered about 42% (Zhang and colleagues, 2014).
An ordinary day was more interesting to read later than people guessed.
In another of their studies, people wrote about an ordinary day with their partner, and guessed how interesting it would be to read again. Three months later, the ones who read it found it more interesting than they had guessed (the same paper).
So write down the small things: what you ate, who called, what made you laugh.
Every day
How to write a diary
To write a diary, you write one diary entry on most days and keep them all in one place. Keep the diary where you will see it, and write at the same time each day. Bedtime is a good time, because the day is over.
Keep each entry short. If you miss a day, write today’s entry and leave the gap. The guide on how to start journaling takes you through the first week.
The test
How do you know your diary is working?
The test
You wrote a diary entry on at least five days of the week
for four weeks in a row.
A diary keeps what happened and how it felt. It does not add anything up, so it cannot show you where the hours of those days went.
A good way to see that is to count the hours from what you write or say about your day. Most journaling apps keep your words and stop there. They do not turn “worked late, then two hours on my phone” into hours you can add up.
One app built for this is Think in Numbers, a smart journaling app with time tracking built in.
You write or say your day in your own words, as it happens or all at once. The app reads what you wrote and counts the hours that went to each part of it: work, sleep, time with people, your phone, and the time you never mentioned (shown as unaccounted). Then it shows those hours over days and weeks. So you can see where the hours of each day in your diary went, next to what you wrote about it. Make the entry a daily habit with a reminder. On each day you write that you kept your diary, the app ticks it off and your streak goes up.
1. You write your day
2. It counts the hours
- Diary0m
- Work0m
- Sleep0m
- Unaccounted24h
3. It shows your week
Diary this week: 0m
On 6 of 7 days. The gap is the day without it.
An example day and week.
For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.
Sources
Where do the findings on this page come from?
Both findings come from the paper below. We read all of it for this page. The diary entries are our own.
- Zhang, T., Kim, T., Brooks, A. W., Gino, F. and Norton, M. I. (2014). A “present” for the future: The unexpected value of rediscovery. Psychological Science, 25(10), 1851 to 1860.
Keep reading.
- LearnAnswers about sleep, habits, study, people and work, in hours.
- Free writingSet a timer and write without stopping, with no fixing. The four steps, an example, and a timed box to try it in.
- Journal entry examplesFour real entries, each shown with the hours it became.
- What to write in a journalIdeas for what to write, and why the details are worth it.
- Where did my week go? calculatorEnter a typical day and see your week accounted and unaccounted.
- Time journalingThe method: write or say your day in your own words, then see it as hours.
Questions
Questions people ask.
What is a diary entry?
A diary entry is a short piece of writing about one day, written by you and for you. It has three parts: the date, what happened, and how you felt about it.
How long should a diary entry be?
A diary entry can be three lines, and it rarely needs more than a page. A few sentences about what happened and one or two about how you felt are enough.
How do you write a diary entry for school?
Write the date, then what happened in the order it happened, then how you felt, using “I” and the past tense. If you have to write as a character from a book or a person from history, the parts are the same.
Is there an app for writing a diary entry every day?
A notebook, or the notes app on your phone, is enough for a diary. If you want an app, look for one that lets you write or say the entry quickly, and that shows you later where the hours of each day went. One app built for this is Think in Numbers, a smart journaling app with time tracking built in. Think in Numbers lets you read back any day, and counts your hours from what you write or say about it.
Try it on my day.
Write today down in your own words, and see where the hours went.
For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.