Journal prompts

Journal prompts for students

These 20 journal prompts for students cover classes, study hours, work shifts, friends and sleep. Many end in something to count, like hours of study, so a week of answers shows where the term is really going.

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Reviewed by Mohammed Raqeeb

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The prompts

Journal prompts for students.

Journal prompts for students work well when the answer has a number in it. “I studied a lot” is hard to compare. “Three hours in the library, one of them on my phone” can be checked against next week.

Classes and study

  1. 1How many hours did you spend in class today, and how many studying?
  2. 2Which subject got the most of your time this week, and which one needed it?
  3. 3What do you understand today that you did not understand yesterday?
  4. 4When did you study with your full attention, and for how long?
  5. 5How much of your study time went to your phone?
  6. 6What is due next, and how many hours will it take?
  7. 7Which class do you avoid thinking about, and why?
  8. 8What question would you ask your teacher tomorrow?

Work, sleep and free time

  1. 9How many hours did you work this week, and how did they fit around classes?
  2. 10Where did your free time go today?
  3. 11What did you do today only for fun, and for how long?
  4. 12How much sleep did you get last night?
  5. 13What took longer than it should have today?

People and the term ahead

  1. 14Who did you spend time with today, and for how long?
  2. 15Who could you study with this week?
  3. 16What are you proud of this week?
  4. 17What worries you about this term, and what is one step you can take?
  5. 18What do you want this school year to be remembered for?
  6. 19What would you tell a new student about your week?
  7. 20What will you do differently next week?

A real answer

A student's day, and the hours it became.

The answer below is a student’s whole day, written at night in a few plain sentences. We gave it to the parser in Think in Numbers, the part of the app that reads plain words and adds up the hours. It counted 4h 40m of class and study, with the coffee break taken out, 4h at a job, and 2h 30mof videos in bed. The entry gave one time for the group chat and the videos together, so the split between them is the parser’s own estimate.

A student's answer
“Woke at 8:30. Chemistry lecture from 10 to 12. Studied in the library from 1 to 4 for the midterm, with a 20 minute coffee break. Shift at the café from 5 to 9. Answered the group chat and watched videos in bed until midnight.”

The hours it became

  • Sleep8h 30m
  • Self-Growth4h 40m
  • Work4h
  • Entertainment2h 30m
  • Using Phone30m
  • Food & Meals20m
  • Unaccounted3h 30m

20h 30m of 24 hours accounted for. Unaccounted is the time the words never mentioned.

Real output from the part of Think in Numbers that reads your words and adds up the hours (version v21), run on with the app’s starter categories. Stored exactly as it came out, not edited.

How to use them

How students can use these prompts.

Students can use these prompts as a short nightly check, a few minutes before bed. Every night, answer one prompt about classes and study. On Sunday, answer one about work, sleep and free time and one about people and the term ahead, then use what you wrote to plan the week.

For that Sunday plan, the weekly planner template gives each day a line for the plan and a line for what really happened, so next Sunday you can see how close the week came. To start the day with a plan, use the morning prompts. More real days, including a study day, are in the journal entry examples.

Notebook or app

Student journaling in Think in Numbers.

In a notebook, that Sunday plan starts with an evening of adding up: class hours, study hours and shift hours from seven nights of answers.

An app for students should do that adding and show the study hours beside the scrolling and the shifts, so the Sunday plan can move an hour from one to the other. Most journaling apps keep how the week felt, which during term can be a lot. What they leave out is where the week went, class by class and shift by shift.

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: classes, study, work shifts, your phone, and the time you never mentioned (shown as unaccounted). Then it shows those hours over days and weeks. Targets against your real hours show whether the study plan held, and to-dos with reminders keep the next deadline in view.

Write my first day

For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.

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Questions

Questions people ask.

Why should students keep a journal?

A journal gives a student a record of where the week went: classes, study, work, friends and sleep. Reading that record back shows when studying really happens and what gets in its way.

How long should a student spend journaling?

Five minutes at the end of the day is enough. One prompt about study and one about everything else makes a full entry.

Can teachers use these journal prompts in class?

Yes. The prompts are written for students to answer on their own, and teachers are welcome to use them. Prompts about study hours work well at the start of a unit and again at the end.

What should a student write in a study journal?

A study journal should record what you studied, for how long, and how well you focused. Over a few weeks, it shows which hours of the day and which places work for you.

Try it on my day.

Write today down in your own words, and see where the hours went.

Write my first day

For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.