Journaling
Questions to ask yourself
Good questions to ask yourself tonight are: What went well today, and why did it go well? What was hard today, and what made it hard? Below are 40 questions to ask yourself like these, grouped by when you would ask them: at the end of a day, at the end of a week, before a decision, and once a year.
Last updated
Reviewed by Mohammed Raqeeb
The list
Questions to ask yourself, by when you ask them
The questions to ask yourself below are written for this page, ten in each group. Read one group, and stop at the first question you cannot answer right away.
At the end of a day
Ask one of these at night, before bed.
- What went well today, and why did it go well?
- What was hard today, and what made it hard?
- How much of today’s plan did I get done?
- Who did I help today, and who helped me?
- What is one new thing I learned today?
- When did I laugh or smile today?
- What was on my mind most of today?
- What am I glad I did not skip today?
- What will I change tomorrow, and what will I keep the same?
- What is the first thing I will do tomorrow morning?
At the end of a week
Ask these on Sunday, or on the last day of your work week.
- What did I finish this week?
- What is still unfinished from this week, and does it still matter?
- Which day this week would I live again, and what was in it?
- What took up more of this week than I wanted?
- Who did I see this week, and who did I miss?
- What was fun this week?
- What did I spend money on this week that I am glad about?
- What did I say this week that I wish I had said differently?
- What is on next week’s list that does not need to be there?
- What is one thing I want in next week?
Before a decision
Ask these when you have a choice to make and cannot settle it.
- What am I deciding, in one sentence?
- What are my choices, and have I missed one?
- What would I tell a friend to do if this were their choice?
- What is the worst that could really happen, and could I live with it?
- What do I still need to find out, and who could tell me?
- How many hours a week will this take, and where will they come from?
- Can I undo this later if I am wrong?
- Will this still matter to me a year from now?
- Do I want this, or am I only afraid of the other choice?
- Does this have to be decided today?
Once a year
Ask these around New Year, or on your birthday.
- What am I proud of from this year?
- What was new for me this year?
- What was the hardest part of this year, and what got me through it?
- Who mattered most to me this year, and have I told them?
- What did I stop doing this year, and am I glad?
- What would I not spend my time on again next year?
- What did this year teach me?
- What do I want more of next year, and less of?
- Where do I want to be a year from today, and what is the first step?
- What would make next year a good year?
Try it
Get one question at a time
The box below gives you one question from the list at a time. Choose a group, write a few lines, and copy them out.
At the end of a day, question 1 of 10
What went well today, and why did it go well?
Ask one of these at night, before bed.
This box keeps nothing. Your answer stays on this page until you close or reload the tab, and it is never sent anywhere. Copy it out if you want to keep it.
One question, answered well
How to use reflection questions
Reflection questions are questions you ask yourself about what happened, and about what you will do next. It is easy to read fifty of them and answer none. One question that you answer in writing helps more.
- Pick one question. Take the first one you cannot answer right away.
- Write the answer down. Three or four sentences are enough. On paper, you can read it back and see whether it is true.
- Write what happened, with names and times. Say which hour was hard, who was there, and what was said.
- End with one thing you will do, and when. Name a day and a time, like “tomorrow at nine”.
Here is an example we made up. A man called Leo asks himself what was hard today. His first answer is “Work was stressful”. That could be any day, and it gives him nothing to do. He tries again.
Leo’s second answer
The call with the supplier was hard. I had not read the contract, so I could not answer two of his questions. Tomorrow at nine I will read it, and then I will call him back.
Now Leo knows what went wrong, and what he will do about it tomorrow morning.
For more questions on one subject, see the self-reflection prompts, the self-discovery prompts and the daily journal prompts. For three quick questions every night, try rose, bud, thorn. A weekly review and a year in review each have their own page.
What a study found
Why ask what you would tell a friend?
Asking what you would tell a friend to do is one of the questions for before a decision. It may help, because people seem to think more clearly about a friend’s problem than about their own.
In three experiments, people pictured a painful problem with someone close to them. Some pictured it happening to themselves, and some pictured it happening to a friend. The people who pictured a friend were more ready to admit what they did not know, and to look at the other person’s side (Grossmann and Kross, 2014).
The problems were imagined ones, so this is a reason to try the question and not proof that it works.
The test
How do you know the questions are helping?
The test
You wrote an answer to one question on at least five days of the week
for three weeks in a row.
Some of these questions ask where your time went, and that is hard to answer from memory.
A good way to answer them is to count the hours from what you write or say about your day. Most journaling apps keep your answers and go no further. They do not show how many hours of the week went to work, to people or to your phone.
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 when a question asks what took up your week, you can see the hours. The one thing you will do, and when, can go on your to-do list with a reminder. When your day says you did it, the app ticks it off.
1. You write your day
2. It counts the hours
- Family0m
- Work0m
- Sleep0m
- Unaccounted24h
3. It shows your week
Family 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
What did we read for this page?
The paper below is the one study on this page, and we read all of it. The questions and the example are our own.
- Grossmann, I. and Kross, E. (2014). Exploring Solomon’s paradox: self-distancing eliminates the self-other asymmetry in wise reasoning about close relationships in younger and older adults. Psychological Science, 25(8), 1571 to 1580.
Keep reading.
- LearnAnswers about sleep, habits, study, people and work, in hours.
- Rose, bud, thornOne thing that went well, one that was hard and one to look forward to. How to do it in a notebook, at family dinner and with a team, with an example of each.
- Self-reflection promptsPrompts that check your choices against how the days really went.
- Self-discovery promptsPrompts that learn who you are from how you spend your days.
- 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 are good questions to ask yourself?
Good questions to ask yourself are small enough to answer in a few lines. Three to start with: What was hard today, and what made it hard? What did I finish this week? What would I tell a friend to do if this were their choice?
What are reflection questions?
Reflection questions are questions you ask yourself about something that has already happened: a day, a week, a project or a year. They ask what happened, why, and what you will do next time.
What questions should I ask myself every day?
Ask yourself one question about today and one about tomorrow. Two to start with: What went well today, and why did it go well? What is the first thing I will do tomorrow morning?
Is there an app that helps me answer questions about my day?
A notebook, or the notes app on your phone, is enough for reflection questions. If you want an app, look for one that makes an answer quick to write or say, and that shows where your hours went. One app built for this is Think in Numbers, a smart journaling app with time tracking built in. Think in Numbers counts your hours from what you write or say about your day, so you can check an answer like “work took most of my week” against the real hours.
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.