Templates
Daily journal template
This daily journal template is a free printable page for writing one day. It has a mood and energy check, room for the day in your own words, an hours bar to shade, and three questions for the evening.
Last updated
Reviewed by Mohammed Raqeeb
Download
The daily journal template.
The daily journal template is one US Letter page in black and white. Print one for each day, or print a week at a time.
- Mood and energy: circle a number for each.
- Today, in my own words: what you did, roughly when, and how it went.
- Where the hours went: a bar with one box per hour to shade.
- Hours by category: sleep, work or study, people, meals, phone and screens, getting around, other.
- Three questions for tonight, about the day and about tomorrow.
How to use it
How to use a daily journal template.
A daily journal page works when it is filled in the same way every day. Write the day first, in plain sentences. Then shade the hours bar and add up the hours by category.
Leave the hours you cannot place blank. They are your unaccounted time, and they belong on the page. If you get stuck on what to write, use one of the evening journal prompts.
Filled in
A daily journal page, filled in from a real day.
The filled-in page below uses a real day-off entry and the hours the Think in Numbers parser found in it. The hours section would read 10h 30m of sleep, 3h of meals and 3h unaccounted.
“Slept in until 9. Long breakfast, pancakes, about an hour. Went for a run at 10:30, 45 minutes. Did laundry and cleaned the kitchen until 1. Met two friends for lunch downtown from 1:30 to 3:30, then walked home through the park. Napped for an hour. Watched a movie from 7 to 9 with takeout. Texted my family and played a game on my phone until about 11:30, then bed.”
The hours it became
- Sleep10h 30m
- Food & Meals3h
- Using Phone2h 30m
- Entertainment2h
- Household1h 45m
- Fitness45m
- Travel & Commute30m
- Unaccounted3h
21h of 24 hours accounted for. Unaccounted is the time the words never mentioned.
Real output from the Think in Numbers parser (version v21), run on with the app’s starter categories. Stored as written, not edited.
Without paper
The daily journal that adds up the hours for you.
Think in Numbers is the no-paper version of this page. It is a smart journaling app with time tracking built in: you write or say your day, and it reads your words and adds up the hours by category. It has the mood and energy check-in and daily prompts too.
For a line-by-line record instead, print the time log template. To plan the day hour by hour, print the hourly planner template.
Keep reading.
- TemplatesPrintable PDFs: a daily journal, an hourly planner and a time log.
- Hourly planner templateEvery hour from 6 AM to midnight: the plan beside what happened.
- Time log templateStart, end, what you did, minutes. Then add it up.
- Evening promptsPrompts for the end of the day, from what happened to what tomorrow gets.
- 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 should a daily journal template include?
A daily journal template should include the date, space to write the day in your own words, and a few questions to close the day. This one also has a mood and energy check and a place to add up the day's hours.
How do I use a daily journal template?
Print one page a day. Circle mood and energy, write the day in plain words, shade the hours bar, add up the hours by category, and answer the three questions before bed.
Is this daily journal template free?
Yes. The daily journal template is a free one-page PDF. Print a copy for each day.
Why does a journal template have a table of hours?
Most journals stop at how your day felt. The table of hours adds where the day went, so you can compare one day with the next.
Is there an app version of this journal template?
Think in Numbers is a smart journaling app for iPhone and Android with the same idea built in. You write or say your day, and it returns the hours by category, with a mood and energy check-in and daily prompts.
Try it on my day.
Think in Numbers is a smart journaling app with time tracking built in. Write or say today in your own words, and see where the hours went. No timers.
For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.