Can a few minutes of writing a day impact your health, help you achieve success and calm your mind?
Is it really enough to write down a few sentences to sleep better, stress less,
and act more consciously? In this episode, we explore why keeping a journal is not
just a trendy ritual, but a scientifically proven way to a better life.
And to bring my point home, I will share my personal experience journaling for the
most of this last decade. And I'll talk about this with my favorite person in Nozbe
Magda.
Hello, everyone.
Welcome. It's 75th episode of our podcast. We are really,
really persistent with sharing our knowledge with you. And indeed,
as Michael said, today we are going to share our experience and some tricks and
tips about journaling, which apparently isn't just, you know, writing a diary or
something. - Dear diary.
- Yeah.
- I think we should start with trying to prove that it's really good for you.
It's not just, as you said, trendy ritual or a fashion, but it
really works. And there are scientific research and evidence for that.
Yes. First point, self-reflection.
That's true, that journaling allows you to reflect on your thoughts. And it's very,
very often that I think that: "actually I don't really know what I think,
until I write it down", then it all becomes more clear and more concrete.
And yeah. Yeah, to me, to me, I like this phrase: "writing is thinking".
Because when I write something down, I start to process my thoughts. I start to
read what I write. And then I realize if any of this makes sense or not,
or, or where I'm lacking some, lacking some reflections or research or whatever.
So to me, writing things down helps me create my thoughts. - Yeah,
and gain insight. Yeah, because when you write something, it becomes more real and
more approachable for reflection, for analyzing it.
Yeah, completely. That's why this self -reflection is so important.
And especially when you are, you know, running, when you have so many things to do,
the moment self-reflect is so important. Yeah, I have problems with thinking.
I really often think what I think. I mean,
I don't know what I think of. And the moment when I sit down and write something,
it really gives me the safe space, which is needed for number two,
which has something to do with emotions. Writing a diary or journaling or just
writing things down, it's also a way to express your emotions to like to vent your
emotions. - Yeah, and as a person who likes to keep emotions inside and literally
when you do that, when you keep your emotions inside, they eat you alive. I mean,
your body really reacts back to that. That's why for me, journaling, writing things
out is also a way to express these emotions. And if you're not the person who
wants to just talk to people, but you still need to get these things out, writing,
writing in journal is really helpful to get these emotions out because the moment
you write them down, they are out of your system. They are still in the back of
your head, but not as much and not as strong as they used to be. Yeah,
it's like a safe outlet And you can do it just being with your own in a safe
place, in a safe space, nobody is judging you, nobody will react to your emotions
because paper will take anything. Completely. Yeah, it's your private own space for
dealing with your emotion, for processing them, because when the emotion gets written
down, it becomes more, you know, professional, so you can analyze it and think of
where does it come from and how, why it's, and why it's doing it to you,
what it's doing to you.
Number three, stress relief.
It's, yeah, it's connected to what we have said about emotions. Writing can be kind
of therapeutic and writing things down helps reduce stress,
anxiety, and it's just the way to express. Thanks.
Yeah, it's very therapeutic. I mean, that really helps, as I said, relief stress,
and you don't let it accumulate so much, because if you do regular consistent
journaling, you regularly consistently get rid of the stress. So this way, like it
doesn't pile up. Mm hmm. Yeah, the next point is more rational and more
intellectual, because journaling also helps with setting your goals with planning
things, because it can be just used to define and track what you're up to,
what you want, what, which direction you want to follow. Because, as we said,
when you write something down, it becomes more real.
Yeah, and very often you just don't know what you want until you write it down,
and then you're like, "Ah, actually I want that." So, like, it's really, again, by
writing, you become, like, it's clear to you what you want,
And when it's clear to you what you want, then you can set the goals properly.
Yeah, and also when you write a goal, it's kind of the first step.
Once it's written down, it's maybe awkward to go back and to forget about it or to
just give up. Or if you're as optimistic as I am and you write things down and
you write all your goals down, then you realize that, yeah, even if the whole
universe acts in my favor today, there is no way in the world I'm going to
complete all these things in one day. Again, writing these things down helps you
become more mindful about this and more also reasonable with your goal setting and,
you know, achievements and your aspirations and ambitions.
Yeah. Yeah. Next thing I think that journaling is good for is creativity,
because many people just use their journals to brainstorm things,
to write, like, do the creative writing or exploring some creative ideas. Just
writing and scribbling can make you more creative.
Yeah, totally. Again, writing is thinking. So writing is also a very creative
process. Just yesterday I was celebrating my birthday and I was writing a birthday
post And I wasn't sure what I'm gonna write about.
I wanted to reflect a little bit on my birthday, but I wasn't really sure. And
this thought of appreciation came to mind. And from there, we'll talk about
appreciation a bit more today. But at that moment, I was kind of appreciating this
moment of celebrating birthday, having people wish me a happy they call me, write me
nice messages. And then I realized, you know, from there, it's snowballed into the
blog post, which was much, much deeper than just a general appreciation.
So again, writing is a creative process. And that's why it helps.
True. Another nice point about journaling is memory keeping. It's like your diaries,
It's the box for your memories, for your thoughts, for your experiences. It helps
you capture the moments and what you've been through.
It can serve as kind of a record of your life's journey. Yeah,
completely. I mean, when I do my quarterly review, quarterly offsite,
which we talked about this on this podcast before and in the past, I review my
journal from my last three months. Then I read it. And first of all,
I appreciate what happened in the last three months, because very often we
underestimate what can happen in three months, but very often you're kind of
surprised, like how many things happened. And then second thing And it's funny to
relieve these moments, especially when you're writing about something that you want to
do or something you're aspiring to do and you're reading it from the point of view
of knowing what happened and how it went down. It's also a very cool thing.
True. Yeah, it's a magical moment when you find your diary from the past you,
when you're like doing some organizing your stuff on the computer, you find a text
file where you noted some thoughts or some, you know, like an expressive writing
that I do from time to time. It's really so emotional to revisit it.
Yeah. Next point, problem solving.
As we already said, when you write about challenges, when you write about problems,
you just try helping yourself to clarify it and lead to solutions by encouraging
some deeper analysis. Recently, I spoke to one of our clients,
Nozbe users, a very, like, you know, old Nozbe user. Together with his team,
He's been using Nosby for several years now, and I was wondering why would he
schedule a call with me, like the consult, which is usually for the freshers. And I
was stressed because he's really the person that I should admire. He's an
entrepreneur with a big team, engineer, designer. Wow. And then when we started
talking, he said, just, You know, I scheduled the call because I have several
problems with my team communication, with our, like, streamlining our work,
and he noticed that his team started to a little bit ignore Nozbe because they used
to that so much that they started to skip certain procedures related to Nozbe,
and they got back to just disturbing each other or calling each other.
So he just wanted to tell me about it, because he knows from his long time
experience that when he talks about problems with someone, then it's already 60 % of
on the way to finding the solution. So he treated me, I don't know,
kind of the wall to hit the ball and to share the problem.
And indeed, I didn't really have to do a lot. I maybe just gave him several
suggestions or we analyzed the problem together. But he said,
"Okay, yeah, yeah, now it's totally clear. I know what to do." And I was like,
"Okay, I didn't do anything, but it was nice talking to you." So it's the same
with writing. when you have a problem and you write it down, it's very often like
50 % of the victory. - So I have a suggestion here.
So on the website, nosbi .com /demo, where people can schedule demo with you Magda, I
think we should add a point. I need productivity therapy. (laughing) - Or someone to
listen. - Yes, I hear the productivity therapy listener.
Exactly. So you see your palette of services on the simple demo call is expanding.
Yeah. And just to finish this segment with arguments,
the last one is mindfulness and focus. And true,
journaling supports mindfulness. It gives you this moment to sit down,
have the time for yourself, focus and write about what you think,
about what you feel.
It's so important and so needed, especially in this day and age where we run so
fast, where we scroll so fast where we hardly ever stop, when you can be a bit
more mindful, you know, answer some questions, write some things down and just,
you know, kind of regain control of your life. And that's why,
to me,
I had a, you know, I have a business coach when I was talking to her and She
asked me,
"What is the recipe for you to have a great day?" And I was like, "Yeah,
I think on the days where I start with my journal, I'm good. But if I skip the
journal because I'm busy, busy, busy, the day gets out of hand." So it's true.
So it's true, yeah. It wasn't just a
- No, no, no. - That you gave to this podcast. - No, no, it is true. It is true
that the days where I journal, where I stop, and I'm mindful that these are better
days for me. - Do you see? And following up on that,
when we were preparing for this episode, we were thinking that maybe it will be
too, you know, we will just talk about it without any proofs and improves in
science. - It's just a very good word from Michael saying, if Michael does it,
it must be good.
- If you want, you can think so, but if you need more, there is actually scientific
research that say, and like specific studies that confirm that it works. For example,
this expressive writing, so writing down you're stressing yourself on paper. Lower
blood pressure improves liver function even, strengthens the immune system and reduces
the symptoms of stress and depression. And it's all, it's,
it's all like, it's, it's true. Yeah, research. And this is,
I mean, this is my blowing, you think about it, you know, I'm writing, I'm using
my mind and the blood pressure of my entire body goes down.
- Yeah, it's all about stress, right? When you, as you said, when you keep all your
emotions and everything inside, it explodes from the inside.
And when you just let it go, it reduces the stress and the tension,
so you have the better emotional processing. And yeah, There is this activation of
the parasympathetic nervous system, which usually leads to relaxation and this is the
response for that. So if you don't believe us, just believe the researchers from
Cambridge University or some other good
their centers.
Yeah, I mean, just strengthening immune system and improving organ function.
Like, these are proven, you know, benefits of journaling. So although it sounds
incredible. It sounds incredible. Like, how about some pills? Oh,
how about just writing a journal? You know, like, it's, it's mind boggling that it's
true. But I can attest that, you know, as I mentioned today already, that regular
journaling helps a lot. And because I'm a productivity nut,
I have been a productivity freak for the last 18 years or more,
designing NOSB and writing about productivity and exploring productivity. And I also
approached journaling from a productivity point of view, so I wanted to make sure
that I can create a consistent ritual and consistent way of doing it so that I
don't get discouraged, so that I don't fall off the bandwagon so much,
and I've been consistently journaling more or less from 2016.
So almost a decade now. And in the first years, it wasn't like daily or like
almost daily, well, depending on the day. But now it's been daily thing for me.
And initially, maybe the motivation was also because I wanted to be like my guru.
So I wanted to be like Michael Hayat. I wanted to be like Greg McEwen, or I
wanted to be like Carl Newport. I want to be like all these guys who are, you
know, or Tim Ferriss, I wanted to be like these guys who are my gurus and I want
to be like them when I grow up.
But now it's been part of my life and I can really honestly say it's been really
life -changing and really helpful, especially as I mentioned in my previous posts on
my blog that we've had a really tough year. For example, last year at Nozbe, lots
of whirlwinds. And to go through that journaling was a big part that helped me stay
focused, stay mindful, stay positive and go through all that.
- That's great. So now tell us the practical side. How do you do this? - All right,
so The theory is great. Let's do some practice. And the most important thing about
journaling and about doing it consistently, about doing anything consistently, if you
wanna be, you know, when we talk about productivity, it's about lowering the barrier
of entry. So to make sure that you can, you know, do something as easily as
possible. We've been talking about this, I think, in all the episodes of this
podcast, like whenever we talk about anything, we start at the first question,
how to lower the barrier of entry so that it's easier, so that's effortless to do
it. So that you don't have any, you know, ways to run out of this.
Exactly, so we don't have any excuses, because we are very intelligent people and we
can talk ourselves out of everything. So how to not talk yourself out of journaling,
how to take my challenge and start journaling today and how to really be in sync
with our headline and start with the five minutes that will change your life. So
we'll talk about it right after a sponsor break where someone will share their
experience with Nozbe because also Nozbe will be a part of this later in the show,
but we'll start, you know, with one of our users and then we'll get to journaling.
When we've been around for about 10 years, our business has and we've been using
Nozbe for about eight of those years. And as we grew, we kind of got to the point
where I just couldn't remember everything anymore. I'm pretty organized. I would just
kind of keep everything in my head and with post -it notes and things like that and
it just got to be too much and so I started looking around for some sort of
project management software that could help me have a set up really trusted system.
But really I just wanted a system where I could know that I had everything in
there. I wasn't going to forget anything. I wasn't going to drop any balls for
clients or missed
All right, so I am a solution for you to journal every day and I have a challenge
for you to start doing that today after you have listened to this episode of this
podcast. So you can write journal on piece of paper on a notebook,
like, you know, with a ball pen and some people do that. But then again,
if the journal is not in the same room and you feel like journaling, then getting
the journal and whatever, it doesn't lower the buyer of entry. To me, I have my
iPhone with me at all times, and I have my iPad with me most of the time when I
work. So for me, I have these devices. So this way, I can journal anytime.
And Also, additionally as a bonus, I like this idea that in the morning, instead of
taking my phone to browse social media, I take my phone to journal. So I do
something creative instead of media consumption, you know, instead of, you know,
losing 15 minutes on thumb scrolling. So I created an iOS shortcut.
Shortcut is kind of, shortcuts It's a way for on the iPhone and iPad and Mac to
create like many programs, like many small programs without programming. And I've been
perfecting this. I've been using many shortcuts and, you know, in my automation.
And I love it because I cannot program anymore at Nozbe because we have much better
developers than me. So I did the first version of Nozbe and enough. - You were
fired. - I was fired from this job and nobody lets me code anymore. So I,
but I still like building things. That's why I do them with shortcuts. So the idea
is this, anyone can use my shortcut. I will be sharing the link to the shortcut
and to my blog post that explains the shortcut here. - Anyone providing their own an
Apple device. an iPhone, iPad, or a Mac. - Yes, so Android users,
sorry, I don't know how it works on Android. I don't use an Android. That's why I
built it for myself. I'm only sharing what works for me, but I'm gonna share the
principles, like how it's done. So if you know how to do it on Android, or you
can even replicate it using a pen and paper, or any other template, or a task in
Nozbe, or your favorite other system. I'm gonna share how it works because you can
copy that in any way or directly use my shortcut. So over the last 10 years I've
been perfecting the system. I've been asking myself what kind of questions to ask,
what kind of prompts to ask, how to make myself journal more consistently because
very often if journal, you're like, what am I, what am I going to write about, you
know, like, what am I going to, to, to, to, to journal, like dear diary, what, you
know, today was a very good day, whatever. So I decided on prompts, on questions.
And I, I have three questions which are fundamental in the evening. The evening
journal is my main journal. It's my main thing. So in the evening, I launched my
shortcut And it first creates like a collage of photos from today.
It chooses 12 random photos from today and puts them together. Of course, some days
I don't have any photos or just few, but if I'm traveling, I have more. And now
because I'm taking selfies basically any time I eat with somebody, there are many
selfies. So anyway, it creates a collage of photos for me,
and then I can see what happened today. So I can save this and continue with
journaling. And then it asks me three questions.
So three questions. And again, all these questions are optional. I don't have to
answer all of them. Again, lower barrier of entry. I can just write and answer one
question and just don't answer any other questions and I'm done. So to skip a
question I just hit hit okay and it skips the answer or I can write the answer or
dictate the answer as you like to do it on the iPhone. So first question what was
awesome today? Simple question if there was anything awesome it was anything I find
awesome anything cool anything that worked well today then I can write about that.
And the second question, which kind of sports did I do today? And because I do
sports almost every day, to me it's important. I play tennis, today I play tennis,
I run, I bike, I swim, I do things with my daughters.
So it's like, you know, I do lots of sports. Yeah, but if you don't do sports, I
think you can treat it as well as the - Hobby activity. - Of what have you done
apart from working like extra activities? - Yeah, totally. So I actually might,
you know, when I think about it, I might actually rephrase the question to make
even my shortcut more universal, like to write what kind of sports or hobby I don't
know, did you do today? So I think I can do that, yeah. It's a good question,
it's a good suggestion, thanks. So that's what I do. And then the third question
is, is there anything I could have done better, could have improved today? So
because Magda knows me that whenever something goes wrong, instead of blaming her or
myself or anyone around us, I'm searching for improvement. Like what could we,
I mean, we failed, we didn't do something, we didn't deliver something. What can we
improve? What can we do better? Like what can we make happen so that it doesn't
happen again?
So, and very often in the evening, I have like all these reflections. I didn't know
I had them. And I start writing and I'm like, "Huh, yeah, "we should have done
that and not, "we have forgotten about." So I start writing that down. So it's
really good. Again, I take it out of my system and write it down. So I might
ponder on it later. So after these three questions, there's always a fourth bonus
open ended question. Anything else? Yeah, that could be the place for the emotions,
right? Because for the emotions for, you know, any other reflections,
any other thing that happened or that you want to make sure, you know, note down.
So, and the cool thing is the idea is this, after these three pretty,
you know, guided questions, you are on the roll. So it's easier to find,
you know, the fourth thing that, you know, think to write about after that. You've
warmed up, basically. Yeah. So after that, my,
my shortcut also shows you your location and your time and your weather. So you can
even comment on that, you know, like, oh, I'm here, it's beautiful weather or, you
know, this weather, I mean, if you're in Poland in May,
in 2025, the weather is not good. So you just write that the weather sucks.
What kind of May is this? Like, where's the spring? So you can, you know, you have
a place to vent in that sense. And And after that,
my calendar, it goes through my calendar on my iPhone, and it shows me all the
events coming up tomorrow.
And it's cool, like when I was configuring this, the short cut yesterday, she was
surprised like, it knows all my calendar details, how does it know that? And it's
just because it goes through your calendar, and then it shows the details. Again, my
shortcut is completely It it's it's you know, it takes your data from your phone
and it saves them on your phone So like there is nothing that goes to the cloud.
I mean, it saves on the iCloud drive But it's your private iCloud drive encrypted
So I cannot read your diary entries and I really don't care about them. Yeah,
you just you are just offering the template and yeah Anyway short cut is a
completely open source like you can you know when you install the shortcut, you can
open it and see how it works. So to make sure that it's completely transparent and
you can see how it works. Anyway, that's why, again, it pulls your calendar and
then what I do there, it shows one event per line. And very often I just remove
some of the events which are not, for example, because I also, it pulls my Nozbe
calendar. So for example, events that are not concerning me, Like, for example, when
you have your demo calls, I just remove them. Maybe I add some additional event.
I forgot to add to calendar. I added there or something like that. But this way, I
know what's going on tomorrow. It serves me more as a reminder, hey, this is what's
going on tomorrow.
Especially when I have scheduled calls with customers, I can see, oh, I have a
scheduled got about that, you know, because very often, like the customers, the
schedule calls with me, like, you know, a month ago, and now I see that the call
is coming. Of course, I'm going to have it also as a task in Nozbe. Yeah, it was
just about to complain. What do you think you're saying? Yeah, but that's the thing.
I'm right now reviewing my journal, so I'm not going through Nozbe tasks right now.
Not yet. I'm going to do it, you know, in the morning, this is my shutdown
journal, you know, for the evening. So I just I don't want to be going through all
my tasks now. I want to just see what's going on tomorrow and and what happened
today. And after the calendar, it asks me for three most important tasks for
tomorrow. So what I want to do, accomplish tomorrow. And this is sometimes tricky.
But it's really cool to just write this down and then, you know, I want to do
this, you know, for example, one of the, you know, most of our tasks for today for
me is this, record the podcast successfully. And I write these down.
This way, again, I prepare myself for tomorrow. I prepare, I brace myself for impact
of tomorrow. I, and I can sleep on it. I can think about these things when I'm
sleeping, you know, what I am going to do tomorrow. And after that, it's done.
The evening journal is done. And I'm ready for tomorrow. And my journal shortcut
changes the date for tomorrow already.
And then when tomorrow comes-- and I opened the shortcut. So when you get the
shortcut, you can save it on your home screen as an app. You can basically make
three as an app. Or if you have the iPhone 15 pro or newer phone,
you have the action button. So you can configure it, for example, to launch on the
action button, which is very useful.
In the morning, when I hit the journal, there is additional morning journal option,
completely optional, but also very useful. It's a gratitude morning journal.
It helps you stay positive. It helps you start your day in a positive way. And
again, it's three questions. So there is like morning gratitude. And you, when you
click on it, it asks you three questions. And again, time and time again,
it's been proven by research, by science that gratitude practice is very useful.
Again, reduces stress. It helps you stay focused. It helps you appreciate things.
And that's why, you know, you can build off of that. So it's really, really useful.
But the problem with guttitude is that it can, such a practice can very quickly be
like boring. Like, you know, I'm thankful for my wife and my children and my dog
and my cat. And, you know, like in my work and my company and my dollars, I'm
grateful that I exist. I'm grateful that I exist, you know, that I'm not still dead
yet, you know, like, oh, you know, it's, it's, it's, you know, it can be kind of,
you know, boring and repetitive. So these questions are credit questions that I have
designed. And again, I took them from many places and compiled them as my list, but
I cannot get credit for it. I was just looking at many gratitude exercises on the
internet.
So these questions are designed to challenge you. So the first question is,
what are you thankful for that happened yesterday? So you have to really then think
about yesterday and think, I know, is there anything, you know, that happened that
I'm thinking for. - And then it's not the solemn thing, like health, love,
and stuff, but you're forced to look for the tiny experiences, the small things that
builds on your life. - Right from there, I enjoyed my tennis game with my friend,
or we had a great barbecue with neighbors or whatever, like you can appreciate thing
that happened yesterday. And that you didn't appreciate because maybe you didn't
think. Of course, I'm going to have a great time with my friends,
of course, like everybody has that, right? So it's like, you know, it's, you know,
it forces you to appreciate these things that you, as you mentioned, that you didn't
appreciate on, you know, or not as much as you would have.
Mm -hmm. Second question, thankful for an opportunity.
So then you start to think, "Is there any new opportunity I'm thankful for?" And
sometimes I skip this answer because sometimes I don't see any opportunity right now.
And it's okay. Sometimes, I don't know, I don't see an opportunity and I'm like,
"Okay, skip this." But sometimes I do. And I'm like, "Ah, this is an opportunity."
"Ah, this can be something." - It's cool because it kind of forces you or motivates
you to look for those opportunities. Sometimes you are just, you know, being lazy
and just going with the flow. But when someone asks you, you try to be vigilant
and maybe search for them. - And, you know, and sometimes like somebody makes a
comment and you have ignored this comment, but then you're like, huh, this might be
an opportunity. Actually, what they were saying here is this is something we can
try, or this is something new. And can you give me an example? Because the
opportunity, the chance for me, it sounds kind of big,
but I understand that these are also the small things. Can you give any example
from your last week? It depends. But for example,
I have a Nozbe expert program, and I was talking to one of our experts, Asha, and
she is really pushing our expert program to a whole new level, because she's using
Nozbe for her training, and she teaches people productivity using our app,
and blah, blah, blah. So it's really cool. And this opportunity is such amazing that
we work with her, and we get to work together. But we had a one conversation
about, you know, where we can bring the program or we can do. And she made a
comment about, you know, that she can do this and then we can have like this kind
of thing that we can send them gifts from Nozbe. And I'm like, huh, that's a new
opportunity, opportunity to, to create like a competition. And I was thinking about
something that, you know, that, that just a simple comment she made that I just
ignored first and I was like, "Yeah, this can be something. I have to write this
down." And then I created the task and I was like, "Oh, I'm going to think about
that because this might be an opportunity also for us, not for her only." Okay, so
it can be something work -related but also development -related or anything?
Oh, completely. Yeah, it can be, you know. It's like,
the first day when I started running with my daughter,
that was my journal entry for next day, for new opportunity that I can run right
now with my daughter every Tuesday. And I was like, what a gift,
what an opportunity, what a thing. You know, we get to do sports together. And in
the meantime, she just doesn't stop to talk. So I get to listen to my daughter
about what she's going through and she's 12. So it's like, you know, she's already
getting, you know, becoming a teenager. So she's, you know, talking to me about all
these things that are happening at school and the emotions and everything while
running with her dad, you know? So it's like, you know, again, what an opportunity.
So this can be a thing. And then third question, thankful for something small.
And this is really like the small thing. And this, I love this question because
sometimes it's like a cable I got on Amazon that helps me connect some device or
whatever. My family laughs at me when I have a new cable from my home office. And,
but to me, like, you know, maybe this cable saves me like, you know,
this thing that I don't need to connect some things and it's, you know, useful or
it's well designed or whatever, like a small thing, right? Yeah, because very often
the small things make big differences. Yeah. And we don't notice them. We don't pay
attention. And there are those tiny moments, tiny experiences that,
that are really Their life is, you know, consists of small things happening all the
time, you know, it's like sometimes these small things make the breakthrough later
down the line, you know, I remember like when I got the new gadgets for my home
office, you know, I really appreciated a lot. And now yesterday I got a special
gift from my wife, a Lego bamboo plant.
Because my wife knows that if she gave me a bamboo plant, it would die, but she
knows I like legos, so I have a Lego bamboo plant, you know, and it's perfect,
and it's a small thing, but it's nice, and I'm going to build it today after I'm
done working, so it's going to be my small thing.
So, thankful for what happened yesterday, for an opportunity and for something small.
And after that, of course, there is an open -ended question and a thing else. And
after that, there is one bonus, because it's morning. I ask the focusing question
from the Book One Thing. The Book One Thing by-- I don't remember the author name
now.
No, we building to it. It's so popular and we talk about it so often. And Jay
Paparson. So the one thing. And the question is, it's a focusing question and I
love this question.
What do you want today such that doing that makes everything else easier or
unnecessary? So what is this one thing you should do today that helps you move
things forward, basically.
And sometimes I don't have an answer to that question. It's hard to find that one
thing. But sometimes it's also a small thing I can do today to help move things
forward. So I try always to answer that focusing question and then go back that
question during the day. So this way, this is my morning journal. And this way my
journal is complete, so I do morning gratitude and then later in the evening I do
the summary and preparing for next day. Yeah, and it all works automatically you
just tap on the icon and the phone or the, you know,
like your computer asks you these questions don't have to think about it you just
answer it's, it's to make it easy for you completely.
Cool. >> Cool. That's really a practical thing. I hope you guys will use it,
and if you don't own an Apple device, you can just use those questions and those
things to, even in a note application or in the text file,
just to have those steps to follow and to make it easier to write a to write a
journal. I also have a small template for writing.
I don't write every day, because I can't do this. Maybe I'm not ready yet.
Although here I sound very smart, but I don't know. Probably I still think there
are more important things, which is not true, because This is very important and
helpful, but when I do, I write. I do this express writing,
so just expressive writing, just to vent, but after that,
I feel so relieved. I feel as I was, I don't know, you know, like the catharsis,
the feeling after writing things down and after summarizing things, after showing what
you are a great one for, it really makes you feel really, really good. So I kind
of understand why the day started with your journal is usually a good day.
So my template is stolen and a little bit modified From the guy who exists on the
internet as "structless" and he created a way for journaling that is called "vomit".
It's not a very romantic name, but it illustrates why you actually journal to vomit
to get things out of you. Get things out of your system. Of course, each letter
stands for something. So first is V is for vent, he and myself.
We usually start with writing things down just to warm up. And as we all know,
it's very easy to complain and to write what annoys me, what pisses me off.
So that's how I start, just to get going, to motivate myself to express and to
write a lot. That's V. Then there's O obligations.
These are usually the stuff that you have to do that are on your plate. That your
responsibilities, your, your most significant things to get done.
Yeah, this is the another stage. You just, after writing down the annoying things,
you focus on your work, on your stuff to do. You can prioritize.
Usually at this stage, I go to NOSB, and I just go through my tasks for today or
my task for this week. Then, VOM. M is the mindset.
Here, for me, this is the place where I tried to work on my self -confidence,
and maybe to improve my mood and to find my value somewhere deep.
He, he is truth -less, he gives us certain techniques. I will link the video on
YouTube where he describes it very, very in detail. So, But to make it quick,
the mindset usually is, for example, if you would like to do the X thing,
what would you do not to achieve it? And then, for example, silly idea, if you
want to lose weight, what would you do not to lose weight? So you would sit in
front of the TV with a huge packet of crisps and sweets and ice cream.
So it makes you it makes it makes it easier to find the good things.
I mean, the things that will actually lead you to your goal and to to achieving
that. Once you know what you shouldn't be doing. It's it's it's tricky, but it
really works. Also, this is the place where I write what I'm grateful for.
This is also yet mindset. This is this is how how I feel, how I want to feel,
which direction I would like to look. And also, this is related to self -confidence.
I'm thinking of what I think of myself, and I'm trying to find something good about
myself. And then, of course, then I doubt, and I say, "No, that's not me." But
then I force myself to write two or three sentences with because, the because
sentences. and then I say I'm because and I'm trying to convince myself that maybe
maybe I am a little bit something and it has to be something good so we have them
then we have I I is for ideation and here this is the problem -solving problem the
stage for problems and for issues that you want to look at, the ideas, the problems
that you want to get solved. And the here really good technique that I love is you
get, get, you take a problem. And then you think what you want the person that you
admire, like the authority of yours, what they would do. You imagine who it can be
your, I don't know, your mom, your friends, your, your guru. And then you think
what they would do. And it really helps when looking for a solution. Uh,
and also, uh, he says that this is the stage where you can just list your,
uh, your things, your ideas, your plans. You do like the mind dump.
Also, I use notes before that. And then when you write something, as we said at
the beginning, it starts to blossom
slowly. And it's like the opening, the loop, the thinking loop, the ideation loop.
So once you write something down, it starts to get real. And yeah, you can continue
thinking about it next day or next week, but you already started, you wrote it
down. and T, because it's vomit, so T for the end, trajectory. It's related to
goals. So this is the place where you are checking if you are in line with your
goals, when you can set your goals, what things lead you to these goals.
then you just try to focus on the good things that you want to follow. I recommend
this video that I will link in the show notes, but it's very nice. And it goes
very quickly. And it's fun. As I said, I don't do it every day, because it's too
much for me. But once a week, once for two weeks,
and it really gives you the sense of venting and writing things down and
highlighting your emotions, your thoughts, your goals, or the thoughts that you have
about yourself. So I recommend it.
So my journal shortcut, it has even more features than I mentioned, apart from,
you know, writing the journal. And again, it saves the journal in a file,
in a text file that can be exported from Markdown to anything. But what it also
has is has a feature connected with goals. So you can set your goals for this
quarter and this year, like you can write your goals. If you do that, then before
your each journal entry morning or evening, you first see your goals. I I mean,
my shortcut shows you your goals again. So this way, when you see the goals, you
kind of reconnect with your goals. Like you, before your journal, you're like, ah,
so I wanted to do this, I wanted to do this, I want to accomplish that. So again,
this is what very often is important is that if you can reconnect with your goals,
if you know where you're going, it's gonna be easier for you to plan your journey
there. So, for example, I do set my goals so that I can see them every time my
journal. And also another optional thing is that I can do my daily planning in my
journal in Shortcut. I have a place where I can, you know, every half an hour I
can write what happened, like if it was deep work, if it was shallow work, or it
was meeting, or it was no work at all. So this way I can see where my time went.
And it's very, very useful. When you do it throughout the day, then when you do
the evening journal, it sums it all up. So you can see, oh, I worked like, you
know, eight hours, but out of these eight hours, they were like, you know, two
hours of deep work, six hours of meetings, you know, and, you know, ah, this is
how my day went. So I like that, especially like that when I have not so good
taste that I can start planning again and then you know get back on the horse get
back, you know in the rhythm So this is also something that again, it's completely
optional It's there in my shortcut if you want to use it if you want to try it
But it's something also that helps me stay focused and stay productive Mm -hmm.
Yeah, so you see you created a really nice tool. I hope you will all give it a
try and take advantage of what Michael created. Yeah, and just also to,
to, to, uh, you know, apart from all the benefits we listed of journaling, one of
the benefits I see in my team, you know, with you and, and everyone else on our
Nozbe team is that as we journal more, we also journal more in our tasks.
So yeah, it's like team journaling, team journaling, exactly. Because very often, you
know, in a, especially in especially in a remote team where we don't see each other
and we cannot just ask, hey, Magda, what are you working on or whatever or how are
things going? It's important to journal, post comments on your tasks.
Hey, so I'm here, I did half of it, but I left everything else for tomorrow or I
did that, but then I created another task for that. And then we have a prompt also
for developers every Thursday to update their status tasks and for everyone to update
status tasks. Because this way, everybody is like, okay, I need to update them.
Because then nobody has to ask, how is the project going? We talked about status
tasks in the past on this show.
And instead of going there to a project and trying to figure out how is the
project going, you update the status task. And this way, you know what's going on,
you know what's the status of this project. - Yeah, so it's great for both sides,
for the person who's writing, because as we know, writing is good. And for the
members of their team, because they know what's going on, they are updated and they
see what they were working on, and is there something they can do or should they
ping them to do something quicker? Completely. So to wrap it up,
because we are talking almost for an hour now,
I would suggest just five points that you should know to start and maintain your
journaling habit. So number one, choose your format, choose your platform.
It can be a paper notebook. It's really nice, romantic, people like it, and it can
be, you know, this ambiance of writing down something and scribbling on the paper.
But it can be a mobile app. There is the tool that is especially for journaling.
It's called Day One.
Or it can be Nozbe, as I'm doing it. Nozbe is really good. you can have your task
with a bullet checklist
and it can be set as a daily task or weekly task just to remind you and encourage
you to do this. Or it can be the shortcut by Michael that you receive the link
to. Then try to be consistent. Just set a regular time, the time of the day when
you are going, when you want to do this, because some people prefer the evening, or
some people prefer the early morning just to start your day with that. So check
what will work for you.
I think you don't have to go huge at the beginning. Just start with one question
or two questions, three minutes, two minutes. Just to start going And use the
questions, the guiding questions. You can use the Michael's one. You can use the
vomit system. You can just, you know, they are typical. What you are grateful for,
what happened today, what emotions, how did you feel today? What did you learn
today? What three interesting experiences you had today? - Yeah,
and again, You don't have to answer all these questions. You can just like, just
answer some of them, like, or, you know, one of them, whatever. Like it's, you
know, I think it's more important to stay consistent than to, you know, be thorough.
You know, you don't have to, like, you don't have anyone to answer to.
This is your journal. This is for you. This is your private thing. And also you
can be unfiltered, you know, in it, you know, when you write a blog post or a
post on social media, you have to watch out what you're saying, what you're writing,
not to make sure that you don't insult anyone. Insult anyone? Or are you choose who
you want to insult? Whatever. But when you journal, it's unfiltered you.
You just write it for yourself. Yeah, it's your safe space. Just be honest with
yourself. I don't show my journal to anyone. Nobody reads my journal. It's just for
me. And it's, again, it's not meant to be read by anyone.
That's why it's, you know, maybe me at some point, but maybe even not. The purpose
is to write, and writing is thinking. - Yeah, and be patient, be honest, don't judge
yourself for what you are writing in your journal because it's not about it.
And try to be regular, but not religious about this regularity.
All right, so I think, you know, I hope we can have convinced you to give it a
try, and at least try, you know, not even five minutes, just a few minutes a day,
and you'll see how, you know, how you feel. And, you know,
good luck with that. And if you want to also, you know, use your,
If you want to also practice journaling next to your tasks, we have a great
structure at Nozbe off projects, tasks and comments. And then in the comments, you
can post really thoughtful comments on your tasks and very often journal your way
out of your tasks. And if you want to give it a try, we have a special bonus for
listeners of this podcast. If you sign up through our special link, you'll get
credits for up to three months of premium. So make sure to check it out and give
it a try. And see you in two weeks and hear you in two weeks. Thank you for
being an amazing listener of the NoOffice podcast. Every other Wednesday we meet to
talk about productivity and hybrid lifestyle because we believe that work is not a
place to go. It's a thing to do. It's a special gift only to know -office podcast
listeners. When you sign up for Nozbe using this link, Nozbe .com /podcast,
you'll get 30 bucks of credits, which you can use to upgrade to Nozbe Premium.
Nozbe helps thousands of smart business owners and their teams get their professional
and private life organized in a single app in a simple way. And Nozbe is free for
up to three active projects and three people on your team. So start today and claim
your free bonus credits, which you will later need to upgrade to unlimited projects.
Once again, thank you for being an amazing listener. Thanks for your support and for
spreading the word about our No Office podcast and Nozbe. See you and hear you in
the next episode and in the meantime, claim your bonus credits here.