From memory
Six months of Sundays and no account of any of them. Asked how the year has gone, the honest answer comes from the last three weeks.
From the page
One hour a week over the same few questions, written down and dated. Twelve entries in, the shape of the year is in front of you instead of in your head.
The blank page
The problem with reviewing your life weekly is that it turns into a scorecard, and a scorecard on a bad week is a reason to stop. An inventory is different: it just asks what is here, including the parts that have had no attention in months.
What it looks like
How to start a life review journal
Set one hour, the same one each week
Sunday evening, or Friday afternoon. The regularity is doing most of the work.
Take three or four dimensions, not all of them
Self, people, money, work, health, what you made. Rotating is fine and honest.
Notice which one keeps getting skipped
The dimension that gets passed over week after week is the entry. Write about the passing over instead.
What this journal opens with
- In body and mind, how were you?
- Who needed you, were you there?
- Who did you reach for, or miss?
- Any new worry, or any ease?
- What moved, what stalled?
- Did you make anything at all?
A quiet start, never a form. Write past the prompt, ignore it, or make the page your own. The journal holds the shape; the words are yours.
Life Review Journal Prompts
A life review is an inventory taken across the parts of a life rather than a rating of how the week went. The point is to see the whole shape at once, including the parts that have quietly had no attention for months.
- How were you this week, in your own words, before you assess anything?
- What did you give your best hours to, and was that the right place for them?
- What did you make, build, or finish?
- What did you learn, and from what?
- What took up room in your head this week without ever getting done?
Private like a notebook
No ads. No trackers. Nothing trains on what you write. Search across years, sync between your devices, and export everything as Markdown or Day One whenever you like. How privacy works →
Part of Innerholm+. A good paper journal costs $30 to $40, for one chapter. Plus opens every edition for $40 a year, or $5 a month, and the free editions stay free because Plus pays for them.