Stoic journal prompts
Stoic journalling has two moments: a morning preparation that names what the day may ask of you, and an evening review that looks honestly at how you met it. The prompts below follow that shape, and none of them are a scorecard.
How to use these
One in the morning, one at night, or whichever of the two you will actually do. The review is a look, not a verdict.
The morning preparation
Written before the day starts making requests. The point is not to predict it accurately, only to decide in advance who you would like to be inside it.
- What is in your control today, and what plainly is not?
- What is the hardest thing likely to happen today, and how would you like to meet it?
- Who might be difficult today, and what would a generous reading of them be?
- What are you attached to today that you did not choose and cannot keep?
- What would you like to be said about how you handled today?
- What is the worst likely version of today, and could you live with it?
- What duty is actually yours today, and what have you taken on that is not?
- What will you do first, before the day starts asking for things?
The evening review
A look, never a verdict. Nothing here is carried into tomorrow as a debt, and a bad answer is information rather than a mark against you.
- What did you do well today, and what did you avoid?
- Where did you lose your temper, and what was underneath it?
- What did you want today that you did not need?
- What would the person you respect most have done differently in your place today?
- What went wrong that you had no part in, and how much of your day did it take?
- What is one thing you did today that you would do again exactly the same?
- Where were you unfair today, in a way only you would notice?
- What did you say today because it was true, and what did you say to be liked?
The longer view
For a Sunday, or the end of a month. These are the questions the daily two are quietly working towards.
- What are you putting off, and what is the real reason?
- If today were the pattern of your whole life, what would that life be like?
- What are you afraid of that has not happened, and may not?
- What do you own that owns some of you back?
- Whose opinion are you living under, and did you ever agree to it?
- What would you do differently if this year were the last one you got?
- Which virtue is hardest for you, and where did it come up this week?
- What has gone from your life already that you thought you could not do without?
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