Work journal prompts
A work journal is not a status report. It exists so that you can close the day before you carry it home, and so that in a year you can prove to yourself what actually happened rather than trusting a memory that keeps only the bad parts.
How to use these
Three or four lines at the end of the day. Once a quarter, read back and answer one of the longer ones.
Closing the day
Three lines before you shut the laptop. The job of this set is to get the day out of your head and onto a page that will still be there tomorrow.
- What moved today?
- What is stuck, and what is it actually stuck on?
- What is the one thing that matters most tomorrow?
- What took far longer than it should have, and why?
- What did you decide today, and on what basis?
- What can you put down until Monday without anything breaking?
- What did you say today that you would say differently?
- What is still open in your head that is already handled in writing?
The week, and the record
The entries that turn into evidence. A year of these is the difference between remembering a good quarter and being able to describe one.
- What did you learn today, even in passing?
- Who did you help, and who helped you?
- What are you dreading, and what is the smallest first step?
- What did you do this quarter that you would put on a page about yourself?
- What went well this week that you would not have managed a year ago?
- What did you fix that nobody will ever see?
- Whose work made yours possible this week, and have you said so?
- What number, date, or example from this week will you want when someone asks?
The longer question
For a quiet Friday or the end of a quarter. Nothing here has to be acted on to be worth writing down.
- What kind of work makes the day go quickly for you?
- What would you like to be doing in two years, honestly?
- What is the cost of this job at the moment, and is it the right price?
- What are you good at that you have stopped counting as a skill?
- What would have to be true for you to stay another two years happily?
- Which part of this work would you miss, and which part would you not?
- What are you waiting for permission to do?
- If nobody ever praised you for it again, what would you keep doing?
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