Journal template
A date, one prompt, and a short entry. Not a second task list.
Journal template
Sample layout
- Date
- 2026-09-25
- Prompt
- What did I finish?
- Entry
- Sent the lab graph. Left the reading.
- Tomorrow
- Chapter 6, sections 1-3
Sample entry. The prompt stays the same. The answer changes.
The page
A journal template or journaling template is a database of days. Each row has a date and a body. Notion journal templates add prompts. Use one prompt for a month, such as 'What did I finish?' Changing the prompt daily makes the archive impossible to scan.
Tasks do not belong in the entry except as a sentence about what happened. The daily planner is the list. The journal is the record. A habit tracker is the checkboxes. Mixing the three into one page is why people stop opening it.
Length
Five to ten lines is a finished entry. A journal that demands a page a night gets skipped, and a skipped journal has no archive. If you want a longer page on Sundays, add a second prompt that day only.
Questions
- What prompt should a journal template use?
- One question you can answer in a few lines: what you finished, what you noticed, or what you will do first tomorrow. Keep it for a month before you change it.