Daily Logging: How and Why I Track My Habits and Goals—and how you can too!

A real-life example of my daily log from March 2023, in Obsidian

Introduction: What is a daily log? Why keep one?

Since December of the year 2016, I have been keeping a private ongoing list of notes of my daily activities, thoughts, and progress. I realized how much I can forget what I have done and move on to the next task, without taking the time to appreciate what I have accomplished.

In my first log, I can see that it was the month I took an improv class about a type of comedy show I still do to this day (called the “Harold”). I also have notes about how I worked on blogging for this site and met a lot of friends around then

This daily log isn’t a planning tool or a to-do list. It’s not a list of tasks you need to complete. What I’m talking about is keeping track of tasks you’ve already completed. Think of this idea as a form of an ongoing “Tada List,” a term coined on the podcast Happier by Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project. Tada is the sound of “fanfare to call attention to something remarkable”. At the same time, my log functions as a type of gratitude list.

This creates a way to practice acknowledging every step I’ve accomplished, rather than focusing solely on what I haven’t done yet. By taking a few moments each day to reflect on what you’ve finished, you might just start cultivating a greater sense of satisfaction.

How to start your own daily log:

  • In a journal or in a text document, start with a simple list ongoing of accomplishments for each day.
  • You can track anything you want; such as where you went; who you saw; what you accomplished; and what you did to keep entertained and relaxed.
  • Schedule a weekly reminder on your calendar to review and catch up on any missed details
  • Don’t worry about getting every detail “right” or missing a day or two – you can always fill in the missing information later on or miss days entirely. The point of a daily log is to help you reflect and learn, not to keep perfect records.
  • Try to find a few minutes each day to reflect on your day and record your entries in your daily log.
  • You might also keep your notebook or document available when possible as you work or do various hobbies to record in real-time.
  • The log and your use around it can evolve each day, allowing you to track different life patterns and habits.
  • Each month, start with a fresh page in your journal or with a new digital document.

How I structure my daily log

For each month I start a simple text document where I list the day and the day of the week (i.e., “1 Tuesday”), and then below I write out what I did that day as bullets below that.

I also use this document to track other things that feel important to me: my mood, my most important tasks of each day, and who I’ve connected with that day.

One reason that I separate them monthly notes, is that this makes each month a fresh slate. I can reflect on the previous month and I get a blank slate to reset. It feels too separated for me to individual notes of each day or week rather than in groups by month.

Monthly notes containing my daily logs also help me model my later entries off of early ones. I can quickly see my own examples of how I tracked the 1st of the month, and that prompts me to add an update on the later entries.

At the beginning of the next month, I just have to set up a new document and I get the satisfaction of a blank slate.

What to track

For my own logs, I combine different areas of focus and track a wide range of activities, helping it serve as my one-sentence journal, a fitness, food diary, and more. You can customize your log to fit your individual needs and preferences, and allow the lists to evolve and flex with each day.

In addition to recording your daily activities, you can also include prompts for self-reflection and goal-setting. For example, you can track your mood, list what you’re grateful for, and imagine a successful future.

Where to keep your lists

When deciding whether to keep a physical notebook or use a digital app to log your life, it’s important to consider how easily you can access your log.

If you opt for a physical notebook, make sure it’s small enough to carry with you wherever you go, and that you have a pen or pencil readily available to jot down notes.

Alternatively, if you choose a digital app, ensure that it’s easy to access on your phone, tablet, or computer and that it syncs across devices to avoid any potential loss of data.

In the past, I used Google Drive and Google Docs to keep my daily log and that worked well. However, I have recently switched to Obsidian.md, a similar text-based note-taking app that allows me to organize my notes and ideas.

By making your daily log convenient to use, you’ll be more likely to stick with it and reap the benefits of keeping a record of your experiences and reflections.

Plan to “fail” and catch up later

Starting a daily log can feel intimidating, but my philosophy is to stay flexible and forgiving. It’s okay to miss a day or two, or even several weeks.

In fact, missing a few days can be a fun exercise to try to fill in the gaps later on, and the catch-up process can encourage you to keep logging more often. You’ll be surprised at how much you forget when you don’t keep up with it!

When filling in gaps in your daily log:

  • Try to recall as much as you can about the missing day or days. Think about where you were, who you were with, and what you did.
  • Don’t worry too much about getting every detail right. The point of a daily log is to help you reflect and learn, not to create a perfect record of your life.
  • If you’re having trouble remembering what happened, try looking at your calendar, social media accounts, or other sources of information to jog your memory.
  • Be honest with yourself about what you remember and what you don’t. If you can’t recall certain details, that’s okay. Just record what you do remember and move on.
  • Don’t let the fear of missing a day or two prevent you from starting or continuing your daily log.

Reasons to keep a daily log

As someone who follows ideas borrowed from the Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity method, my daily log stays part of my weekly review process. This helps me to stay on top of my commitments and feel confident that I’m making progress toward my goals.

I can double-check that I’ve captured all of my next action tasks and then update my plans. Even if you’re not familiar with this weekly review process, you can use a daily log as a simple way to start noticing your progress toward your goals.

A few reasons why you might consider starting your own daily log:

  • Daily logging can be a fun and nostalgic activity, allowing you to easily look back on your memories and appreciate the moments that have shaped your life.
  • This creates a concrete way to celebrate your accomplishments and motivate you to keep going.
  • By keeping a record of your daily life, you can also gain a deeper appreciation for the small moments and experiences that may have gone unnoticed otherwise.
  • You can practice and notice your goal progress and the status of your desired habits.
  • This serves as a tool to improve your memory and help you remember and savor important events and details.
  • Writing down your behavior over time helps you discover patterns – such as when you tend to be most productive or when and why you experience the most stress.
  • This gives you a chance to practice self-reflection and self-awareness, which can aid in personal growth and development as you know yourself better.
  • It’s a great way to experiment with different tracking methods and take on new focuses by noticing what’s worked for you before
  • Finally, keeping a daily log can be fun!

Here’s an example to illustrate how these reasons can surface: one day I might feel disconnected. But then I can see on my log that I’ve had a lot of social events recently. I might notice that I was really into yoga for a week and then forgot all about the new habit.

It can also be a place where I can relive the joy of a big work accomplishment. With these documents I can quickly search for information about what I have done, who I was with, and when I last saw a friend. This helps me appreciate my experiences and identify patterns in my behavior.

Easy Mode: Incorporate Reminder Prompts

Over time, you may develop a list of prompts and reminders of what you want to log. Your reminders might note that you want to track your mood, what you’re grateful for, activities and hobbies, reflections for each day, and any progress on your goals.

This is a reminder list or a trigger list (in Obisidian) that I use to remember what I want to make note of.

Having a list of reminder prompts can reduce friction and the brain power needed to get in and out of your note.

If you’d like, feel free to borrow from my sample list from which I only pick one or two of these each day:

  1. List what you’ve done every day. It is essential to keep track of what you have accomplished each day, no matter how small or big.
  2. Focus on the good sides of any situation. Even in difficult or challenging situations, there are always positive things to focus on. I write down what I am grateful for and what I can change about my attitude or approach to avoid stressing myself out.
  3. Write down three good moments that happened each day. I also like to write down three good things that happened each day and reflect on why they happened.
  4. Identify your most important task of the day. This is the one thing that, if you accomplish it, will make your day a success.
  5. Track your activities. I like to plan out my day and write down what I need to accomplish. For me, this includes hobbies like practicing the piano or singing and chores like cleaning my apartment for one minute. I also sometimes track my meals, when and how I exercise, and what’s rewarding at work and home.
  6. List your stresses and negative thoughts. Acknowledge and validate your negative emotions and thoughts. By writing them down, you can identify patterns and work on reframing them in helpful and realistic terms.
  7. Keep a log of your moods. I track my mood each day and use this information to identify patterns and triggers. I also remind myself of positive affirmations, such as “positives matter,” “stay present,” “clear communication” and “gather input.”
  8. Maintain relationships. I also make a note of my interactions with friends, family, and relationships. This helps me stay connected and identify areas where I need to improve my communication and plan social events.

Tracking Your Areas of Focus

In addition or instead, you can create more specific and entirely separate, focused daily logs. These logs can be tailored to different areas that occur regularly and that you want to record more attention and specifics.

As a creative professional, maintaining a daily log can be a useful tool for staying motivated in your career. For example, if you’re a writer, you can log your daily word count, note your progress on individual projects, and record any creative breakthroughs you have throughout the day.

If you’re a visual artist, you can log the time you spend on specific pieces, document your creative process through sketches or photographs, and reflect on the decisions you made during each stage of a project.

Photographers can log the locations they visited and the time of day they captured their best shots. Musicians can log their practice time, progress on learning new pieces, and any new musical ideas they have throughout the day.

When I’m practicing piano every day, a dedicated piano practice log with its own prompts and ideas can help me see my progress. My reminder list includes theory, sight-reading new music, recording practices more often, and a reminder to play for fun. This helps me notice areas where I’m struggling and make adjustments to my practice plan. Sometimes I’m practicing fun things or too focused on the technical parts, when what I really want is a good balance. Now I know what questions to ask of other musicians or if I need a book, class, or even need to aid of private lessons.

The last step: Try daily logging for yourself

By keeping a record of your daily life, habits, and goals, you can gain insights into your strengths and weaknesses, and identify areas that you can work to change.

And perhaps most importantly, daily logging can help you cultivate a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the present moment, as you become more aware of the gifts and opportunities that surround you each day.

So why not give it a try? Start small and stay flexible, and see where the process takes you. You might be surprised by what you learn about yourself and your creative process. Daily logging is about celebrating your accomplishments.

Embrace the journey and appreciate all that you’ve done.

Brian E. Young is a graphic designer and artist in Baltimore, MD.

Defining Graphic Design

Often I read Wikipedia graphic design articles. Most articles lack basic information on the topics we all use every day in our profession. The web is big enough that some of the missing information can be found pretty quickly just by a Google search. I don’t think that many of us in the profession would turn there for these definitions. We find more focused sites about design that are secluded from the public. Anyway, it’s not so great to see the weak points in Wikipedia as a resource and not great that it’s where we graphic designers sit.

It’s not really a complete encyclopedia, so it’s probably a mistake that they’ve defined themselves that way. Wikipedia collects projects and its graphic design project remains underdeveloped. The wiki concept seems to work great on the small scale. Take a look at the Battlestar Wiki for example.

I gave it a shot and dove in and did a small restructuring of the graphic design article. Like many graphic designers, I’d rather focus on my own projects than edit over there but I did my part. So here we are back on my site… Like I said, it’s as easy as a Google search, but lets make it just a little easier. I’ve compiled a few resources and articles that give a nice overview of graphic design for further reading. What else should we see when we’re giving an overview of graphic design past and present.

The Design from a German stamp.
The Design from a German stamp. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Definitions

What is graphic design from Design Talkboard. Here’s five definitions of graphic design to start with.

What is graphic Design? from Veerle’s Blog. Commenters from around the web weigh in to create their own definitions of graphic design.

Trying to explain graphic design to a hall full of ten year olds from Johnson Banks, a London design consultant agency. Michael Johnson talks about his experience with kids and design.

History

A Brief History of Type by Thomas W. Phinney. Type is summed up through four major eras: Gutenberg, the Industrial Revolution, Photocomposition and the Digital era.

A Historical Timeline of Computer Graphics and Animation by Wayne E. Carlson.

THe History of Graphic Design and Its Audiences from the AIGA. Michael J. Golec talks about the lack of educational programs that focus on graphic design history. Most education in the field is career or studio driven.

History of Graphic Design by Nancy Stock-Allen. This is an educational site produced to help in lectures, but it’s very visually compelling and touches upon more points than I’ve seen on other sites I’ve looked at.

XIXth century advertising poster for the hydrotherapic baths of Bagnoles de l'Orne (France).
XIXth century advertising poster for the hydrotherapic baths of Bagnoles de l’Orne (France). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Brian E. Young is a graphic designer and artist in Baltimore, MD.

What your daily newspaper can teach you about design

While everyone feels the newspaper industry is dying, we can still learn a lot from the way they are designed. Part of my duties as a designer was once layout out several newspapers. I’ve learned a lot that has helped me with other projects ever since I’ve started on that. So maybe these tips will help you just a bit.

Newspapers love bold headlines

A lot of “bad” designs are cluttered. There’s too much going on. There isn’t any emphasis or too many things appear emphasized. The idea of a headline, subhead, and body copy can extend to many forms of design. Try keeping the body copy consistent in size and type style. The headline might even be in the same font. A headline is an opportunity to use a second font, but ask yourself why you think this is right and be critical of the results.

Photos and captions

Newspapers often have to deal with different shapes of photos and fit them into various spaces. In the past few months that I’ve done a few days of newspaper layouts each week, the more I see that the layout is a puzzle. Everything has to fit just perfectly. It’s more challenging than it may at first appear. On top of that, you don’t want the captions don’t want to get mixed in with the body copy. Using a rule, box or just enough white space can separate the caption text from body text Keeping photos near their headlines/copy is one tip. Another is to give a lot of space around them. This can work for all kinds of design objects in your layout.

There’s a lot more that you might learn from newspaper design. Look at some strongly branded and well thought out newspapers. Ask what works and what doesn’t

Brian E. Young is a graphic designer and artist in Baltimore, MD.

Download These Free Public Domain Drawing Books for Artists

Learning to draw? The library is probably your first stop if you’re on a budget.

But the internet has its own answer with public domain resources such as Project Gutenberg, OpenLibrary.org, Google Books and Archive.org, you have a collection of free drawing books at your fingertips.

You can view these online or download it to your Kindle or eReader of your choice.

The Practice and Science Of Drawing, by Harold Speed
The Practice and Science Of Drawing, by Harold Speed

The Practice and Science of Drawing

The Practice and Science Of Drawing by Harold Speed. This book, originally published in 1913 takes an expected classical approach to drawing that holds up amazingly well today. Although the techniques are classical, you can benefit from the discussion presented no matter what style you’re looking for.

This is the kind of title that reminds us of the power of a well-consolidated book, as opposed to the quick-fix approach of internet tutorials. (As valuable as those are.)

It’s filled with beautiful sketches to study and serves as both a starting point and a reference book.

Pen Drawing

Pen Drawing, An Illustrated Treatise by Charles Maginnis. Pen and ink drawing continues to astound and amaze the average artist. This bible on the subject would be of interest to the modern comic book inker.

The author here has you create a light pencil outline to plan your composition, and then you create amazing detail straight to ink.

Various styles are discussed and dissected. For the price, it’s worth checking out and playing with the techniques.

Pen Drawing, An Illustrated Treatise by Charles Maginnis.
Pen Drawing, An Illustrated Treatise by Charles Maginnis.
The Elements of Drawing, by John Ruskin
The Elements of Drawing, by John Ruskin

The Elements of Drawing

The Elements of Drawing by John Ruskin. Hailing from the 19th century, this book is written in the poetic language of the time. It’s a practical guide that mentors beginner or advanced artists in how to improve their skills.

It lacks step-by-step illustrations, but instead tells you how to discover and view the world with your own eyes. This book is also available for free from Google Books.

Blackboard Drawing

Blackboard Drawing by Frederick Whitney This one takes on a different subject, blackboard and chalk drawing. And thankfully it’s filled with images to illustrate the unique look of this type of art.

Constructive Anatomy

Constructive Anatomy by George B. Bridgman. Learning to draw the human figure? This book tells how with over 500 illustrations showing you exactly how to build a figure. This is a must-read for serious portrait artists and one of the most useful visual books on this list.

It’s one of the few books of this type that details and discusses the wrist, and the movement of each bone and muscle in excruciating detail.

Composition

Composition; a series of exercises in art structure for the use of students and teachers. by Arthur Wesley Dow

This one may be self-explanatory by title, so I will emphasize that your drawing is only as good as its composition.

Good composition can elevate stick figures, while bad composition can ruin what would otherwise be a technical masterpiece.

The American Drawing Book

The American drawing-book: A manual for the amateur, and basis of study for the professional artist. Specially adapted to the use of public and private schools, as well as home instruction by John Gadsby Chapman.

A Progressive Drawing Book For Beginners

A progressive drawing book for beginners by Philip Henry Delamotte. The first half of this book is text and the second half is illustrations for careful study. Perhaps a good place to start if the other drawing books mentioned are overly advanced or technical for your taste.

The Essentials of Perspective

The essentials of perspective with illustrations drawn by the author; by L.W. Miller Perspective is a must no matter what you’re drawing.

“I CALL this little book ” The Essentials of Perspective,” because it seems to me that it has as much information about the science of which it treats as the artist or the draughtsman ever has occasion to make use of, except under the most unusual conditions. “

Book of a Hundred Hands

Another free drawing book is George B. Bridgman’s Book of a Hundred Hands which I recently reviewed. Bridgman writes: “It is the purpose of this work to present the hand not only to the eye but to the understanding.”

Human Anatomy for Art Students

Human anatomy for art students with drawings by Innes Fripp & an appendix on comparative anatomy by Harry Dixon. From the introduction:

“The object of this book is to give the shortest description of human anatomy compatible with the interest of the artist and essential for his work, and to burden his mind as little as possible with names, with technicalities, and with those details which do not bear directly upon the surface forms.”

A Handbook of Illustration

A Handbook of Illustration by A. Horsley Hinton writes 

“Every artist or draughtsman, be he beginner or expert, must draw for himself and according to his own feelings and promptings.

“In every department of art the successful have had their imitators, and these again their imitators, and at each successive stage the further one gets from originality, the more trammelled, the more impotent and hopelessly beyond the possibility of really great work.”

There are also several drawing books available as online-only versions at Open Drawing Books.

Know of any other public-domain artist resources? Let us know in the comments! I’d love to keep adding to the list.

Brian E. Young is a graphic designer and artist in Baltimore, MD.

Why is personal productivity important?

Every week on Q&A Monday, I’ll be answering questions from the Uncanny Creativity community and the web.

Why is personal productivity important?
Anonymous asked on quora

Artists and designers use the word productivity to describe the art of deciding and acting on our top priorities. When we work with our values, we give our life a sense of meaning. First, we notice what we really want. Then, we figure out ways to keep those tasks and projects in motion.

Sometimes we don’t really think through the steps involved. We end up putting effort on reacting to situations we don’t really care about. We’ll often be distracted by helping others with their dreams. We’ll help them in ways that don’t make sense for our own lives. We’ll react to whatever random thoughts come to mind. Often any mental connect of our day triggers these thoughts if we don’t have a way to practice.

By taking action on what’s important, we get more of what we want and need. Researchers at Stanford surveyed almost 400 people about their thoughts on distinctions between meaningfulness and happiness. They found that getting what we need helps us feel happier. Such as when we put some effort toward our health, we’ll usually make healthier choices and then feel happier. The researchers linked thinking about the present linked to happiness.

Meanwhile, the Stanford survey found that thoughts about the past and future actions lead to finding meaning in life. Connecting to other people deeply with a sense of responsibility helps with both meaning and happiness. Finding meaning often is stressful. We might choose the career of our dreams, engage in hobbies, raise children, and travel. All of these include both levels of uncomfortable mental or physical trouble. Those choices also help us feel less stressed .

We could use the term task for anything that we need to carry out. We might have bigger more complex life projects filled with recurring tasks. Productivity for most people includes continually balancing our wants with those of others, dealing well with stress, and defining ourselves.

Brian E. Young is a graphic designer and artist in Baltimore, MD.