60 Daily Journal Prompts

Updated 2026-09-29 · By the Journal for iPad team

Daily journaling works when it's small enough to do on a bad day. These 60 prompts are short on purpose: 20 for the morning, 20 for the evening and 20 one-liners for when you have a minute and nothing more.

How to use these prompts

Pick one prompt from the morning list and one from the evening list, or just one of the one-liners. Rotate through them, or keep a favorite for weeks until it stops giving you anything. These are meant to take one to five minutes each.

Answer the same prompt every day for a week, such as “What drained you today?”, and then reread all seven answers together. Patterns show up quickly.

Morning journal prompts

For the first few minutes of the day, before email. For a longer list, see morning journal prompts.

1. What's the one thing that would make today good?
2. How did you sleep, in one word?
3. What are you looking forward to today?
4. What's likely to be hard today? How will you handle it?
5. What's your top priority before lunch?
6. How do you want to feel at 6 p.m.?
7. Who do you want to be kind to today?
8. What will you deliberately not do today?
9. What was on your mind the moment you woke up?
10. What's one small thing you'll do for your health today?
11. If you found an extra hour today, what would you do with it?
12. Which conversation today matters most?
13. What can you drop from today's list?
14. What do you want to pay attention to today?
15. What are you carrying over from yesterday?
16. What's the weather like, and does it change your plans?
17. What song or phrase is stuck in your head this morning?
18. What would make today 10 percent easier?
19. Who do you need to get back to today?
20. Finish the sentence: “Today I'm going to try…”

Evening journal prompts

For winding down. Pick one or two, and keep it brief if you're tired.

1. What went well today?
2. What didn't go to plan?
3. What made you smile today?
4. What did you learn today, even something tiny?
5. Who did you spend time with today, and how was it?
6. What drained you today?
7. What gave you energy today?
8. What did you do today that you're glad about?
9. What are you still thinking about?
10. What will you do differently tomorrow?
11. What was the most ordinary good moment of today?
12. What did you eat today that you really enjoyed?
13. What did you put off today, and why?
14. What's one thing you want to remember from today?
15. How did you look after yourself today?
16. What surprised you today?
17. What did you notice outside today?
18. Who or what are you grateful for tonight, specifically?
19. What's one worry you can set aside until tomorrow?
20. What's the first thing you'll do tomorrow morning?

If sleep is part of what you're tracking, pair your evening entry with a sleep diary.

One-line journal prompts

For days when you have a minute and no more. Write a single sentence. These work well in a one-line-a-day journal, where each date gets one line per year and you can compare the same day across years.

1. Today in one sentence.
2. The best thing I ate today.
3. One word for my mood.
4. Something someone said to me today.
5. What I'm reading, watching or listening to.
6. A small win.
7. The weather, and what I wore.
8. Who I texted most today.
9. Something I spent money on that was worth it.
10. Something I noticed on the way somewhere.
11. A thought I had in the shower.
12. What I'm looking forward to this week.
13. What annoyed me, in six words.
14. One thing I did for someone else.
15. What time I went to bed last night, and why.
16. A photo I took today and what's in it.
17. A question I have right now.
18. How my body felt today.
19. Something I finished.
20. The one thing I want to remember about today.

Make it stick

Tie journaling to something you already do every day: coffee, the commute, brushing your teeth. Keep the journal where you'll see it. A simple layout helps too; the daily journal template has space for a mood, a few priorities and a short note. Journal for iPad includes daily templates you can fill in with Apple Pencil or the keyboard. For other themes, see all journal prompts or read how to journal.

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