The Ultimate Guide To One-Line-A-Day Journaling
In this guide to One-Line-a-Day journaling I’m going to give you the exact steps to create a consistent daily journaling habit without it taking too much of your time.
As someone who has been one-line-a-day journaling on and off for the past ten years, I have tried many different layouts and formats so I kinda know what I’m talking about.
If you’re someone who is busy and wants to start increasing your self-awareness then one-line-a-day journaling is for you.
But also if you’re someone who loves nostalgia and wants to reflect on their past experiences and have a snapshot of certain times in their life in an easily accessible way then this type of journaling is also for you.
What is a one-line-a-day journal?
A one-line-a-day journal is a simple and effective journaling practice where you write a sentence every day that captures your thoughts feelings or life experiences. It’s as simple or as complicated as you would like it to be but most people just include a single sentence summary about their day.
What things should you write?
In your daily log, you can write anything that you want. You can stick to one topic/theme or you can mix and match every day depending on what you feel like.
Here are some ideas:
- Gratitude – things you’re grateful for
- Funny memories
- Day summary and highlights
- Feelings
- Random thoughts
- Achievements and successes
- Events – big and small
- Things you’ve read
- A quote you’ve recently heard
- Something you’ve learnt
- An observation
- Themes
- Mistakes and problems
What are the benefits?
There are so many amazing benefits to one line of day journaling:
1. Mindfulness: It forces you to pause and reflect on your day while being present in the moment. Instead of the days blurring into one long week of sameness, you break up the days into little moments to remember.
2. Stress reduction: It helps you form a relaxing habit that helps you let go of the stresses of the day and reflect on the things you’ve learnt. Also, if you’ve had a particularly bad day, just writing it out can act as an emotional outlet.
3. Self-development: You can identify patterns of behaviour over time and find ways to improve in the future. It’s a great thing to do if you want to start shifting your mindset towards a more positive direction.
4. Nostalgia: For me, the most rewarding part of daily journaling is being able to look back and laugh/cry/celebrate past moments. So many small things happen daily that seem insignificant at the time but end up being an important moment in your life without you realising it. Daily journaling captures that and I think that is beautiful.
5. Creativity: I find it a good way to spark daily creativity because it encourages me to think carefully about how I’m going to express myself in one sentence.
6. Lessons learnt: You’re more likely to identify lessons learnt as you continue to log your daily summaries. You’ll be able to identify patterns of your behaviour and thoughts and choose to do things differently.
7. Hope: Every time you document a small moment of positivity in your journal, it gives your future self who may be feeling a bit crap something to remind themselves about the positivity in the world. For example, when I’m feeling crap looking back on past experiences where I’ve been a recipient of someone else’s random act of kindness just gives me hope.
8. Consistency: As I get older, I’ve realised how important consistency is when it comes to becoming the best version of yourself. Cycles of Go-Go-Go and burnout are just not it. Consistency is going to be the thing that pushes you to go the extra mile and starting simple with doing one sentence a day is great for building a consistency habit.
9. Suitable for busy people: Also it’s great for people who have ridiculously busy schedules because it only takes a minute or two each day. You actually can’t find an excuse not to journal one sentence in a day so it forces you to take accountability.

Choose the right tools
If you want this new habit to stick, you need to make sure you choose the right method for capturing your sentences. I mainly stick to paper-based methods because I am a sucker for handwriting journal entries but you might prefer typing things.
- Premade one line a day book – I am currently using this 5 year memory book because I absolutely love the fact that I can compare my days every year. Also, it was a gift from one of my best friends!
- Diary – you can’t go wrong with using your diary/journal to log your daily one-sentence entries. You can add other notes and reflections as well without having to use 2 separate books
- Bullet journal – I used to use my bullet journal to document my day. In fact, I used both my bullet journal and 5-year memory book at the same time because I was extra and clearly had too much time on my hands. The great thing about bullet journaling is that you can customise your layouts
- Notion – many people use Notion to log their daily sentences in digital format. It’s great if you like having the option to access your entries from multiple devices. You can also use the database function to pull data from your entries and organise them
- Document – If you’re someone who likes to keep things simple you can use Google Docs or Microsoft Word to keep track of your entries. It’s the no-frills method.
- Spreadsheet: If you want a bit of an upgrade to your docs format, try using Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel to organise your daily sentences
Top tips
- Don’t overthink: Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS). Seriously, all you need to do is write 1 sentence about your day. There is no need to overcomplicate things and stress yourself out. Just write something, anything, there is no right or wrong answer
- Trial different layouts: you might prefer to write out your entries in a list or alongside your daily tasks. Find what works for you. For example, I am really loving the 5-year daily entry format
- Build a habit: being consistent is the most important thing when it comes to journaling. Try to make it part of your morning or evening routine.
- Regularly review: try to reflect on your entries on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis because it helps you track your progress and growth. It also encourages you to keep the momentum building with your new habit
- Overcoming writer’s block: Just write SOMETHING. That is the only requirement. It can be the same word over and over or even song lyrics that come to mind. The goal is to write one sentence a day, that’s it. Don’t let your perfectionism hold you back from just having some fun with this journaling habit
How to make a one-line-a-day spread in your bullet journal

Single page layout
- Pick a page in your bullet journal, ideally next to your monthly log/spread page.
- Write down a list of numbers from 1-30/31 vertically down the page on the left-hand side
- Write your daily entry next to the relevant number – you might need to keep your handwriting small so that you can fit everything

Across multiple pages
- You can spread your entries across several pages to give yourself enough room to write.
- For example, only have 10 days on a page or dedicate each page for a week

Across many years e.g. 5 years
- Each page represents a day of the year (e.g. 1st of January)
- Leave space for multiple years (e.g. 2024, 2025, 2026)
- I recommend you create a dedicated book for this instead of using your bullet journal because otherwise, you would have to keep referring to this specific bullet journal or you would have to rewrite your entries as collections in your new bullet journal
Should you write in the morning or evening?
Honestly, you can write in your journal any time of day you want. However, I personally like to write in mine right before I go to bed so that I can reflect on the day and mention key memories or lessons learnt.
Writing in the morning might be perfect for you if you want to use your journal entry to set your intentions or goals for the day to motivate you and encourage a positive mindset.
I recommend you choose a time that feels most natural to you or experiment with both to see which one works best.
What if you miss a day?
Don’t worry about it, life happens and that’s okay. If you can remember what happened on the previous day, you can write down your reflection. If you can’t remember, just leave it blank and continue with your current day.
Forgive yourself, the goal is to create a habit that benefits you and missing a day is completely fine. Just dust yourself off and keep going.

I want to write more than one sentence – what should I do?
If you find yourself constantly writing more than one sentence or running out of space, you might need to consider a different method than one-line-a-day journaling.
- Create a new layout by giving each entry more space
- Move away from one-line-a-day journaling and focus on writing in your normal journal/diary daily. That way you can write as much or as little as you want
- If overwriting is something that doesn’t happen that often, you can put an asterisk next to your journal entry where you ran out of space and continue the full entry on a different page or book.
If you use a bullet journal or diary for your daily journaling practice you can be flexible in your approach to writing more than one sentence.
What are you going to write in your journal?
I hope you found this article helpful when it comes to daily one-sentence-a-day journaling. I’ve tried many different layouts and books over the years which has helped me find the perfect system for myself.
You may prefer using a dedicated 5-year book like me, creating a custom layout in your bullet journal or even designing a digital workspace in Notion. The goal is to find a system that works and stick with it.
Remember, don’t overcomplicate things and keep it simple!
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