Journal prompts for every kind of day
Pick a theme and draw a prompt. There are 160 of them, all written for this site, and none comes back until you have seen the whole theme. Collect your favourites into a set to copy or print with writing lines.
My prompt set
Add prompts one at a time, or deal a fresh set from the theme above. Then copy it, or print it with lines to write on.
How to use the prompts
Choose a theme, or leave it on Any theme, and press New prompt. Write for five or ten minutes without stopping to edit; a messy page is a good page. If a prompt does not speak to you today, skip it. Nothing is lost: it comes back in the next round.
The site remembers which prompts you have already seen in this browser, so you will not get the same one twice until every prompt in the theme has had its turn. The counter under the prompt shows how far through the round you are.
The themes
- Reflection: look back at the day and notice what it showed you.
- Gratitude: small, specific good things, written down.
- Creativity: playful starts for stories, lists and odd ideas.
- Goals: plans, next steps and honest check-ins.
- Relationships: friends, family and the people around you.
- Hard days: gentle questions for when things feel heavy.
- Kids & teens: simple, fun prompts for younger writers.
- Memories: places, people and moments worth keeping.
The hard days prompts are for writing through a rough patch, not a replacement for support. If you are struggling to cope, talk to someone you trust or a doctor, and in an emergency call your local emergency number.
Printing a set
A set is handy for a week of prompts on the fridge, a classroom journal or a month of evening pages. Deal 7, 14 or 31 prompts, pick how many writing lines to leave under each, and print. The sheet has a space for the date and fits US Letter or A4.
More pages in the day book
Each tool has its own page. Everything you enter is kept in this browser, and the pages keep working offline once loaded.
- Gratitude logThree good things a day, kept only in your browser, with search and export.
- Printable habit trackerUp to ten habits on a month grid: tick them off on screen or print on Letter or A4.
- Year in pixels mood trackerColour one square a day by mood; your own scale and colours, PNG export and print.
- Days since / until counterHow many days until a date or since one, in weeks, months and weekdays too.
Recommended
Two free tools from elsewhere for the parts of a journaling habit that happen online.
Keep printable freebies from filling your inbox
Many free planner pages and journal templates are handed out in exchange for an email address. A temporary inbox from CleanTempMail receives the download link, needs no sign-up, and deletes itself after three days, so the newsletters that follow never reach you.
Open a temporary inboxCheck a link before you click it
A journaling app or template shop you have never heard of? WebTraceCheck opens it in a disposable cloud browser on an isolated desktop that is wiped after your session, and its free tools show who runs a domain and how it is set up.
Look at WebTraceCheckQuestions
Are the prompts free to use in a class or group?
Yes. Print them, read them aloud or hand them out. They were written for this site, so please link back here rather than republishing the whole list.
How do I start again from the beginning?
Clearing this site’s data in your browser resets the record of prompts you have seen. Each theme also starts a fresh round on its own once you have seen all of its prompts.
Are the kids and teens prompts suitable for young children?
They are written for roughly ages 7 to 15. Younger children can answer aloud or draw while a grown-up writes down what they say.