A prompt is a question. Most people answer it in one line, feel finished, and close the notebook. The entry worth rereading starts after that line. Answer the prompt literally, then write about your answer for ten minutes: what it costs you, and what you think about that.
This page covers how to do that, which prompt to use in which state, how to rotate prompt types across a week so the answers stop repeating, three prompt types fiction writers use, and when to skip the prompt altogether.
Quick Answer: Answer the prompt in one sentence. Then set a ten-minute timer and write two more moves: "and what that costs me is ..." and "what I think about that is ...". If you finished in under two minutes, you answered the question; now write about the answer. Pick the prompt by the state you are in, rotate types across the week, and if something else is loud, write that instead.
Key Evidence: A randomised trial of a fixed journaling dose (Smyth and colleagues, JMIR Mental Health, 2018) used 15-minute positive-affect journaling sessions three days a week for twelve weeks and found lower mental distress and higher well-being than usual care in 70 medical patients with anxiety symptoms.
Key Takeaways
- Ten minutes, timer on. One sentence answers the prompt; the other nine minutes are the entry.
- Two-minute rule: if you closed the notebook inside two minutes, reopen it and write about the answer.
- Match the prompt to the state: grounding prompts in distress, small-noticing prompts when flat, meaning prompts when stable.
- Rotate across seven days so no category runs more than two days in a row.
- Loud thing first. If something is on your mind, skip the prompt and write that.
Where to get a prompt
If choosing a prompt is what stops you, let the daily journal prompt generator pick one. It serves a single question from a categorised bank so that you are writing inside the first minute. Everything below applies to whatever it hands you. One caveat: no trial has compared generator-served prompts with a printed list, so the evidence for prompts is evidence for having a question, whichever way you get it. The companion page on prompts for self-reflection explains what prompts are and lists five categories to copy; this page is about what to do once you have one.
What a prompt does
A prompt removes the first decision, what to write about, so the ten minutes go on writing. It also points the writing at one thing, which keeps an entry from circling the same worry for a page. Write Your Way, chapter 3, teaches prompt-based writing alongside stream of consciousness for exactly that reason: the prompt supplies the direction and the timer supplies the momentum. My own first prompt came from a teacher at school, who had us open each entry with "What I learned today ...", and it still works as a way to start seeing the day.
Answer it, then write about the answer
The template has three moves. Copy it into the front of the notebook.
- Answer the prompt literally, in one sentence.
- Write "and what that costs me is ..." and finish the sentence. Keep going.
- Write "what I think about that is ..." and finish that one. Stop when the timer does.
The prompt "What am I avoiding right now?" shows the difference. Both answers are illustrative.
Thin answer: "The tax return."
Worked answer: "The tax return. And what that costs me is a low hum every time I open the laptop, and a Sunday I spent cleaning the garage so that I would not have to open the folder. What I think about that is that the return will take two hours and the avoiding has already taken more. The part I am actually avoiding is finding out the number. Tomorrow I will open the folder and only find the number, nothing else."
The thin answer is true and useless. The worked answer names the cost, finds the real object of the avoidance, and ends in a small next step. That is the entry worth rereading in a month.
Match the prompt to the state you are in
| State tonight | Use this type | Example | Avoid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acute distress | Grounding or self-compassion | "What would I say to a friend in this exact spot?" | Meaning and lesson prompts, deep past material |
| Flat or low | Small noticing | "What was the best ninety seconds of today?" | "What is wrong with me" style analysis |
| Stable and curious | Values, patterns, decisions | "Which of my current habits contradict my stated values?" | Nothing; this is the week for the hard prompts |
Rotate prompt types across a week
| Day | Prompt type | Example | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Emotion | "What am I feeling right now, and where in my body?" | Naming the week's starting point |
| Tue | Gratitude | "Three specific things from today, none repeated from last week" | Widening attention past the problem |
| Wed | Values | "What did one choice today reveal about what matters to me?" | Seeing decisions as evidence |
| Thu | Self-compassion | "What would I say to a friend going through this?" | Turning down the inner critic |
| Fri | Creative | "Describe one object on the desk using all five senses" | Writing with yourself out of it |
| Sat | Avoidance | "What am I avoiding right now?" | The three-move template, in full |
| Sun | Reread | No prompt: read the week's six entries and mark one line | Finding the pattern |
The point of the rotation is that no category runs more than two days in a row. Two weeks of the same category and the answers start repeating, which is the usual reason people report that prompts stopped working.
Three prompt types fiction writers use
Write Your Way, chapter 12, follows a blocked novelist through five techniques. Three of them make good prompts for anyone writing fiction.
- Object prompt (sensory exploration): pick one thing in the scene and describe it through all five senses. The chapter's example is an old bookstore.
- Constraint prompt (freewriting): ten minutes without stopping, editing or lifting the pen. The chapter's writer finds a plot insight buried in her own stream.
- "What if" prompt (character journaling): write a diary entry in a character's voice on the day the plot turns. The chapter uses it to find the protagonist's real conflict.
When prompts do not work
Prompt fatigue. Two weeks in one category and the entries read the same. Rotate, or take a week off prompts and freewrite.
Prompts as avoidance. A prompt can be a polite way of not writing about the thing that is actually on your mind. Rule: if something is loud when you open the notebook, write that first and skip the prompt tonight.
Meaning prompts in a bad week. "What is this teaching me?" is a prompt for a stable week. In acute distress it produces a harsh answer. Use the grounding row of the table above, and if the distress is not passing, the notebook is not the right tool; a professional is.
Why using prompts well matters
Prompts are cheap and everywhere, which is why most of them get a one-line answer. The ten minutes after the one line is where the entry earns its place: it finds the cost of the avoidance, the real object of the worry, or the next small step. Do that six nights, reread on the seventh, and the notebook starts showing you patterns that no single prompt could.
Related reading
- Daily journal prompt generator
- Effective journaling prompts for self-reflection
- 100 Self-Discovery Journaling Prompts: what is in the book
- Writer's block in therapeutic journaling
- Morning journaling
Sources
- Smyth et al., Online Positive Affect Journaling, JMIR Mental Health 2018 (PMC) – the 15-minute, three-days-a-week, twelve-week dose and the distress and well-being outcomes
- Write Your Way, Indie Pen Press – chapter 3 on prompt-based and stream-of-consciousness writing; chapter 12 on sensory exploration, freewriting and character journaling
