How to: Daily Journal

Originally published on LinkedIn.

I used to end my workdays wondering where the time went to. Meetings, code reviews, random questions, context switching.

Before I know it, the day feels busy but directionless.

That’s why, for the past two years, I’ve been keeping a simple daily bullet journal. Nothing fancy.

Each day, I simply write down a small set of work tasks: a couple of must-dos, a few optional ones, and short notes when I learn something or notice a pattern.

It helps me be intentional about where my time and energy go, and it gives me a clear handoff to my tomorrow self so I don’t have to reload context every morning.

I’m still refining how I do it, but this small 5-10 minute habit alone has made my days feel more planned and more deliberate. If your days feel cluttered or reactive, this might be a good time to add a small new habit into 2026 :D

Some examples:

== 2025-12-22 == 
- [x] go to work
- [x] do some duolingo & daily leetcode
- [x] P0:work on X task
  - [ ] had raised the MR, waiting for feedback/comments. Can brought up short discussion if required with the team
- [x] follow up on Y for Z
- [ ] sync / meeting with A team for aligning on B
  Use prep-ed information gathered yesterday -> on B
- [ ] (OPTIONAL) if time available, work on Z task also; else do tmr
- [ ] go home
-- EOD
- [ ] exercise
- [ ] watch new pokemon episode

-- OPTIONAL
- [ ] read through AWS outage RCA
- [ ] read through this week latest prod incident