60 Journal Prompts for When You Don't Know What to Write

The blank page is the whole problem. Not the writing — the deciding. Below are sixty prompts sorted by the kind of day you've actually had, so you can skip straight to the section that fits and start.

First, the thing that makes any of them work.

The two-part answer

A prompt earns its keep when you answer it in two moves:

1. Something that happened. A scene. Time, place, person, what was said.
2. One line on why that came to mind. Not a conclusion — just the reason your brain reached for that particular memory.

Most people do the first and stop. The second line is short, takes ten seconds, and is almost always the part you'll want when you reread it in a year.

When nothing happened

1. What did you eat standing up?
2. What was the last thing you looked up on your phone, and why?
3. Describe the light at some point today.
4. What's the most-used object in your house that you never think about?
5. What did you almost say, and to whom?
6. Which room did you spend the most time in?
7. What sound has been in the background all day?
8. What did you put off again?
9. Who did you think about who has no idea?
10. What's currently within arm's reach that shouldn't be?
11. What did you do on autopilot that you can't actually remember doing?
12. What was the weather doing, specifically?

When it was a heavy day

1. What's the sentence you'd say if you knew nobody would react to it?
2. Where in your body did today sit?
3. What would you want someone to understand without having to explain it?
4. What's the smallest thing that went right?
5. Who would you call if calling were easy?
6. What are you carrying that isn't yours?
7. What's the version of today you'd tell a stranger?
8. What did you get through that you didn't think you would?
9. What would tomorrow-you like you to have written down about this?
10. What's the honest answer to "how are you"?
11. What do you need that you haven't asked for?
12. What ended today, even quietly?

A note on this section: writing something down is a good way to look at it, and a poor substitute for support if it's heavy and persistent. The difference is worth being clear about.

When it was a good day

1. What made you laugh out loud, and who was there?
2. What went better than you expected?
3. Who was unexpectedly kind?
4. What did you do today that past-you would be surprised by?
5. What's a detail from today you want to keep?
6. What felt easy that used to be hard?
7. Where were you when you noticed you were happy?
8. What did someone say that you'll think about again?
9. What did you say yes to?
10. What would make today repeatable?
11. Who deserves credit for part of today?
12. What's the photo you didn't take?

When you're restless

1. What are you avoiding by being busy?
2. What would you do with a completely free Saturday — actually, not aspirationally?
3. What have you outgrown?
4. What decision are you pretending is still open?
5. What would change if you stopped waiting for permission?
6. What's the boring version of the thing you want?
7. Which part of your week do you dread, and how long has that been true?
8. What did you use to do for hours that you never do now?
9. What would you attempt if it didn't have to be good?
10. What's the smallest possible first move?
11. Who's living a version of what you want, and what's actually in the way?
12. What are you the most out of practice at?

When something is ending

1. What do you want to remember exactly as it was?
2. What was the last ordinary time, before you knew it was the last?
3. What are you grateful you did?
4. What would you tell the version of you at the start of this?
5. What are you allowed to be relieved about?
6. What's the thing you'd want said about this period?
7. What are you taking with you?
8. What are you leaving behind on purpose?
9. Who was in this chapter that won't be in the next one?
10. What surprised you about how it went?
11. What's the first line of what comes next?
12. If this were a chapter in a book, what would it be called?

When you stop needing prompts

Most people need these for a few weeks and then quietly stop. What changes isn't discipline — it's that you start noticing during the day. A line someone says at 2pm gets filed away as that's going in tonight. At that point the prompt list has done its job, and the blank page stops being blank before you sit down.

Getting to that point is mostly a matter of keeping the entries small enough that you'll do them on a bad day.

And if the reason you stall isn't the prompt but the payoff — writing costs something and gives back nothing — Lore takes one sentence about your day and writes it back as a chapter of an ongoing story. Free on the homepage, no sign-up, nothing stored.