A gratitude journal is one of those things that is easy to start and surprisingly easy to abandon. The first week is fine. By the second, you are sitting with the book open writing my family, my health, coffee for the fourth night running, and the whole exercise starts to feel like homework you set yourself.
The thing that fixes it is not more discipline. It is a better question. “What are you grateful for?” is far too big to answer at half past ten at night; “which five minutes of today were entirely yours?” takes ten seconds and gets you somewhere new.
So here are fifty-two of them, grouped so you can pick by mood rather than work down a list. And because a prompt is more use on paper than on a screen, there are nine free printable pages to go with them — including twenty-four of these prompts as cut-out cards. Grab those just below, then read on.
Grab your free gratitude journal pages
Pop your email into the box below and I’ll send the nine printable pages straight over: a week to a page, a month to a page, a month in review, twenty-four cut-out prompt cards and one long open gratitude list.
What’s inside the free set
Nine A4 sheets, and each one does a different job:
- A week to a page. Seven day blocks, three ruled lines each. Three lines is a whole entry.
- A month to a page. One numbered line for every day from 1 to 31, for the nights when even three lines is too many.
- A month in review. Six longer prompts to fill in once a month rather than once a day.
- Three pages of cut-out prompt cards. Twenty-four cards, eight to a sheet, each with one prompt from this post and dotted cut lines.
- An open gratitude list. No dates, no structure, twenty-one ruled lines to fill slowly.
- A cover and a closing page with the printing notes on it.
How to use a prompt instead of staring at a blank page
Pick one prompt. Answer only that one. Do not read the rest of the list first, because choosing is the part that takes the time and the part that puts people off. If you have printed the cards, put them in a jar or a tin somewhere near the kettle and pull one out without looking.
Write specifically. “My sister” is a category; “my sister ringing at ten past eight to say the thing had gone all right” is a memory you will still be able to picture in five years. Specific is the entire difference between a journal you reread and one you do not.
Everyday prompts
- What made you pause today, even for a second?
- Which part of today would you happily live again?
- What went right that you had nothing to do with?
- Name one thing in the room you are glad is there.
- What did you eat today that you actually tasted?
- Which nagging little job did you finally finish?
- What was the weather doing, and did any of it suit you?
- Who made your day easier without being asked?
- What did you hear today that you would like to hear again?
- Which five minutes of today were entirely yours?
These ten are the workhorses. They are answerable on a completely ordinary Wednesday, which is the only kind of day most of us actually have to write about.
Prompts about people
- Who replied to you quickly this week when they did not have to?
- Whose handwriting do you recognise instantly?
- Which friendship survives on the least effort and still holds?
- Who taught you something you use every single week?
- Which stranger’s kindness do you still remember years later?
- Who would you ring first with good news?
- What has someone in your family always done for you that you have never thanked them for?
- Which neighbour, colleague or shopkeeper makes an ordinary errand nicer?
Gratitude aimed outwards is easier than gratitude aimed at your own life, and it tends to be truer. Several of these are worth answering out loud to the person involved, which is a different and better exercise.
Prompts about home and small comforts
- Which chair in your home is the good chair, and what makes it good?
- What object in your house has outlived three different homes?
- Which mug do you reach for first, and where did it come from?
- What is the best-smelling thing in your kitchen right now?
- Which corner of your home do you tidy when you want to feel better?
- What did you buy second-hand that turned out to be exactly right?
- Which lamp or window is your favourite at this time of year?
- What is the warmest thing you own?
Prompts about your body and your senses
- What has your body let you do this week without being asked twice?
- Which ache has quietly gone away since last month?
- What did you touch today that felt good — paper, fabric, water, fur?
- Which colour have you seen most often this week, and did you like it?
- What tasted better than you expected it to?
- When did you last laugh until it was difficult to stop?
- Which part of getting ready for bed do you look forward to?
Sensory entries age better than any others. A line about the smell of a particular October evening will bring back more of that month than a list of achievements ever does.
Prompts about making things
- What did you make this month, however small or wonky?
- Which art supply are you glad you own, even though you rarely reach for it?
- What did you draw or paint badly and enjoy anyway?
- Whose work have you seen lately that sent you off to make something?
- Which skill are you noticeably better at than you were a year ago?
- What did a mistake in a sketchbook teach you this year?
- Which page in one of your notebooks would you be sorry to lose?
- What would you make if nobody was ever going to see it?
If you draw, paint or make anything at all, this group is the one that will surprise you. Creative work is oddly hard to feel grateful for while you are doing it — you are usually busy noticing what is wrong with it — and these questions catch it from the other side. If you want more of that kind of thing, there are 101 art journal prompts on the blog already.
Prompts for harder days
- What small thing made a hard day slightly less hard?
- Which worry from last month turned out smaller than it looked?
- What did you say no to, and what did that no protect?
- Who let you be quiet without asking why?
- What is easier now than it was this time last year?
- Which difficult thing are you glad is behind you rather than ahead of you?
On a genuinely bad day, drop the bar rather than the habit. One line is enough, and a line that says the tea was hot is a real entry.
Prompts for looking back and looking forward
- What did this year give you that you never asked for?
- Which decision from five years ago are you still benefiting from?
- Which version of you would be most surprised by where you are now?
- What are you looking forward to that is already in the diary?
- What would you like more of next month, and what small thing would start it?
How often should you actually write?
Less often than you think, and more regularly. Daily works if the daily entry stays tiny — one line, three at most. Weekly works better for most people, because a week gives you something to choose from. What does not work is deciding to write five hundred words every night, because the first evening you cannot face it becomes the evening you stop.
Whatever you pick, never backfill. Missing four days is nothing; sitting down to “catch up” on four days turns the journal into a debt, and a journal that owes you something is a journal you will avoid. Start again from today’s date and leave the gap where it is.
Where to keep it so it actually gets used
Wherever you already stop moving. Bedside table, kitchen windowsill, the bag that goes everywhere with you. A beautiful journal in a drawer is a beautiful drawer ornament. If the pages live in a junk journal you are already keeping, better still — the habit borrows the one you have.
A pen has to live with it. Hunting for something to write with is enough friction to end a habit that is only a fortnight old.
Printing the pages so they come out right
Nine times out of ten a printable that comes out small, pale or crooked is a settings problem rather than a file problem:
- Turn off Fit to Page and print at 100% or Actual Size. This is the usual culprit, and on the card pages it is what pulls the cut lines out of true.
- Choose A4, not Letter, unless you are happy with a margin shaved off one edge.
- Ordinary printer paper is fine for the daily pages. The prompt cards last much better on 160gsm or thin card, because they get handled every day.
- Print one sheet first to check the size before you run the whole set.
If you print a lot of templates and would like the paper weights and printer settings on one page, there is a longer guide on printing templates at home without jamming your printer.
Prompts, ideas and layouts are not the same thing
Worth separating, because the two get muddled constantly. Prompts are the questions you answer — the fifty-two above. Ideas and layouts are the structure of the book itself: what a spread looks like, how a month is laid out, whether you are writing lists or sticking things in. This post is entirely the first kind. If you want the second, the bullet journal layouts post covers the structural side.
Frequently asked questions
How many prompts are in this post?
Fifty-two, in seven groups. Twenty-four of them are also printed as cut-out cards in the free set.
Do I have to use a prompt every time?
No. Prompts are scaffolding for the nights when nothing comes. Plenty of entries will not need one, and the moment writing runs on its own, put the cards away.
Can I use these with children?
The everyday and senses groups work well from about seven upwards, especially out loud at bedtime rather than written down. The harder-days group is better left for later.
What if the same answer keeps coming up?
Then it is probably true, and worth writing anyway. If the repetition bothers you, add one rule: nothing you have already written this month. It forces the specific version of the same gratitude, which is usually the better entry.
Can I print the pages more than once?
As many times as you like, for yourself, your family and your classroom. Please do not sell them or pass the file on — send people here instead and they can get their own copy.
Is a gratitude journal the same as a diary?
Not quite. A diary records what happened; a gratitude journal records what you were glad about, which is a much shorter and much more selective piece of writing. Many people keep both in the same book.
Before you go
Print the card pages tonight and cut out three of them — just three. Put them where you make tea. That is a five-minute job and it is the part that decides whether any of this happens.
And if you like making your own paper things, all my printable kits live in the Artsydee Creations Club, with a new one every month.