How I Practice Gratitude With a "Max-Lazy" Gratitude Journal

Reading time: 1.5 min

Summary:

• Practising gratitude is an evidence-based way to raise happiness.
• After trying numerous methods, I now use my task manager as my gratitude journal.
• There are numerous benefits to this task manager method (high habit consistency, benefits of digital, delight of easy cross-day review of daily wins/gratitude).

There's evidence that practising gratitude raises your happiness and emotional well-being.

Practising gratitude is simply recognising and appreciating something in your life.

Keeping a gratitude journal is a way of practising gratitude.

I've tried these methods of keeping a gratitude journal:

1. Typing one up in my digital notes app (Standard Notes) (one note per day and one line per day both tried)
2. Keeping a physical gratitude note book (I have the Kurzgesagt one (link to their store))
3. Scribbling on a piece of scrap paper (at work) and taking a photo of it
4. Writing a line for a task in my Task Manager (Todoist).

I found number 4, using my Task Manager the best way to do it.

This is the method that I found the quickest, easiest, and most consistent habit-wise.

It opens the quickest, synchronises across all my devices, and I often look at it.

I keep a task called "Gratitude/Wins sheet", and I just add a new line (and date) in the description/comments section every day.

A few benefits to this method:

• I'm often reminded as a side effect of checking my tasks for the day.
• There is minimal friction, less barriers to action, which made me much more consistent at practising this habit. Max-lazy.
• It's digital, I can search entries.
• It's digital, I can copy it into my notes database for archival and future re-visiting.
• One-line-per-day means I can get a very quick glance at my highlights across the month. A unexpected delight.
• One line means minimal effort required. Minimal friction. Max-lazy.