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Episode 18: The One-Sentence Journal

Writer's picture: Tina BoogrenTina Boogren

Description: Discover the simplicity and power of starting a one sentence journal to build a meaningful daily habit.


Resources: Explore resources from Gretchen Rubin on her website. Read Atomic Habits by James Clear.


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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to Self-Care for Educators. I am your host, Dr. Tina Boogren. This is season 5, episode 18, and this week's invitation is to start a one sentence journal. I am a huge, huge, huge journaler. Um, but admittedly I kind of go in phases. I will journal a lot and then I kind of get away from it and then I journal again. And I really wanna be consistent with journaling. And so one of the commitments that I made for myself in 2025 is to journal every day. And the way that I am going to do that is- my commitment is that it just has to be one sentence. So of course for me, sometimes it will be a lot more, but it doesn't have to be.


And there's something that's really amazing about just writing one sentence. This idea of a one sentence journal I first heard about from Gretchen Rubin. So Gretchen Rubin is someone that I mention a lot. She's such an inspiration to me. Um, she's an author and a podcaster. Um, I love her book, The Happiness Project and Better Than Before, and she has a great podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, and she talks in quite a few episodes just, and in fact, she created an actual one sentence journal. 


But the idea is so, so simple. It's literally, keep a journal. It can be your own notebook, and you just have to write one sentence each day. And I think that there's something so amazing about actually just writing one sentence a day. So deciding, like, what to write in just one sentence can be pretty cool, right? So, recording the most vital thing about that day, or even if it's just a mundane day, writing about it. Because, picture it's 25 years from now, and you go back and you pick up this journal, or your child picks up your journal, and what seems so mundane to you will feel so incredible 25 years from now. Right? 


Like, so I just think that there's something so uniquely special about that. In fact, to the point that as I'm even saying this out loud, I kind of want to have a separate just one sentence journal that's very different from my journals where I write a lot of stuff. I think there's something really cool about that. In fact, I think you can even just buy all sorts of I know, like I said, Gretchen Rubin sells one, but there's all sorts of, I've seen them at Barnes and Noble, just one sentence journals, but even just a spiral notebook. There's something very appealing about that or a composition notebook. 


Or what if you and your child, as a nighttime routine, did this together. And you got to decide what do you want to record as your one sentence for the day. Or, if you've got a really young kiddo, you get to decide the thing that you want to write. And then you give this journal to your kiddo when they get older. Or you do this with your partner, or you just, you do this in relation to your classroom, or to your school, or to whatever job it is that you have. Or you do this in relation to a goal that you have, one sentence in relation to that thing that you're working on. Um, lots of ways to consider what you do.  


Maybe you write down the funniest thing that you heard, said, or saw in your class today, or in your school today. Or maybe you use it as your one thing that you are grateful for, or one hmm, delight that you discovered today, or you write down the most inspiring thing that you discovered, or the one kindest thing that you did or saw that day, or what you ate for breakfast every day. I don't know. What you wore each day. Wouldn't that be cool to have like 25 years from now? 


I don't know. I just think there's so many variations on this. And gosh, if I were still an English teacher, I think that I would have my students do this. This just appeals to me in so many ways. Um, you could do it as a drawing, right? Um, I always think in terms of words, because I'm a word person, but what if you drew a picture each day? Um, I kind of do this, many of you know. I take lots of photos each day, but I use my one second everyday app to record delights and gratitude. Um, so it's kind of like a photo diary that I have, but you could do a drawing. 


But just, here's the appeal is that it's just the one sentence. So this goes back to the advice that we talk about all the time from James Clear and his phenomenal book Atomic Habits of make something so small that we can't not do it. Right? So my commitment to journal every day, if I make it just one sentence that literally, if I forget to do it, I could get out of bed and go get my journal to write one sentence, right? I could pick up my phone and put it in my notes so that I can transfer it to my journal the next day. Like I can't not do this. It's so small. So it doesn't mean that I have to write a whole paragraph. I don't have to write, you know, a whole page. It's not this huge commitment. In fact, it's so small. Um, that I can do it at any time and do it every single day. 


And what is it that I want to record? Um, as you heard me say in the last episode, I turn 50 this year and so I keep thinking about what do I want to record in this, my 50th year as I approach this big kind of milestone birthday. What is it that I want to record every single day as I think about how I move into this?


So lots of ways to play around with that. So I wanted to throw that out there. I meet a lot of people that talk about, oh, I wish I kept a journal or journaling is something that I wish I do and I just, I've never gotten started or I get started and then I move away from it or I stop doing it. And so I think that there's a whole bunch of people that might find the one sentence journal idea as a good kind of, starting place. And it doesn't have to be anything fancy. You don't have to go buy a special journal. I mean, you got a notebook. I'm certain of it laying around. Um, pick up an old spiral notebook and get started on it. You can even, of course, obviously I always like the paper products. You can do this, obviously, on your phone or on your computer. You can do this digitally, of course, as well. 


But there you go. That's what I want you to try out this week if it appeals to you. Remember, these are invitations. They're just that. They're invitations. You can say yes and you can always say no. You have the right to do that. 


As always, I'm cheering so stinking hard for you. Thank you so much, Adrienne. Uh, we're so grateful for you. Thank you to Marzano Resources and Solution Tree. And thank you to you, my badass self care squad. I'm cheering so hard for you.  I hope some of you really take me up on this invitation and that it proves to be one that really kind of changes your life. make it a great week you guys, I love you.  

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