#historical methods
6 templates tagged #historical-methods — every page here names its sources and is curated by Tiago Martins. All resources →
Ryder Carroll's bullet journal reflectionRyder Carroll · 2018Ryder Carroll's Bullet Journal is best known for its bullets and migration, but the part that makes it a journal rather than a to-do list is the daily reflection: looking back at yesterday's log and asking what actually still deserves your attention today.
Marcus Aurelius' journaling promptsMarcus Aurelius · c. 170-180 CEMarcus Aurelius began the day by rehearsing it rather than reviewing it: naming the difficult people he expected to meet, and reminding himself what the day's work actually was. It is a bracing practice, not a comforting one, and it takes about five minutes.
Julia Cameron's morning pagesJulia Cameron · 1992, and daily sinceMorning pages are three pages of longhand writing, done first thing in the morning, about whatever is in your head. There is no prompt and no subject. Julia Cameron's whole point is that you write past the interesting part and keep going until the pages are full.
James Pennebaker's expressive writingJames W. Pennebaker · 1986, and studied ever sinceExpressive writing is fifteen to twenty minutes of continuous writing about your deepest thoughts and feelings on a single difficult experience, repeated on four consecutive days and then stopped. James Pennebaker devised it in the 1980s and has written about it ever since.
The Ignatian examenthe Ignatian tradition · 1548, and daily sinceThe examen is a five-point review of the day that Ignatius of Loyola set out in the Spiritual Exercises: give thanks, ask for light, walk back through the hours, face what went wrong, and resolve what to do next. Jesuits have kept it daily for nearly five hundred years.
Benjamin Franklin's journaling promptsBenjamin Franklin · the practice from 1726; the Autobiography written 1771-1790Benjamin Franklin opened each day by asking what good he would do, and closed it by asking what good he had done — his own words, written into the daily schedule he called the Scheme. This template keeps the morning question verbatim and asks the evening one the next morning, about yesterday.
