# Today, I started and finished "Steal Like an Artist" by Austin Kleon which I received as a Christmas present. In it, Kleon advocates keeping a daily log.
This has also been mentioned by my good friend Patrick Rhone:
My daily log is where I record the things I actually did and note important things that were/are not on my calendar.
It's easy to remember the bad things that happen each day, what upsets us, what we can moan about; instead, Kleon quotes the novelist Nicholson Baker:
If you ask yourself "What's the best thing that happened today?" it actually forces a certain kind of cheerful retrospection that pulls up from the recent past things to write about that you wouldn't otherwise think about.
It's positive framing, a way to focus on the good stuff which, for someone like me who is inclined to dwell on the negative, can only be a good thing:
- What did I do?
- What did I enjoy?
- What did I see?
- What did I hear?
- What made me happy?
- What did I make?
- What ideas did I have?
I got a Moleskine Product Red notebook for Christmas a couple of years ago which has lain unused ever since; I now have a use for it - starting today. One of the front matter pages in the Moleskine says the following:
Every morning when we wake, we have an entire day ahead of us. A day to think, act, create and do. A lot can be achieved in one day.
The trick is remembering it all!
@colinwalker I am a Kleon devotee. His recent post 100 things that made my year (2019) does a great job of demonstrating the fruits of keeping a daily log.
@kimberlyhirsh Indeed, that was a great post. My memory is awful so this seems like a great way to combat that.
@colinwalker I've been using a Moleskine notebook as a bullet journal/daily log for a while now. I like the combination of logging what I've done and noting down tasks, so that it becomes something I mentally move back and forward through - memories and prompts.