14 gratitude journal prompts for appreciating the everyday

The 14 questions

Ordinary things you pass before you notice them.

1. What ordinary thing gave you pleasure today?
2. What everyday thing turned out to be good today?
3. Which small thing do you want to remember?
4. What simply worked today — the tap, the bus, the internet — and made the day easier?
5. What taste or smell stopped you for a moment today?
6. Which fixed point of the day brought a quiet pleasure today?
7. Whose ordinary work made your life easier today?
8. What did rest look like today — and what made it possible?
9. If one ordinary comfort of today disappeared, which would you miss most?
10. What was free today and still brought joy?
11. What ordinary view — from a window, at a bus stop, over a cup — was worth pausing for?
12. What small past decision made today easier?
13. Which moment of today would have made a good photo, though no one took one?
14. Which ordinary thing from these fourteen steps turned out to be the least ordinary?

The ordinary is easy to stop seeing

We stop seeing what works. The tap gives water, the bus comes, the internet connects. Nobody writes that down. These questions do.

They move from the plain to the less obvious. Question 4 asks what simply worked today: the tap, the bus, the internet. Question 7 asks whose ordinary work made your life easier. Somebody drove that bus. Somebody fixed that pipe.

Later questions look at small pleasures and small choices. Question 10 asks what was free today and still brought joy. Question 12 asks what small past decision made today easier: a bag packed the night before, a habit you kept, a call you made last week.

The last question closes the path with a turn: “Which ordinary thing from these fourteen steps turned out to be the least ordinary?”

How to answer them

Look for one thing, not a list. One clear detail is worth more than five vague ones.

Use your senses. Question 5 asks about a taste or a smell. Question 11 asks about a view from a window, at a bus stop, over a cup. Name what you saw or smelled, as if you were telling someone who was not there.

Do not wait for a special day. These questions work best on a day when nothing happened. That is the point: the day still held something worth keeping.

If you want to go one step further, add a sentence on why it mattered. Why was the coffee good today? Perhaps because, for once, you drank it slowly.

Small things in research

Questions 3, 4 and 10 come from the “gratitude journal” exercise. In it, you write down up to five things, large and small, that you feel grateful for.

In a 2003 study, people who kept such a journal weekly for 10 weeks rated their lives better than those who wrote about hassles (Emmons and McCullough, 2003 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). The questions here ask about one small thing at a time.

Where to go next

If the ordinary things you notice are mostly sounds, light and weather, try the prompts for noticing the seasons. If they are mostly people, try the prompts for feeling closer to people. To set up the habit itself, read how to start a gratitude journal.

On a path in the app

These are the questions of the first path in the theme “Appreciate the everyday”. In GratefulMe you answer them one at a time, at your own pace: the next question comes once you answer the one before. After step 7 and step 14 the path pauses for a reflection on your own answers, and the theme goes on with further paths. Steps 1–7 are free; Premium adds the reflections and steps 8–14.