The Video
The Not Exactly Word-for-word Transcript
This is a transcript that I think is more understandable to an AI than a pure transcript. I used it to get Claude to shit out help create the Obsidian daily note template below.
Journaling is one of those things that massively changed my life. But there is a problem with it. There is a lot of hype, but there isn’t that much instruction. The general message is journal and it’ll change your life. And so you sit down at a blank page and uh… Now what? Should I start with Dear Diary? Do I talk about my day? Do I talk about my childhood? Am I allowed to use this for a shopping list? What are the rules? If you’ve ever wondered why journaling isn’t doing that life-changing thing that it’s meant to, or even if you love journaling, and you’re looking to love it more, then I make this video for you.
But first, I should probably explain the title: “The Vomit System”. To me, journaling is vomiting. So you know when you’re really really sick, maybe you’ve got windy roads, maybe you got plastered last night. I don’t know. For whatever reason, you’re just not feeling good, and then you vomit, and you kind of do feel good. In the moment, vomiting is pretty gross, but just after you’re like, “Oh, I feel better. I think that was what I needed.”
I’ve journaled for 15 years, which means I’ve tried hundreds of techniques. Some are great, others not great, but the good stuff stays with you. And in this video, I want to take you through that good stuff. My all-time favorite journaling techniques, and the system that I think about them in. The Vomit System. Alright, let’s do it.
These are the five main reasons that I journal. One reason starts with V, another reason starts with O, then M, then I, then T, and the entire topic starts with J. So if you’re playing along with the alphabet superset, this video is J.
Now let’s talk about vomit. I feel like I’m going to keep saying that. First reason. I journal to vent. I’ve also made this the first reason because this is how I started journaling. And it’s how I started a lot of journaling sessions. I’ll show you what I mean. Vent. Write what makes you angry. This is a quote from the writer Poe Bronson who said, “Whenever he has writer’s block, he just thinks of something that, you know, makes him mad.” And it’s not that he’s trying to write a rant, it’s just that rants come pretty easy, you know? It just rolls right out of you. I start with whatever makes me angry and that usually gets me over that hurdle of starting.
As much as venting is a tool to get us into the flow, it does have some practical benefits. One of the big ones is the mind dump effect. So before journaling, I kind of see my mind is full of scribbled lines. Afterwards, my mind is clear and my thoughts are organized are on the page. It’s this indexing effect. Things are chaotic up in my brain. Things are not chaotic on the page. There’s this quote that I like. “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking.” Apparently Joan Didion and like 30 other people said that. But regardless of its origin, I really like its meaning. Because basically what we’re trying to do is get all of this mess out of our mind and put it on paper. And paper, it’s finite, it’s trivial, it’s clean. We can sort of see what’s going on.
The thing that I liken it to is looking for your keys. If you were looking for your keys in a dark room, probably wouldn’t find them. As soon as you turn on the light, you’re like, “Oh, got ’em.” When my thoughts are disorganized inside my mind, it is like when the lights are off. I have no idea what’s going on up there. When I put your thoughts down on paper, this is when the lights are on and I’m like, “Oh, there’s that nasty thought. There’s that cognitive distortion. Maybe I’m not a train wreck.” And that is vent. The first thing that I like to journal for.
Next, we have O for “Obligations”. Specifically to make sure our obligations aren’t just rogue intrusive thoughts that just bug us throughout the day. And also to get them done. This step is similar to venting in the sense that we are mind dumping. But the big difference is we are not just mind dumping our thoughts, but our responsibilities. Our to-do list. We’re just trying to–I’m gonna say it again–vomit it onto the page. The idea here is that we don’t want to use our brain to store problems. We want to use it to solve problems. And in order to free up that space, we want to put all of our problems onto the journal. Also, if you want to explore just how far you can take this indexing idea, just taking your thoughts and putting them somewhere else, check out Thiago Forte’s concept of the second brain. Super fascinating stuff.
Alright, let’s get into actionables. When I am using journaling for obligations, what I do is these four things. So firstly, I start with an obligation dump. This is where it’s like anything that could remotely be considered an obligation. Everything from, “I need to write this chapter”, “I need to get this film developed”, “I need to clean the kitchen”, “I need to reply to this email”, “I need to update my license”, “I want to buy a boat”. Everything from the mundane to the grandiose, just get it all on the page. Next, I organize it. I usually just split this up into broad categories. You know, like “family”, “finance”, “health”, “work”.
Now we get to step three: “prioritize”. You probably know the story about a UK rowing team that won gold one year. When the coach was asked what the secret formula was, he said, “I just gave them all one guiding question: ‘Does make the boat go faster?’” For example, which are you going to eat for breakfast, broccoli or cake? Instead of having to mull over all of the pros and cons, the team were just encouraged to ask one question: “Will it make the boat go faster?” Therefore, pick the broccoli. In terms of journaling and organizing all of these obligations in the to-do list, I usually run it past a guiding question. There’s a decent Tim Ferriss question that I like for this. It’s, “Which thing on this list, if done, would make everything else easier?” And that usually rises the correct obligations to the top.
And then finally, I put it into a to-do list form. That’s what I’ve got right here: “bare minimum” and “killing it”. This is how I truncate my to-do lists. I write out the bare minimum that I need to do that day. What is the least amount of things that I need to do in order to make tomorrow suck a little less? And then “killing it” means, “What could I get done if I’m really in the mood?” I’ve used this split system for years and what I really like is it minimizes the guilt that you might place on yourself if you don’t get enough stuff done. It creates momentum because the bars set low so you do achieve stuff. It accounts for the normal ebbs and flows of life. Some days are really, really hard. And on those days it is really nice to know what the bare minimum that you have to do is.
And that brings us to M. The next thing that I like to use journaling for. I use journaling for my “mindset”. I like to understand mindset in two ways. The first way is with a tech metaphor. Your mindset is like the operating system that your brain runs. And the second is something that you can train. But training your mindset is one of those phrases that just doesn’t sound like it’s going to lead anywhere. Super vague. What do you do with that? What’s the action that you take? And this is where journaling comes in.
I’ve got six journaling techniques that I will use from time to time to improve my mindset. And from 15 years of journaling, I’d say that these are probably my favorites. The first one, “reframing”. My favorite journaling question is, “How is this the best thing that has ever happened to me?” And I’ve asked that about some deeply, deeply painful things. And it feels so inappropriate. But the thing about your brain is it just starts looking for answers. When you ask that question, your brain is like, “It could be this, it could be this, it could be this…” It gets wrong every time, but it starts breaking your thinking and it helps train your mindset to just naturally reframe stuff.
Next one, “possibility”. If you are struggling with limiting beliefs or just doubting yourself, it might be worth checking out “because” statements. What’s a “because statement”? A “because statement” is a way that we gather evidence that we are whatever the thing that we say we want to be is. Because it’s not like you can yell affirmations at yourself and just have your identity change. For example, you’re trying to be healthier. You can’t just yell in the mirror, I am healthy, I am healthy, I am healthy. Instead, we want to build a tangible bank of evidence that we’re healthy. Write the identity statement, one that you might want to yell in the mirror, such as, “I am healthy”. Then, you write “because” and then at the end of the day, you find a few reasons that actually validate this from your day.
This works on three levels. Firstly, it’s positive because you do start to actually piece together the evidence. And that’s the thing that will cause change and actually creates new possibilities. Secondly, I’ve found that this will make me create evidence. You know, if I’m like, “I am sober because…” If I want to finish that sentence, I’ve got to stay sober. And then thirdly, it can actually be a half-decent reality check. So if I’m like, “I am six foot four because…” Well, I’m not six foot four. It’s just not going to happen.
The next journaling technique that I use to train my mindset is “inversion”. For me, what this is about is practicing a reaction that I want to have to problems in my everyday life. And that reaction is to look at the solution, but also look at what the opposite of the solution is. But why? Well, the reason I want this is because I find that it makes the solution to things really, really obvious. To the point where not doing them looks quite dumb. An example would be, let’s say I want to draw more. It’s a bit of an open ended problem to solve, but with the inversion, you sort of get a better direction. So while asking, “How can I draw more?”, we’re also asking, “How can I draw less?” To draw less, I could leave my books where I can’t see them. I could put my pencils in the cupboard so there’s more friction. And I could spend any window of time that I have on my phone. Immediately, I realize what I’m doing wrong, which I find gets me to the answer of what to do right a lot faster. In a journaling prompt context, this is just about taking whatever question it is that you’re asking and asking the opposite.
Next technique for mindset training is “perspective”. You know that whole phenomenon that other people’s problems are easier to solve than your own? Like when your friend has a conundrum and they’re like, “What do I do? What do I do?” And everyone’s like, “Obviously you do this. You just do this, man.” But they still deliberate and it’s not as clear as it is to everybody else. And it makes sense, obviously. You know, they’re the ones who actually have to live it. They’re the ones with all the nuance. Whereas the people giving the advice have the luxury of not getting caught in the details and perspective. And that is what we can practice. Giving ourselves perspective. So the journaling prompt here is, “If you were a friend who was giving you advice on this situation right now, and you really, really wanted you to succeed, what advice would you give?” We are practicing looking outside ourselves in order to help ourselves.
Next up, we have “discipline”. This is a bit of a meta tool because it’s not about a journaling prompt, but just the entire action of journaling. So just like with “because” statements, discipline is something that is evidence based. You know, you have to build that up in order for you to believe that you actually are disciplined. It’s one of those things that you’ve got to practice when things aren’t easy as well. But this really, really helped me out a lot. I did experiment where every time I went to look at social media, I switched the placement of the app. So then my muscle memory just naturally opened the notes app. And then I was like, “Well, I’m here. I guess I have to journal.” And it was really cool because switching from something that pacifies your brain to something that gets you to actively reflect on what your brain is doing, it just fast tracked this entire process.
The mindset thing that we can use journaling to practice, the one that everybody knows: “gratitude”. Easy prompt: “What are three things that you’re grateful for today?” If you want to spice it up, you can add a bonus prompt. Like, the first thing you’re grateful for is something mundane. Make the second thing something that happened by chance. And for your third thing, something that you made happen. Write them down and watch your brain gets swole.
The next thing that I use journaling for is to “ideate”. The skill of having ideas is one of those things where I don’t know, there’s so much messaging about it being a innate. And if you don’t have it, you can’t do it. That’s just not true. You can absolutely work on having ideas. You can build that muscle up strong. And journaling, I think, is a really great environment to do this.
Let’s say you’ve got a problem that you’re trying to solve. Maybe it’s a big problem. Like, “Where do I want to live?” Or a creative problem like, “What should I draw today?” Or even a problem of, “What do I want to do on the weekend?” Whatever it is, and there is always something. What I like to do is put on a timer for five minutes and then challenge myself to come up with 30 answers before the timer goes off. You know that phrase, “If you want a kitten, ask for a horse?” This is like the cognitive version of that. If I want one solution, I’ve got to come up with 30. And usually I find it’s like the 14th idea that I go with. One thing that I find really important is just don’t edit the list until it’s over. It’s a quantity game.
The second technique that I like to use to ideate is, “How would _ solve the problem?”. And that could be anybody. I learned this when I worked in advertising. My first year I was working for this amazing creative director. And every time we’d get a brief he’d say things like, “What would Nike do? How would Red Bull solve this problem?” And every single time it would just break our thinking in the best way possible. You can substitute this with anything. It’s sort of the basis of, “What would Jesus do?”, I guess.
And then the third technique for ideating that I like using is, “Open the loop”. We like closing the loop. Well, our brains do. Our brains love to close the question loop. If a question is posed, our brains want to answer them. “How many regular sized ducks could you fit in a Kia Carnival?” I’ve just opened a loop. It’s a question out of nowhere, but it still opens a loop in your brain. Your brain’s just naturally going to the size of a duck and then the volume of a minivan. And it is just keen to get to the answer. It wants the resolve. And we can use this so much in our journaling.
If there’s a question that’s on your mind, ask the question. Just write it down and your brain will naturally try to close the loop. This technique I find really good when I’m really struggling with a problem. And the way that I do it is I’ll write down the question just before I go to bed, then I go to sleep. And then hopefully I wake up and I try to answer it. And for me, at least, it works more often than it doesn’t. Close the loop.
Speaking of closing the loop, it’s time for our final letter in the vomit system, T. “Trajectory”. Yeah, I use journaling to get a good sense of my trajectory and also to tweak it as I go. I split trajectory up into “direction” and “day-to-day”. What I’ve got here is two different journaling techniques. One’s for the macro, one’s for the micro. “Direction” is a pretty well known prompt, but here’s how it goes. To make sure that we are on the right direction, we have our goal up here. Let’s say it’s a financial one. “I want to save a thousand bucks.” Then you look at the day that you’ve just had or the week that you’ve just had, whatever the time period is. And you ask whether you’re moving away from that goal or towards that goal. To answer this, you compile evidence. So evidence for away could be like, “I got Uber Eats. That wasn’t wise.” Evidence for towards could be, “I cancelled eight subscriptions that I’ve forgotten about.” Or, “I resisted the urge to impulse buy.” Whatever it is. Then you just adjust accordingly. So if you’re moving away, you sort of tweak that behavior. If you’re moving towards, just keep it up. Ordered Uber Eats? Delete the Uber Eats app. You can put your save money into savings. You can write down what you learnt so it helps you in the future. If you’re doing good. Double down.
And then our final journaling technique for today is about getting the day to day “hidden metrics”. So we’ve got visible metrics, things like money. Then we’ve got hidden metrics, things like “happiness”, “fulfillment”, “peace of mind”. And the problem when these are hidden is they can get ignored. And this can lead to all sorts of misery pretty quick. Like people choosing to work a little longer instead of spending time with their kids. Because the dollar, we can count. But the quality of the relationship, we can’t. But just because the metric is hidden doesn’t mean that it is any less important. But what helps with these hidden metrics is making them visible.
This is where journaling comes back in and actually starts creating change. These three questions, it’s one of my favorite journaling prompts. But basically, at the end of every day, you ask yourself these three questions: “What excited me today?” “What drained me of energy?” and, “What did I learn?” If you do this for 30 days you will get seriously good data on yourself. Honestly you’ll see the patterns in about five days and you’ll be like, “Alright, I get the idea. I gotta do some stuff.”
And this concludes the vomit system. Thank you very much for watching, I hope you enjoyed that. Also if anybody has any cool journaling prompts, chuck them in the comments. Because I really like collecting them, I just think they’re fun. But yeah, hope you enjoyed the video, hope you have a beautiful day. And vomit.
A Obsdian-compatible Daily Note Template
…and a work in progress.
```markdown
---
created: <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
modification date: <% tp.file.last_modified_date("dddd Do MMMM YYYY HH:mm:ss") %>
tags: journal, daily
type: journal
---
<!-- Gentle reminder: Fill what serves you today. Not every section needs input every day. -->
# Daily Journal - <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
```dataviewjs
// Navigation between daily notes
var none = '(none)';
var p = dv.pages('"' + dv.current().file.folder + '"').where(p => p.file.day).map(p => [p.file.name, p.file.day.toISODate()]).sort(p => p[1]);
var t = dv.current().file.day ? dv.current().file.day.toISODate() : luxon.DateTime.now().toISODate();
var format = app['internalPlugins']['plugins']['daily-notes']['instance']['options']['format'] || 'YYYY-MM-DD';
var current = '(' + moment(t).format(format) + ')';
var nav = [];
var today = p.find(p => p[1] == t);
var next = p.find(p => p[1] > t);
var prev = undefined;
p.forEach(function (p, i) {
if (p[1] < t) {
prev = p;
}
});
nav.push(prev ? '[[' + prev[0] + ']]' : none);
nav.push(today ? today[0] : current);
nav.push(next ? '[[' + next[0] + ']]' : none);
dv.paragraph(nav[0] + ' ← ' + nav[1] + ' → ' + nav[2]);
```
## Age Milestone Countdown
<%*
function calculateRetirementCountdown() {
const birthDate = new Date('1970-01-01');
const today = new Date(); // Get current date
// Create retirement date (month/day preserved)
const retirementDate = new Date(birthDate);
retirementDate.setFullYear(birthDate.getFullYear() + 65);
// Handle case where retirement date has already passed
if (today > retirementDate) return "Already reached retirement age!";
// Calculate time difference
const timeDiff = retirementDate.getTime() - today.getTime();
// Calculate days/weeks
const daysDiff = Math.ceil(timeDiff / (1000 * 3600 * 24));
const weeksDiff = Math.floor(daysDiff / 7);
return `Days until 65: ${daysDiff}\nWeeks until 65: ${weeksDiff}`;
}
const output = calculateRetirementCountdown();
%>
<% output %>
## 📊 HEALTH TRACKER
### Metrics
- **Sleep**: ___ hrs:min, Sleep score: _/100
- **Medication**: ✓/✗ at 00:00
### Blood Pressure
- Readings
1. xxx/xxx, xxx BPM, 00:00
2. xxx/xxx, xxx BPM, 00:00
3. xxx/xxx, xxx BPM, 00:00
---
### Brain Dump
<!-- Get everything out of your head -->
- [ ]
- [ ]
- [ ]
### Process Brain Dump (Quick Scan)
<!-- Decide: Do Now (add to Priorities/Schedule), Schedule Later, Delegate, Defer (to backlog/maybe list), Delete? -->
- [ ] Processed today's dump
---
## 🎯 TODAY'S PLAN
### Today's Intention
<!-- What do you want to focus on or embody today? -->
### Key Focus (One Thing)
<!-- If you only accomplish one thing today, what should it be? -->
- [ ]
### Financial Admin (5 min focus)
<!-- Quick check of bills, bank balance, etc. -->
- [ ] Check bank balance (1 min)
- [ ] Identify ONE money task/bill to review later (2 min)
### Top 1-3 Priorities (Est. time: __ )
<!-- Your most important tasks for today -->
1. [ ]
2. [ ]
3. [ ]
## ⚡ QUICK CAPTURE
### Today's Schedule
<!-- Time blocks or key events -->
```
06:00 -
09:00 -
12:00 -
15:00 -
18:00 -
21:00 -
```
## 🔄 TASK MANAGER
### Must Do
<!-- Tasks that MUST be done today -->
- [ ]
- [ ]
### Should Do
<!-- Important tasks to aim to complete today -->
- [ ]
- [ ]
### Could Do
<!-- Lower priority tasks, if time/energy allows -->
- [ ]
- [ ]
<!-- Consider using context tags (e.g., @Computer, @Home, @Errands, @Calls) to group tasks and make them easier to action when you're in a specific context or location. -->
### Weekly Goals Progress
<!-- Connect daily tasks to weekly objectives -->
- **Goal 1**:
- Progress:
- **Goal 2**:
- Progress:
## 💭 MINDSET (Choose One)
<!-- Select just ONE mindset technique that's most relevant today -->
**Today I'll use:** Gratitude (or choose: Reframing, Perspective, Inversion, Possibility)
### Reframing
<!-- How is a current challenge actually beneficial? -->
**Challenge:**
**Potential benefit:**
### Perspective
<!-- What would you tell a friend in your situation? -->
**Challenge:**
**Advice to a friend:**
### Inversion
<!-- How would you guarantee failure? -->
**Goal:**
**Ways to fail:**
1.
2.
### Gratitude
1. Something small:
2. Something meaningful:
### Possibility
**I am _____________ because:**
1.
2.
## 🧠 ADHD SUPPORT
### Today's Challenges (Energy: Low / Med / High)
<!-- Rate 1-5 (1=struggling, 5=excellent) -->
- Focus: _/5
- Task completion: _/5
- Time awareness: _/5
- Emotional regulation: _/5
- Need Body Doubling today? Y/N - For what task? ______
### Strategies
**What's working:**
**One strategy adjustment I'll try today:**
## 📝 DAILY REFLECTION
<!-- Complete at the end of the day -->
### Wins & Achievements
-
-
### Challenges & Learnings
-
-
### Tomorrow's Prep
<!-- Set up for success tomorrow -->
- [ ]
- [ ]
## 📔 HABIT TRACKER
<!-- Add/modify habits that you're currently focusing on -->
- [ ] Water (2L+)
- [ ] Movement/Exercise
- [ ] Meditation/Mindfulness
- [ ] Reading
- [ ] Limit screen time
---
### Notes created today
```dataview
List FROM "" WHERE file.cday = date("<% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>") SORT file.ctime asc
```
### Notes modified today
```dataview
List FROM "" WHERE file.mday = date("<% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>") SORT file.mtime asc
``````
