In Make a Space For Each Day in Your Journal, I wrote that I was more likely to journal every day when there were pages pre-printed with the date on top of them. If I missed a day, I would see the blank space and want to fill it by recreating the day from whatever other sources I had.

This also works on the daily page itself. If there’s something you want to do every day, then pre-printing that on the journal page will keep reminding you to do it. This is one of the reasons I think you should make your own custom journals, because it will be hard to find one that is pre-printed in the way you want.

In 2025, my pages are blank, but I split them in half. The top is meant to be used like a bullet journal. The bottom is a food log. I have found that the biggest impediment to me reaching my fitness goals is not eating as well as I could. In 2022 and 2023 I scribbled my food log in the margin. There wasn’t a lot of room, so I only put the major meals, but it’s the snacking and details that are causing problems for me.

So, by keeping a thorough food log I hope to make it more likely that I will be more intentional in what I eat. Back in 2012, I wrote that you should Take a Picture of What You Eat because just that simple act will influence you—I know from personal experience that having to write down that I ate junk food stopped me from eating it.

Of course, you can do this even if you have something that you want to track weekly or on specific days. In The Four Disciplines of Execution [affiliate link], the third discipline is to make a scoreboard that tells you if you are winning. One way to do that is to pre-print it on your weekly retro page.

In general though, I think it’s more important to have a labeled space than a specific template. Over a year, you might change your mind on what to track. I’d rather have a blank “Scoreboard” area that I am compelled to draw than a rigid one that might go out of date.