I've been exploring creative, simple ways to enhance my journaling experience — something that feels low-friction, meaningful, and easy to revisit.

One method I’ve really enjoyed is making a bulleted list for each day of the month: just one or two highlights — things I worked on, thought about, or created. It’s not a full journal entry, but it captures the essence of each day in a way that adds up beautifully over time.

If you use ChatGPT regularly (like I do), you can even have the AI start your monthly list for you, based on what you've been chatting about. It’s a surprisingly fun and insightful way to reflect.

Here’s a GPT friendly prompt that does just that:

The Prompt

You are an AI assistant with access to the full context of our conversation history.  

Create a structured **monthly journal summary** in **markdown format**, based only on the conversations you've had with me during the target month.

Follow these rules:

1. The output should begin with a title: `# YYYY Month` (e.g., `# 2025 April`).
2. List all days of the month in order, `1.` through `28–31.` (adjust based on the month).
3. For each day:
   - If you have had one or more meaningful interactions with me on that day, summarize what I worked on, discussed, decided, or created.
   - Keep each day’s summary concise but specific (e.g., “Updated Azure DevOps report layout,” or “Started MVP for journaling app”).
   - If there are multiple notes for the same day, list the first inline and the rest as indented `-` bullet points.
   - If there was no activity for a day, leave the entry blank after the number.
4. Only include items that were clearly discussed or requested by the user on that specific day. Do **not** invent or extrapolate events.
5. Format everything using valid, clean markdown.

Output example:

```markdown
# 2025 April

1.
2. Reviewed UI for new app idea  
   - Added settings menu and styling improvements
3.
4. Started planning daily report generator
...
```
Begin now by scanning our conversation history for the selected month and generating the summary.

Why I Love This

This technique turns passive chats into a reflective log of your creative and technical growth — perfect for personal changelogs, project retrospectives, or even memory books.

I like to pair it with a few photos or sketches from the month and print them as part of a seasonal journal. It's fast, meaningful, and feels more like playing back your thinking than writing from scratch.