One of the most powerful journaling exercises I've done for the last 400 days helps me remember more of my life and trains my ability to see the world with fresh eyes.

That exercise is called Homework for Life taken from Matthew Dicks' book Storyworth.

Every night I take one minute to record a single sentence that captures the most story worthy moment from the day.

"What is the thing about today that has made it different from any previous day?"

That's it. It's a very simple but extremely powerful exercise because it forces me to take stock of my day instead passively going through the motions.

You might think one sentence can't possibly be enough to document life but you'd be surprised at how much of your memory comes flooding back with the smallest of reminders.

For instance, I was recently flipping through my first Bullet Journal when I came across an entry from May 19th, 2025:

Ben Moore is a well-respected recording engineer in San Diego that we worked with two times, first while recording a single, and then later while recording our second album.

The first time we worked together Ben was not impressed. In between takes he wouldn't say anything except for, "Let's try that again." We knew that was code for, "Sounds like shit."

It did.

He was nice about it afterwards, but we were all a bit embarrassed that we came in so underprepared. It was our first time working with a professional of his caliber and we knew we didn't live up to the professionalism of his usual clientele.

So when it came time to record the full length album, we knew we had some work to do.

For months leading up to our session we would practice for hours a week perfecting our performances. We dialed in the tempo, played with a metronome, and had the mindset that we were going to nail the performance as if we were playing the album live so there could be minimal editing.

When we arrived in the studio to record that second album on May 19th, 2025 we were ready.

After the first take of our first song Ben turned to us with a stunned face and said, "Sound like you guys practiced this time."

It was all high fives and celebrations that night.

That story played like a rock n roll biopic when I read that one-sentence entry from that day and similar movies play in my head when I read the others.

Another entry from May 24th I wrote, "Watched Nosferatu alone in the dark."

My wife was in San Francisco and I had a rare night to myself. She hates scary movies so whenever she's out of town I take my opportunity to get freaked out. All the lights off, a big bowl of popcorn, and the surround sound rumbling my core while I watched the reboot of a gothic classic.

I have hundreds of memories like this that would've otherwise been forgotten about and lost to the annuls of time.

They may not mean anything to you, but to me these experiences form the experience of my life.

To me, that's priceless.

And there's one more added bonus.

"As you begin to take stock of your days," writes Dicks, "time will begin to slow down for you. The pace of your life will relax."

That's because you don't lose a day to passivity anymore.

Every day something gets recorded.

Every day matters.

And as you continue to practice observing what makes each day special, you train your attention to see the meaning that's imbued in every moment.

"A lifetime of storyworthy moments at (your) fingertips."

Prompt:

As you go about your day ask yourself, "What is the thing about today that has made it different from any previous day."

At the end of the day write down one sentence that captures that story.