What we've learned making journals

How it works

How to design your own journal and get it printed

Got a shelf of planners you only used for a few weeks? Plenty of us do. When you design your own journal, you pick every page that goes in it.

370 words Dates

Undated planners start the day they arrive

An undated planner has a line at the top of each page for you to write the date. You can begin it in any month, and no pages go to waste.

230 words The drawer

Why your planner is in a drawer by March

Six faults in a planner’s layout send it to the drawer, from sections you never fill in to a system built for somebody else’s week.

340 words Choosing

Which journal layout suits how you work

A journal has four parts you can choose one at a time: the year, the month, the week and the day. Each has its own set of layouts in Astera.

810 words Research

What twelve best-selling journals put on a daily page

We went through twelve best-selling journals and wrote down every field on their daily pages. Twenty-six fields turned up, and twenty-two of them were in three books or more.

320 words

Baseline

How to score the Wheel of Life and read the gap

The Wheel of Life shows you where your next goal belongs. You score eight parts of your life, mark where you'd like each one to be, and start on the biggest gap.

480 words Values

Cut your values list down to three

This values exercise takes a list of sixty-one values down to the three you'd keep. Then you write what each one means on an ordinary day.

420 words About me

Answer these three before you set any goals

These are three questions about your life as it stands. Answer them before you set a goal, so the goal starts from where you are.

280 words

Goal setting

The anatomy of goal setting

Started a goal in January and lost it by February? You’re in good company. A goal has a few parts, and once you know them, you can build one that lasts.

1310 words The year

Write an annual intention in one sentence

An annual intention is one sentence that says what this year is for. You write it once and check your decisions against it all year.

350 words Vision

Make a vision board you’ll look at

A vision board is one page of pictures and short lines about the year you want. Put it in your Astera journal and it prints at the front, so you see it every time you write.

280 words The quarter

How to set twelve week goals

Twelve week goals are three goals with a quarter to run. Each one gets four markers, so you see a goal falling behind while there’s time to change it.

360 words Obstacles

The WOOP method in four steps

WOOP is four steps: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan. You picture what you want, then write an if-then rule for the thing that usually stops you.

380 words

Self-knowledge

How to do the Johari Window on your own

The Johari Window is a grid of four squares about you. You can fill three of them at your desk, and here’s how to ask a friend for the fourth.

330 words Thoughts

The four questions Byron Katie asks of a thought

The Work is Byron Katie’s four questions for a thought that keeps hurting you. Here’s how to pick the thought and work through each question.

350 words Patterns

Five cognitive distortions worth knowing by name

Here are five thinking patterns that make a bad day look worse. Each one comes with an example and a question to ask when you catch it.

330 words Goal size

Four questions about how big you set your goals

Answer four quick yes-or-no questions about money and a deadline, going with your gut. Then compare your last two answers.

300 words Getting unstuck

Write fifteen ways through the thing you are stuck on

Pick one problem you’re stuck on and write fifteen ways through it. Here’s how to keep going once the sensible ideas run out.

260 words Three columns

Ten desires, ten gratitudes, ten things you love to do

Write ten things you want, ten you’re grateful for and ten you love to do. Here’s what goes in each column and what to do when you stall.

200 words

The shelf

Seventeen books behind the pages we print

These seventeen books and two podcasts are behind the prompts in Astera.

640 words James Clear

What Atomic Habits gets right about systems

Most of Atomic Habits is about identity. James Clear says a habit lasts when it matches the person you think you are.

180 words Ryan Holiday

Reading The Obstacle Is the Way when you're stuck

Ryan Holiday built The Obstacle Is the Way on one line from Marcus Aurelius. The emperor wrote it in a notebook he kept for himself.

180 words Mark Manson

The Subtle Art is a book about what to care about

Mark Manson sorts values into good and bad. A good value is based on reality, good for the people around you, and in your control.

140 words Marie Forleo

Everything Is Figureoutable says start before you're sure

Marie Forleo's mother fixed a broken radio shaped like an orange, with screwdrivers and electrical tape. Her phrase for jobs like that became the title of Forleo's book.

150 words David Goggins

Can’t Hurt Me is about the last forty per cent

David Goggins says you've used about forty per cent of what you have when your mind says stop. Can't Hurt Me is about keeping going past that point.

180 words Don Miguel Ruiz

Don Miguel Ruiz gives you four agreements to live by

We'd start with the second of the four agreements, don't take anything personally. It matches a thinking pattern you can catch on paper.

150 words David D. Burns

The Feeling Good Handbook and its list of cognitive distortions

David Burns is a psychiatrist who turned the patterns of a low mood into a list anyone can use. The Feeling Good Handbook gives you worksheets to catch them.

150 words Anthony de Mello

What Anthony de Mello's Awareness says about labels

Anthony de Mello’s Awareness comes from his talks. He says most people go through life asleep, reacting to labels.

130 words Michael A. Singer

The Surrender Experiment and forty years of saying yes

Michael Singer stopped acting on his likes and dislikes and did whatever life put in front of him. The Surrender Experiment is his account of the forty years that followed.

180 words Gary Zukav

Gary Zukav’s two kinds of power in The Seat of the Soul

Gary Zukav wrote The Seat of the Soul about a kind of power you hold on your own.

150 words Wayne Dyer

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life, one verse at a time

Wayne Dyer took the Tao Te Ching one verse at a time and wrote about how to live each one now.

140 words Ben Horowitz

Ben Horowitz wrote The Hard Thing About Hard Things for the bad weeks

Ben Horowitz nearly lost his company more than once. This book is what he learned about deciding when every option is bad.

130 words Marshall Goldsmith

Marshall Goldsmith’s twenty habits in What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

Marshall Goldsmith lists twenty habits that hold successful people back. You'll recognise a few!

200 words Oprah Winfrey

The Path Made Clear, where Oprah asks how people found their way

The Path Made Clear collects what people told Oprah about finding their purpose.

100 words Oprah Winfrey

Oprah’s What I Know For Sure started with one question

What I Know For Sure gathers the column Oprah wrote at the back of O magazine.

150 words Martha Beck

Martha Beck’s essential self and social self, from Finding Your Own North Star

Martha Beck's book gives you a quick test for whether your life is pointed the right way.

140 words Emma Grede

Emma Grede wants you to cross out your Old Thoughts

Emma Grede wrote Start With Yourself about the rules you were handed and never checked.

140 words