The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living

I have 2 of these. They help with my thinking. As a therapist, its sometimes easier to handle prompts than trying to ask yourself in general. Its helped massively.

I’ve decided to rewrite this since other reviews have covered the layout and structure, and all I feel I need to add is that the book itself is very attractive and robust with good paper. I thought it would be more useful to detail the ways in which the book has helped me:- Firstly, it has been an excellent introduction to journalling. It’s something that I’ve been aware of for some time, and had actually decided to do more recently, yet months had passed and I had still not made any progress. Luckily this book came out at a time when I had renewed my interest in the practice. I currently leave it on the desk near my bed so I always pick it up in the morning and before going to sleep, it has been relatively easy to make the daily entries except for on the odd occasion when I was pressed for time. Secondly, and perhaps most obviously it has helped with the practice of stoicism (I'm using it alongside the Daily Stoic book - although the journal can be used standalone). Sometimes the reflection or quote just hits the mark, it’s application becomes obvious as you encounter something during the day, or it helps you to think in a better way about something that has been troubling you. The third benefit is slightly more nebulous but I’ll have a go at explaining it. The daily entries encourage reflection (I should also say that I practice mindfulness meditation) and within these you somehow begin to refine your thoughts. Perhaps you you occasionally feel bad about something, or don’t behave as you’d like to, but you don’t really know what’s going on, and you just kinda forget about it and then it happens again, but theres no real reason. Sometimes you pay attention to it, sometimes you don’t. This could be something that really troubles you, or just something relatively petty, but you know something is not quite right… But once you start paying attention, and start thinking, and start writing, and asking questions, you begin to chip away at whats there, its just a kind of background process, you’re not actively working on it, but you’re asking the right questions... And then it clicks, it could be a few things that come together that explain it, and the answer seems so well articulated that you’re surprised you came up with it. It’s pretty powerful stuff. Anyway I highly recommend this book, its a great way to get into the habit of journalling, with all the benefits of stoic thinking.

This is a brilliant tool for sentence of paragraph journalling, it is divided into weeks, a stoic practice presented on a page at the beginning of the week with a few paragraphs outlining it and three or more supporting quotations from famous stoics (for instance Week IV: A Little Better Every Day, with supporting quotations from Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus), with each day divided into space to write a Morning Reflection and an Evening Reflection and a question as a prompt alongside the date (for instance, January 22, What Bad Habit Did I Curb Today?; January 23rd, Which of my possessions own me?; January 24th, Am I doing deep work?). There is a four or five page introduction which is divided into a general introduction about stoicism and a two and a bit direction on how to use the journal best. There is an excellent bibliography and references, after a fashion, included also at the end of the book, I found this interesting because it goes beyond the "usual suspects", such as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus, mentioning Publilius Syrus, who I previously had not heard of prior to reading this reference. This selection of sources both interested and surprised me, prior to its inclusion the main reference was to the Daily Stoic book, which is a good read from the same author and planned as a companion volume, this selection includes a more than one reference for or about individuals who have applied Stoicism in circumstances similar to those of the original stoics, ie conditions of war, immanent death or maiming, low intensity conflicts. This is a nice hardback bound notebook besides, it also provides enough space for making a note, more than some smaller "single line" or "one sentence a day" journals, its not full blank pages though so you have to consider what you plan to write, and it contains pages for each day of the year. Allowing the collecting of a years worth of notes and reflections. It also provides a format, like plenty of these journals do, which you can continue to use once you have filled the book and having filled the book its likely the format will remain memorable and the habit of making reflective notes AM and PM stick after that time. In the past I've kept a small hardback edition of Seneca's Letters of Stoic in order to read a chapter a day and I have kept reflective journals, personally and professionally for a couple of years now, also I've kept journals of responses to prompt questions (either provided in books such as "If" and "If: Questions for the soul" or online generators) in the past, this Journal combines all these activities in a single place. Recommended.

Did realise how helpful this would be. I really like the daily reflections and the weekly stoic teachings.

Initial review: ok this has gotten me back into the habit of diarising, a good thing. I have trouble with some Stoic principles, for example Amor Fati. Really? That's a tough call, but Nietzsche explained it well. But as for the diary, I like this a lot and look forward to entering morning and evening reflections. Some questions seem odd or are challenging, but they make you think and get you going in the morning.

I’m a huge Ryan Holiday fan. I have read most of his books, subscribe to his newsletter and to ‘The Daily Stoic’ website which he is heavily involved in. I was always a philosophy fan, but not for the sake of it, because many aspects of it make sense to me. Stoicism is the branch of philosophy that makes the most sense to me. I use this journal everyday in conjunction with ‘The Daily Stoic’ book. This book contains wisdom from the most famous Stoics, Marcus Aurelius, Epitetus, and Seneca. These daily snippets of wisdom I use to live a better life. I have found it really helpful and combining this with my own journaling, I now understand the things I can control in my life and the things I can’t, I have become much more resilient and more accepting of what life brings. I highly recommend this to anyone that wants to live a virtuous life and who wants to learn resilience.

Buy the Daily Stoic as the reviews suggest. You’ll get more out of this and as with anything you’ll get out what you put in. This process has bought me immense joy and focus when I do the practice. If you follow Ryan’s great podcasts and other writings you’ll get something out of this. The pages are small and this is a doable practice regardless of how busy you are. Treat yourself 📖

1) The more substantive bits occur at the beginning of every week. That's good, but you're talking a page, at most/best. You want to really read the Stoics...well, go read them. 2) Many of the questions are simply inane or opaque. They are all permutations on that week's theme, but some are just silly: "Am I doing deep work?" "Where is the path to serenity?" (For the latter, here's a hint: it ain't in this journal.) 3) Being a very stiff hardcover, this is incredibly difficult to write IN. It's just not comfortable because the thing doesn't lie flat. That makes it something that I'd like to leave as quickly as possible. Plus, it makes my handwriting look so childish, it's annoying. When you're focused on how unwieldy the thing is, it's hard to really think about the question (or want to write much). If this were spiral-bound, I could see it. Or even a softcover: at least, then, I could break the spine.

Be aware that the book starts on 1 January so you cannot start just randomly throughout the year. It does have great reflection plans, and I think it’s very useful for people who are looking for self help or similar exercises.

Do this, if you want to watch yourself grow.

It arrives with the edges worn still in good condition but work out on corners.

This is the second time I am purchasing this journal because I love the layout of a page per day, with morning reflection and evening. There is a section at the beginning of each week that has quotes and inspiration to follow a specific mindset/philosophy for those 7 days. I rated this a 4-star this purchase, since it was smaller than the original version I had ordered. This makes it a bit more difficult to fold out flat for writing. I was a bit disappointed. But it’s still a great journal - unique!

Read a page daily and definitely it will change your way of thinking.