Matt Ragland shares his daily gratitude journaling practice during COVID quarantine, working from home while his wife works as a frontline nurse. He uses a one-line-a-day habit journal to record small positive moments, explaining how writing them down clears mental clutter and builds resilience even when repeating the same basic gratitudes like health and shelter.
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Hey everyone, my name is Matt, and I'm trying my best on this Bullet Journal productivity video. In today's episode, I want to talk to you about gratitude, because it's a pretty wild time, and I have been writing down lists in my Bullet Journal every single day of things that I'm grateful for. It has been a really transformational practice for me this month, because there's, there's a lot of things to be worried about. There's a lot of things to be concerned about. It's also like you're at home all the time, and that can be kind of rough because even though I'm used to working from home, I'm not used to being at home all the time. I went to the gym, I met people for lunch and coffee, I went to co-working occasionally, we had church and Bible study, we had all of these things that allowed me to not just be at home all day because I don't like being at home all day at and now I'm at home all day. With all that being said, there is a ton to be grateful for, and gratitude journaling is one of the most powerful practices that I've started this month, and I want to share it with you today. There are a lot of different prompts that I could give you for kicking off a gratitude journal, but the easiest way to think about it, the most essential way to think about this, is what are you grateful for? What are you thankful for? What are the things in your life that are going well? Down to even like really simple small things, because even recognizing the small things— we tend to like focus on big things, but focusing and being aware of even small things in your life that are going really well that you're thankful for, that maybe in normal times you overlook— this is a perfect time to get those things down in your journal and really take them out of your mind and onto the paper as a way of connecting something that may just be up in your head, especially with a lot of other thoughts that might be jumbling around up there, and bringing them, like, bringing them to life on paper. I have a lot of things to be grateful for in my life right now, and things that I have that I know a lot of you are struggling with, whether that is a lost job— like, I still have mine— whether that is a family member that's on the front line fighting COVID-19. Like, my wife is a nurse, and she's going to the hospital every, you know, 2 2 or 3 days a week, but she is a mother-baby nurse, and so she is with mother-baby patients because thankfully babies are still being born, so they need those nurses there. It's a lot to be grateful for. I'm grateful that I have a flexible enough job that I can also care for the boys on days that my wife is working. If you're curious about working from home full-time while still caring for 2 small children, then make sure you check out this video. It will be helpful to you. Now, there are a lot of different ways that you could practice gratitude journaling, like with an actual notebook. It could just be as a line or two in your daily log in your normal bullet journal. I do that a lot. Now, lately I've been using the Baron Fig Clear Habit Journal, and it has a section in it for a one-line-a-day journal entry. And I've basically reused that idea as a way to just enter the thing that I am grateful for every single day. It's really good to do this in the morning, as you know, like for me, you might be having coffee and getting into the day and just starting your day with realizing all the things that you have to be grateful for is a good way to open up the day, open up your heart, open up your mind, and realize that there is a lot of good still happening in the world and a lot of it is still coming into and through you. Another thing that you could do is just have a specific gratitude journal which I have started doing as well. Just a simple field notes or any kind of like pocket notebook, any kind of notebook really that you could use to list the things that you're grateful for that day. The other time that I list the things I'm grateful for is at the end of the day, usually after brushing my teeth. I'll just, you know, pull my journal out and list a few things that I was grateful that happened during the day, an opportunity or like being able to talk to someone, anything that came to my mind. I try not to like judge the things that I'm grateful for, as odd as that sounds, because that used to be a problem for me. I'd be like, well, I wrote this down yesterday, and what I've realized is even if I write down the same things every single day, like healthy family, house to live in, food on the table, like those very simple things of having, you know, health, shelter, and food, even if I wrote that down every single day, I still want to remind myself every single day that those are things worth being grateful for and not taking for granted. Mentally, gratitude journaling helps me immensely because not only does it open my heart and my mind to the things that are positive that are coming into my life, just opens me back up to be more empathetic, thoughtful, and kind as I'm interacting with other people because I've built that, I've expanded myself into like this new level of awareness for the things that are positive in my life. I know that it's a really hard time for a lot of people, and if it is a hard time for you, My heart goes out to you. I know that it may feel like there's not a lot to be grateful for, but I believe, and I've seen in my own life, that when things feel really dark, finding the things that are still positive that you're grateful for— that doesn't mean that you diminish or sweep under the rug something that is difficult that you might be going through, but bringing that light in through gratitude and thankfulness can be the thing that helps pull you out and lift you up in a really challenging time. Gratitude journaling is an amazing way to do that. Don't overthink it, don't judge it, don't think, "Well, I've said the same thing every day for 10 days in a row." That's awesome that you have something that 10 days in a row is something that's worth being grateful for. So stick with it, hang in there. Gratitude journaling can be a really powerful way to expand your heart and mind to the positive things that are coming into your life. Expand you back out and reflect that gratitude, thankfulness, and thoughtfulness, kindness onto other people as you interact with them, even if it's across the street, over video call, over a comment, an email, whatever it might be. So thank you. I'm grateful for all of you. Thank you for being a part of this community and watching these videos. It has been something that I am consistently writing down as something that I'm grateful for is the ability to connect with you on YouTube, my email list, courses, a lot of different ways that I'm working with a lot of different people, and I'm grateful for every single one of you. So thank you for watching this video. Have a really cool announcement coming in the next one. I think it should be the next video, definitely the next email. Excited to share it with you, and grateful for all of you. Thanks for watching. Bye. And I have quarantine hair. I'm really trying to hold out. I don't want to cut my own hair, and I don't want my wife to cut my hair. Trying my best. It's even a lot with the hat. I don't know. I even have to like expand it. My hair's so poofy. Take 2.
