Starting a daily story log

A few days ago, I started a story log, as part of learning to tell better stories. Or rather, tell stories better.

Here’s how Matthew Dicks describes it in his book, Storyworthy:

At the end of every day, take a moment and sit down. Reflect upon your day. Find your most storyworthy moment, even if it doesn’t feel very storyworthy. Write it down. Not the whole story, but a few sentences at most. … What is my story from today? What is the thing about today that has made it different from any previous day?

Dicks does this on a spreadsheet with two columns: date and story. I do it in Obsidian.

I agree that this practice has many wide-ranging effects beyond the surfacing of stories. A few reflections:

• Time does start to slow down. Days feel more full. Looking back on these story-worthy notes is much more joyful than reviewing my Obsidian daily notes.
• A few sentences are all that’s needed to transport you back.
• Thinking in terms of stories is helping me delineate a story from an anecdote or musing. I am a musing machine, so this is challenging and rewarding. The good news with the story log is that you learn as you go.
• Taking time each day to think about stories makes many others rise to the surface. I’ve had all kinds of memories from childhood and school bubbling up as I’ve been writing down what’s storyworthy about today. Part of today’s story starts to harmonically resonate with other stories in the past.
• Once you’ve started doing this it feels like such a no-brainer. A 5-minute investment with huge returns over time. I love looking back on my baby story log already.
• I’ve not tried the other exercises in the book for generating stories yet because I’m already overflowing.
• Listening to the Moth podcast is also helpful to drive some of this home.