How to Use ChatGPT for Journaling: A Complete Beginner's Guide

When starting a journaling practice, it is normal to be unsure where to start. AI tools and LLMs like ChatGPT can be great sources of inspiration and reflection. Here’s all you need to get started on using these tools.

The key to using such tools effectively is to understand the principles of prompt engineering. Despite what we see things like “10 Life-Changing ChatGPT prompts” on social media from time to time, they all follow the same principles.

This means that from these principles, there are some prompt patterns you only need to be familiar with to boost your thought process and increase the quality of your reflections.

Here are some patterns that are very relevant to your journaling practice:

Persona Prompt

If you are unsure what sort of expertise would be relevant in responding to your query, you can get the LLM to act as an expert in a specific field using this pattern. 

To use this pattern:

Act as X

Perform task Y

• Replace "X" with an appropriate persona, such as "philosopher" or "expert in Confucianism".

• Specify a task for the persona to perform.

Audience Persona Prompt

If you want to convey your reflections to a specific audience, this pattern could be useful.

To use this pattern:

Explain X to me. 

Assume that I am Y.

• Specify the topic X that should be explained.

• Replace "Y" with an appropriate persona, such as "have limited background in philosophy" or "a healthcare expert".

Flipped Interaction Prompt

This pattern is great if you want to bounce ideas and get expert feedback on your reflections through the data the LLM has been trained on.

To use this pattern:

I would like you to ask me questions to achieve X 

You should ask questions until Y (condition) is met or to achieve this goal. 

(Optional) ask me the questions one at a time/ two at a time, ask me the first question, etc.

• Replace "X" with an appropriate goal, such as "creating a meal plan" or "creating variations of my marketing materials."

• Examples of conditions that you could use to replace “Y” are "until you have sufficient information about my audience and goals" or "until you know what I like to eat and my caloric targets."

Question Refinement (recommended)

Journaling is all about asking questions that will bring about insight and so this pattern is extremely useful to improve the quality of your reflections through refining your questions.

To use this pattern:

From now on, whenever I ask a question, suggest a better version of the question to use instead 

(Optional) Prompt me if I would like to use the better version instead

Here are some examples:

• From now on, whenever I ask a question, suggest a better version of the question to use instead

• From now on, whenever I ask a question, suggest a better version of the question and ask me if I would like to use it instead

Cognitive Verifier

If you have a problem that requires multiple steps to address it, then this pattern is useful.

To use this pattern:

When you are asked a question, follow these rules:

Generate a number of additional questions that would help more accurately answer the question 

Combine the answers to the individual questions to produce the final answer to the overall question.

Here are is an example:

When you are asked a question, follow these rules.

• Generate a number of additional questions that would help you more accurately answer the question.

• Combine the answers to the individual questions to produce the final answer to the overall question.

Alternative Approaches Prompt

If you’re seeking possible alternative perspectives to a specific issue, this pattern is useful.

To use this pattern:

If there are alternative ways to accomplish a task X that I give you, list the best alternate approaches 

(Optional) Compare/contrast the pros and cons of each approach. 

(Optional) Include the original way that I asked.

(Optional) Prompt me for which approach I would like to use.

You will need to replace "X" with an appropriate task.

Outline Expansion Prompt

If you’ve written your reflections in bullet points or you find your reflections are a little scattered and in need of coherence and structure, this pattern can be helpful. 

To use this pattern:

Act as an outline expander. 

Generate a bullet point outline based on the input that I give you and then ask me for which bullet point you should expand on. 

Create a new outline for the bullet point that I select. 

At the end, ask me for what bullet point to expand next.   

Ask me for what to outline.