Mental clarity using AI?
Hello! 👋
I have been going through a rough couple of months and wanted to share my strategies for coping with stress and anxiety, as well as something I have built that may be of use to you.
Here is the link for the impatient ones: https://www.useoni.com.
Journaling and staying busy building things have always helped me during difficult times. A couple of weeks ago, I had an idea to use ChatGPT as a coach for my reflection journaling practice. What started as an experiment in ChatGPT's UI turned out to be something I really enjoyed working on in my free time. So, I'm here to share my new project and a couple of useful techniques I apply to my daily journaling practice. These are my go-to strategies for dealing with stress, coming up with solutions to a problem I'm facing, or simply getting to know myself better.
Here is what I usually do in my reflection journaling sessions:
- Find a quiet place.
First of all, find a quiet place and make sure that there are no annoying distractions around you. I like to turn on my "Do Not Disturb" mode on both my Mac and my iPhone. You want to be strict about this, because there's nothing more annoying than not being able to dig deep into your soul whenever you need it the most.
- Start with a prompt.
If you don't know where to start, open up ChatGPT and ask it to generate a journaling prompt for you, based on how you feel today. Here's an example: "I'm feeling bad today because I failed to solve a programming problem I had at work. I want to journal about it. Can you give me a prompt?" Having a direction makes it much easier to start thinking deeply about a problem.
- Streaks.
In the beginning, you'll find it really hard to put your thoughts into words, but things get easier with time. Just stay consistent and disciplined. What really helps me is keeping a streak and trying not to break it.
- Journal every time you feel the need to.
I find myself in stressful situations countless times a day. Every time I feel anxious, I pull out my phone or grab a piece of paper and write a paragraph or two about the way I feel. Things suddenly stop looking so scary, and I genuinely feel much better.
I hope you find these techniques useful.
Now, having said all that, I couldn't help but promote my side project called Oni, a reflection journaling app that incorporates all of the advice I shared with you into a single, super simple web app.
My goal with Oni is to help you leverage AI in your journaling practices. So, go and see if Oni makes sense to you. I'll be happy to hear your feedback. I'd also love to hear about your journaling techniques.
Thank you!
