Guide to the TIL Journal in Notion

November 3, 2022February 9, 2023 Brittany Bulut4 Comments

My first attempts to start the Today I Learned (TIL) journal began in 2019.
Learning something new and writing it down seemed easy enough to stick to daily. But I’d struggle for the next two years to do just that.
It wasn’t until 2021 that I could make it a sustainable habit, and my system in Notion was a big part of that.
I would create a journal that made the habit easy to keep, the entries organized, and everything easy to review.
This would be the TIL Journal I still use today. And I offer a free template in Notion for anyone to view, duplicate, and make their own. Here, I’ll quickly walk you through the features of that journal template.

In the “Today I Learned Page,” you have three tools at your disposal:

1. TIL Journal
2. The Library
3. The Notebook

TIL Journal

Entries

This is where you’ll be recording what you learn.

I create at least one new entry every day. You’ll want to make them as short and comprehensive as possible to make reviewing them later easier for yourself.
Here’s an example of what one of my entries looks like:

I keep the question displayed, and the answer within the toggle. It’s more effective to review what I’ve learned later on when I have the option to use active recall rather than passively re-reading.

Entry Properties

The options you’ll see at the top of each entry.
I’ll explain how filling each one in benefits you:

Title Line: Keep track of the your daily streak + the date of entry

Topic: Makes your entry more searchable within the table.

Date: Keeps your table organized chronologically

Find in Library: Adds your entry to “The Library” (more on that below)

Need to Review?: Adds your entry to a view dedicated for subjects you’d like to review later, called “Study View”

Last Reviewed: Keeps your entries in the Study View organized by the date they were last reviewed

Backed Up?: Lets you know which entries you’ve backed up outside Notion, if you choose to do so.

View Options

The different options for viewing your entries.

• ALL entries (Gallery and Table): Both of these show every entry you’ve entered into the journal (so long that they’re dated)

• 1 Month View: Shows only entries you’ve added within the last 30 days.

•📝Study View: Shows the entries you’ve checked in the “Need to Review” box. These are sorted by the date they were last reviewed, so be sure to refresh that “Last Reviewed” date in the entries when you study!

• Missing Date: to find entries missing a date.

• Double-Check Date: to check that the dates are entered correctly.

• To Back Up: Displays all the entries you haven’t yet checked as having been backed up

The Library

This is a linked database which will contain all your TIL Journal entries, organized into your custom genres.

When you click on a topic, you’ll see every entry you’ve written for that topic gathered there, organized chronologically.
No sifting through months’ worth of random entries. It’s all neatly stacked here, like an organized bookshelf.

You’ll see in the image below what shows up when I click on the topic “Dutch Vocabulary” in my own Library.

And if one entry belongs to multiple categories, that’s no problem! You can tag it with as many topics as you want, and it will show up in each page.

The Notebook

In the Notebook, you’ll find 3 pages:

• My Knowledge Gaps, where you can record what you’d like to learn and write about in your journal

• Quick Entry Ideas, where you can record topics you know you can learn fast and easily. This is handy if you’d like to make this journal a daily habit, and will need some quick learning options for days you don’t have much time to write.

• Study Notes, where you can take notes for things you’re not quite ready to add to an entry yet.

And now you’re ready to start your own TIL Journal!

What do you want to learn today, and remember tomorrow?

Daily Learning Journal

Remembering Life with the Today I Learned Journal

Featured Brittany Bulut2 Comments

We like to believe that we’ll naturally remember what’s important to us.

“That brilliant idea that came to me in the middle of the night? No need to take notes. I’ll remember it in the morning.”

“That mistake I made again? Surely I’ll remember and know better next time.”

“And I’ll definitely not forget that inspiring, life-changing TED Talk by tomorrow.”

And we later reach into our trusty memory vault for these precious things, only to find that they’ve vanished—slipped through the cracks and gone with the wind.

One day, I reached a point where I’d had enough of this.
In my Today I Learned Journal, I’d been recording facts about the outside world. But I realized I had even more to hold onto…
My own life.

If you’re new to this blog:
The Today I Learned (TIL) Journal is a project I started to learn something new every day, and record it.
It’s a way to keep my memories safe and easily-accessible. This way, if I’m struck with forgetfulness, I have at least one memory from every day stored safely and organized by category in the journal.
I created a free template of the Today I Learned Journal in Notion. Feel free to use it and make it your own!

“Remembering Life”

I was hesitant to add a “Remembering Life” category to my TIL Journal.
After all, it would feel like cheating to write down any mundane thing I experience as something I “learn.”
So I made a rule (more what you’d call “guideline” than an actual rule).
In order for an entry to be worthy of the journal in this subject, it must be:

• Whatever matters to me
• Whatever I don’t/won’t want to forget.

That’s it.
The TIL Journal isn’t just about acquiring and remembering knowledge anymore.
It’s about enriching your life and your memory with what really matters to you.

What Really Matters

Here are some examples of things you might want to include in your own TIL journal:

The Good:
• a hilarious story or joke
• a pleasant moment with a loved one
• a moment you connected with a deep sense of awe, creativity, gratitude, inspiration, etc.
• a moment you were proud of yourself

The Bad
• a mistake
– a moment you realized you messed up, and can admit it.
– could this become a funny story later on?
– could it become a mistake you learn from rather than just be humiliated by it?
• something sad
– like the death of a loved one, and how you responded to it. A moment of deep observation and contemplation. Of remembering the departed and realizing what you will miss about them, and what you’re grateful to have had. Grieving not just emotionally, but thoughtfully.

The Important
• A doctor’s visit, and the advice you received
• A crucial conversation/meeting, and its most important points
• Tracking your journey through a personal struggle
For example, I’ve found it helpful to record my bumps and victories along the road of dealing with my anxiety:
– What triggered a panic attack today?
– What techniques did I use to counter it? Were they helpful or not?
– What did I do despite the terrible fear of doing it? How did I manage it, and how did it go?

The Blurry
• high stress situations
• complicated experiences
• when your ability to concentrate/comprehend/remember is difficult
– “What can I write about my experience today that I might forget or get jumbled up later?”

Simply Nice to Know
You don’t always need to explain your reason for wanting to remember something.
If it matters, it matters.

How to Get Started

There is no rule for how you learn and write something here.
But here’s some questions to ask yourself if you’re feeling stuck on that blank page:

“What did I experience today?”

• “Why did this catch my attention?“
• “What can I learn from this?“
• “How did I respond?“
• “How did I feel in that moment?“
• “How did others act?“
• “What were my thoughts?“
• “What could I have done differently, and why?“
• “Why do I consider this worth remembering? Why is this important to me and my future memory?“

Check Your Lens

While writing these entries, you may find that it’s hard to grasp things you felt you knew.
And in moments that emotions were strong, the details of what happened can still be hazy.

You realize that memory isn’t the only issue here,
but also your attention from that moment.
It’s like taking a video, only to realize later that the lens had been smudged, your video blurred.

This means that we must constantly sharpen a valuable skill:
Pay attention to life
To that precious, present moment.
And pay attention well.

Ask yourself in the moment: “What am I experiencing?”

What do you want to learn today, and remember tomorrow?

Daily Learning Journal

Why I Started the Today I Learned Journal

Featured Brittany BulutLeave a comment

Learn something new every day.
Don’t worry if it’s an embarrassing question to ask.
It doesn’t matter if it’s something you should have known years ago.
Just learn it, and write it down.

Why I Started

I began the Today I Learned Journal as a way to confront my fear of failure.
And for me, ignorance was one of the worst kinds of failure.
It was a label I put so much of my energy into avoiding.
To the point that—ironically—I led myself right into it.

I’ll explain:
It would start with being asked a question I didn’t have an answer for.
That’s fine, right? We all have such moments, because no one knows everything.
But instead of accepting this little gap in my knowledge,
my fearful brain would default to a different response:

Flood self with anxiety, and let self-esteem plummet.
Be so distracted by the humiliation of the moment, that actually attempting to learn the answer won’t even come to mind.
Embrace a false sense of security as I later avoid the topic altogether.
When said topic inevitably returns one day, repeat the cycle.
And most importantly: Never just learn the thing!

This reached its peak when I moved to a new country.
There, I tied my self-esteem directly to my ability to speak a difficult language fluently from the start.
(What could go wrong?)
Every tiny mistake brought me deeper into paralyzing anxiety.
And as a result, my ability to actually learn anything became stunted.
It didn’t matter how encouraging everyone around me was.
This was a self-made trap that only I could break myself out of.

The Messy Start

So I decided to just confront my ignorance a little bit at a time.
Take baby steps to becoming more comfortable with asking questions.
And after some trial and error, I finally developed this into a strict, daily commitment on January 1^st, 2021.
Finally, I was consistently practicing the terrifying act of facing one of the most monstrous things I know—my own ignorance. And I chipped away at it just a little bit every day.

Why I Still Use It

Gradually—painfully so—I saw an improvement in my relationship with ignorance.
Rather than looking at the unknown with overwhelming anxiety, I began to approach it with curiosity, and even eagerness to learn.
I started accepting myself, ignorance and all.
Because now I was stacking up—day by day—small pieces of proof that I can improve.
I’d learned, through experience, that imperfection isn’t as bad as I made it out to be.
And that seeking out those knowledge gaps and filling them in doesn’t have to feel so embarrassing.

This journaling practice not only helped me learn a language, adapt to living in a different country, and expand my areas of interest.
It also helped me to treat my mistakes as lessons rather than miserable failures.
It brought me back to actually enjoying my lifelong love of learning!

This process has been so dear to me, that I’ve loyally kept at it every day, with a streak of—so far—over 700 days.

Your Turn

This is not an article claiming “How to Eliminate All Your Anxieties with This One Crazy Trick!”.
I still have anxieties to deal with, and so much more to learn.
But this routine has been life-changing for me.
And there are surely people out there who can benefit from it as much as I have!

Taking on a habit of daily learning doesn’t have to be fueled by issues like mine.
It doesn’t even have to be serious, lifelong commitment.
It’s just a journal!

Whether it’s for school, hobbies, work, or your own personal development and curiosities..
Really, it doesn’t matter your reason. You don’t owe anyone an explanation.
If you want to start a journey of daily learning, you are welcome here!

How to Start

I created a free template of the Today I Learned Journal in Notion. You can see a small piece of it in the photo above. Feel free to use it and make it your own!
Learning a new language? Then maybe start with looking up some new words.
Are there things you’re embarrassed to not know? There’s almost certainly an article or Youtube video out there for you.
There are no rules for what topics or research methods you choose.
Whatever it is, just learn something, and write it down.
And good luck!

If you found any of this helpful and plan to start your own habit of lifelong learning, feel free to share in the comments.
Thanks for reading, and happy learning to you all!

What do you want to learn today, and remember tomorrow?