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Hello everyone,
Sorry, I have been away for a long time! I have been focusing on trying to manage my physical and mental health , whilst trying to slowly to finish my Business and Management degree.
However, I thought I would share with you a new addition to my daily routine – The 6 Minute Diary. About a month ago I saw the product reviews by Instagram micro-influencers, claiming their lives had drastically improved.
Diagnosed with Anxiety, Depression and Borderline Personality Disorder, I can be pessimistic, to say the least. I was not sure if the diary was just a social media hype, but desperate to improve my mental health, I was curious enough to give the diary a go and decided to share my experience with how it can help you!
What is the 6 Minute Diary?
The diary is split into two sections. The first section focuses on how you can be happier and how to use the diary. Whilst the second section, focuses on you keeping your diary for a few months. As a meticulous person, I spent a few days reading the first section before I got to the actual diary entry part – because I wanted to give myself the best chance it would work. The concept of the diary is to spend 3 minutes in the morning and in the evening to start off and end with a positive mindset, to help your attitudes and mind shift.
Daily Entries
Morning Routine…
Show Gratitude
You begin writing down 3 things you are grateful for each morning. Although, if like me you can be known to sleep in to the afternoon, you can do this when you wake up. I try to write unique things each day, but you don’t have to.
Make Your Day Great
The next step is to write down how you will make your day great. This is one of my favourite part of the diary, as it helps give me structure. You can write as much or little as your like here. I tend to write a fair bit, so I know what still needs to be done if I can’t complete everything in one day.
Reinforce Positive affirmation
Positive affirmation, is where you focus on a statement that is designed to give you an internal locus of control. I found this step the hardest, because I find it challenging to be optimistic. However, I found it powerful writing positive statements down.Although, positive affirmation is better if it comes from you, you can always use Google for ideas. The important thing, here is that you make truly positive statements. Examples of the positive affirmation I used are;
- “I am strong, whatever challenges come my way I can overcome them”.
- ” I can be, who I want to be”.
- “I will be more proactive”.
Evening Routine…
Good Deeds
Each day you are meant to write down one good deed you have done – to help make you feel better about yourself. The good deed is typically something good you have done for another. However, being chronically ill, I spend a lot of time on my own, especially during lock down. So I have used the good deed to improve self-care. Examples of good deeds for positive healthcare include;
- Taking a shower
- Getting exercise
- Cooking a meal
- Brushing my hair
- Reading / making crafts
Improve yourself
The next step, it to write down how you will improve yourself. You can use any negative experiences from the day, a task you haven’t completed, or something others tell you need to work on. I found this section helped me realise what was good and bad about myself and habits.
Great Experiences
The last step of the evening routine is to write down 3 great things you have experienced each day – no matter how big or small. I found this made me also made me think about more things I was grateful for and brought a smile to my face.
Other 6 Minute Diary Features
Weekly habit tracker
The weekly habit tracker lets you keep track of 3 habits you want to change, which you list at the start of each week. As the author claims it takes 66 days for a habit to change. I have kept the same ones but it is not necessary.
5 weekly questions
Each week you will answer 5 different questions to help you become who you want to be. I like that there is a few lines under each question to let you really think about your answers. You can also use the note / ideas section to expand further.
Weekly challenge
To get the most out of your diary, each week you are given a new challenge to help you reflect on yourself further. I will admit I find it hard sometimes to do the weekly challenge at the end of the week , so I sometimes come back to this.
Positive quotes
I love that the diary includes a positive quote each day, to keep you motivated.
Monthly mood tracker
Each month the diary asks you to do a monthly check on things like gratitude, mindfulness and finances, ranking your mood on a scale from 1 -10. I am nearly coming to my next monthly check and plan to complete this before reflecting on my initial one to see my progress. A good tip is to use things in the monthly check as a part of your daily entries.
Why I like using the 6 Minute Diary:
I like using the diary because it is structured, easy to use and helping to improve my life even though it does not require a lot of your time each day. This is great, because I suffer from headaches and chronic fatigue I don’t have a long attention span.
How is The 6 Minute Diary helping me to improve?
I love that the diary has already helped me to start to change some of my negative habits and improved my self-care. I am drinking more water, can go days without smoking sometimes. I am also taking more daily vitamins and cooking healthier meals. Other things that have improved are I am reading more fictional books, which has reduced the amount of time online.
I have learnt I need to pace and set myself to many goals in one day and that I need to stop punishing myself for things I cannot change and rather than mope around to try to look for solutions.
I am not going to tell you the diary will immediately change your life , like anything it takes work to complete the diary each day. Although, if you miss one day or parts of each of the daily entries it is not the end of the world. There has been days I have felt so fatigued I have missed entries – but the important thing is that you pick up quickly where you left off.
I still have many negative habits, but I am only 3 weeks into The 6 Minutes Diary. I need to learn to prioritise the right things, manage my finances , work more on adding new listings to my Etsy shop:ChronicCreationsGB, get back into blogging, reduce my caffeine intake and try to improve my sleep pattern. I understand these habits may take longer to change, because I have chronic illnesses too , which literally drains my energy. However, I am still pleased the diary ha helped me made progress with some things, and my boyfriend has noticed these changes in me too! I have even got him on The 6 Minute Diary bandwagon.
If you struggle with structure – don’t worry you can still use the diary. It might seem a little repetitive after a while but this is how you change your habits.
How could The 6 Minute Diary be improved?
There is not much I would change about the diary, as I feel much more positive using it. Although, I feel the diary could be improved by including a weekly mood tracker. I found this so useful on a monthly basis I wrote it down each week on a spare notepad.
MY TOP TIPS USING THE DIARY
- Although, you can literally start the diary any day it is best to start on a Monday, because the habit tracking runs from Monday to Sunday.
- If you write in pencil, you can always rub out what you write.
My product rating: 5 Stars
If you have any questions about the diary, feel free to leave a comment below. Or if you have used the diary yourself – I would love to hear your experiences.
Ready for a better version of you? Buy The 6-Minute Diary Now on Amazon.
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Thanks for your insight. I bought the 6-minute diary a while ago (probably 2+ months or so), started reading, but haven’t gotten around to actually use it. It seems complicated to having to come up with all these things that I’m grateful for, things to make my day great, and the evening reflections. It certainly sounds that it takes more than just 3 minutes… more like 10-15 for each part. Having said that, my main concern is HOW do you get motivated enough to actually use it? That seems to be my biggest obstacle, to actually do the first step and commit to using it. How do you overcome that?
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Hi Susie,
I hope you are well and thank you for your comment. think I stay motivated by also through goal setting separately. I do this on a monthly, 3 month, 6 month and 12 month basis. By goal setting if anyone has helped contribute to my goals or I have achieved something in my awareness Business , day job or personal life I am able to find things to be grateful for. I agree sometimes it does take more than 3 minutes a day if you are trying to find new things to show gratitude for. The main thing is to keep going and sticking with it!
Morgan x
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