How to Keep a Worry Journal: A Simple Method

Write each worry down when it shows up, in a line or two: what set it off, the worry itself, and what you expect to happen. Read the entries once a day at a set time, act on anything practical and leave the rest. Every week or so, go back to older entries, note what actually happened and look for repeats in the triggers and predictions. That comparison is what turns a list of worries into a record you can learn from.

Prepared by Let It Out Editorial TeamUpdated 2026-11-01

What a worry journal is for

A worry journal is a running record of the worries that interrupt your day, kept so that you can come back to them on purpose instead of carrying them around. It is not a diary of everything you feel, and it is not a place to think a worry through every time it arrives. Each entry is short. The thinking happens later, at a time you choose.

NHS Every Mind Matters suggests that getting worries out of your head and onto paper or into a notes app on your phone can help clear your mind. A journal adds two things to that: a regular time to read what you wrote, and a later check on whether the things you feared actually happened.

This guide is about the method: what to record, how often, and how to look back. It is an editorial adaptation of NHS and Centre for Clinical Interventions (CCI) self-help ideas, not a tested treatment. If you want questions to help you write a single entry, our worry journal prompts post, linked below, has seven of them.

What to write in each entry, and how much

Use the same few fields every time, listed below, so that entries can be compared later. You can leave any of them blank. Keep each one to a few words. CCI's sheet on postponing worry suggests noting a worry briefly, in a couple of words only, then turning your attention back to the present and the activities of the day. Our fields ask for slightly more than that, but an entry should still take a minute or so, not an evening.

The prediction is the field that makes the journal useful later. A worry often arrives as a question: what if they say no? Turning it into a guess you can check, such as they will say no by Friday, gives you something to compare with what actually happens.

A long entry can easily become the worrying itself, written down. If you are on your third paragraph about the same what-if, stop, write the prediction in one line and leave the rest for review time. Fragments are fine as long as you will recognise them later.

When: the date and rough time.
Trigger: what was happening just before. CCI's Overview of Worrying module notes that worry can be set off by something outside you, such as an image, a conversation or a situation, or by a what-if thought that seems to arrive from nowhere.
The worry, in a few words: rent going up, or presentation on Thursday.
The prediction: what you expect to happen, and by when if you can say. Boss will be annoyed by Friday.
The outcome: left blank for now, and filled in when you revisit the entry.

How often to write and when to review

Write whenever a worry interrupts you. Review once a day, at a set time. CCI suggests choosing the same time, place and length each day, for example 6pm, in a study, for 20 minutes. NHS Every Mind Matters suggests a shorter slot of 10 or 15 minutes.

Advice differs on timing. NHS Every Mind Matters suggests doing this before bed, while CCI suggests a time that is not close to bedtime. Choose a time you can keep, and if an evening review keeps your mind busy at night, move it earlier.

At review time, read the day's entries. CCI's sheet says that worries which are no longer bothering you, or no longer seem relevant, need no further action, and that you should spend no longer than the time you set on the rest. For anything practical, NHS Every Mind Matters suggests a specific plan: what you would do, how and when. Write the plan beside the entry, then close the journal. Our worry-time technique guide, linked below, covers this daily review in more detail.

Go back and compare predictions with outcomes

Once a week, read the entries whose date has passed and fill in the outcome. Did it happen, partly happen, or not happen? If it happened, was it as bad as you expected, worse, or better? Write it plainly, including when the worry turned out to be right.

There is some research behind this step. In a small study published in Behavior Therapy, LaFreniere and Newman asked 29 undergraduate students who met questionnaire criteria for generalised anxiety disorder to record their worries when prompted four times a day for 10 days, and to check each night whether the feared outcomes had happened. About 91% of the recorded worries did not come true. Of the worries that did, around 30% turned out better than expected.

Treat those figures with care. The group was small and mostly young women, and participants judged their own outcomes. The study cannot tell you whether any particular worry of yours will come true. What it illustrates is the idea behind the habit: a specific prediction, checked later, gives you your own record to look at, instead of relying on how the worry felt in the moment.

Re-reading the journal many times a day to make sure everything is still fine is a different activity. If looking back starts to feel like a search for reassurance, keep it to the weekly slot.

Spot patterns over a few weeks

After two or three weeks, look across the entries rather than at each one. A few questions are enough.

Which triggers come up most: a time of day, a person, an app, a kind of message?
Which themes repeat: work, money, health, what other people think?
Which kinds of prediction tend to overshoot, and which have been fair?
Which worries kept coming back even after you made a plan for them?

What to do with a pattern once you see it

NHS Every Mind Matters suggests making notes of the problems you face and the strategies you use, then looking back at what worked. It also says writing thoughts down can make it easier to spot when they are unhelpful. A pattern is information, not a verdict. Noticing that Sunday evenings bring most of your work worries is useful because you can plan around it.

If one belief keeps appearing, such as I always get things wrong, our thought record guide shows how to examine it on its own. If predictions keep jumping to the worst ending, the worst-case scenario guide has a three-outcome check. If entries pile up faster than you can read them, a brain dump can clear the backlog first. All three are linked below.

Worked example: two weeks of Amira's journal

This example is invented to show the method. Amira keeps her journal in a small notebook. On Monday at 9:40 she writes: trigger, email from manager asking for a quick chat; worry, in trouble over the report; prediction, told off on Wednesday. On Tuesday at lunchtime: trigger, banking app notification; worry, card bill; prediction, can't pay it in full this month.

Her review time is 6pm on weekdays, for 15 minutes at the kitchen table. On Monday she adds a plan to the first entry: reply to say Wednesday at 2 works. On Tuesday the card bill gets one: check the balance and the due date on Thursday at lunchtime.

The following Monday, she fills in the outcomes. The chat was about a new project, so the outcome line says: not told off, better than expected. The bill could be paid in full, though it left less spare money than she wanted, so she writes: partly true. By the end of the second week she sees that most of her entries were triggered by evening notifications, and decides to try turning off work email after 7pm.

A template you can copy

This template is our own editorial layout, not a clinical worksheet. Copy it onto a page or into a note and reuse it for every entry. Add the weekly questions at the bottom of each week.

Date and time:
What happened just before (trigger):
The worry, in a few words:
What I expect to happen, and by when:
Practical step, if there is one (what, how, when):
Outcome, filled in later (happened, partly or didn't; better, same or worse than expected):
Each week: which entries now have an outcome, which triggers and themes repeated, and one thing to try differently next week.

Keep it private enough to be honest

You will write more honestly in a journal you trust, so decide where it lives and who could see it. On paper, keep the notebook where others are unlikely to pick it up. In a notes app, check whether the note syncs to other devices or a shared account. With any app, the MHRA, the UK regulator for medicines and medical devices, lists what happens to your data among five things to check before using a digital mental health tool, and says you should be able to find out easily how your data is stored and used. Wherever you write, leave out passwords, account numbers and other people's private details.

If you use Let It Out, its privacy and security page, linked below, explains how entries and the optional AI features are handled. Our notes app versus worry journal guide compares the options in more detail.

When a journal isn't enough

Shorten or pause the journal if writing leaves you more distressed than before, if you find yourself re-reading it over and over, or if it starts to stand in for action on a real problem. Urgent health, safety or money matters need dealing with directly, not a slot at review time.

The NHS describes the main symptom of generalised anxiety disorder as stress or worry that affects your daily life and is difficult to control, and suggests seeing a GP if you think you might have it. In England, adults can also refer themselves to an NHS talking therapies service without a GP referral. A journal can be useful to bring to that conversation, but it is not a substitute for support.