Gratitude Journal

The Gratitude Journal helps you to keep track of the good things in your life. Through negativiy bias we often only focus on the bad things happening to us. This tool will help you to slowly shift your focus to the good events around you, turning you from a pessimist into an optimist.

This is how the Gratitude Journal works: Each day you should write down three things which happened to you and which you are gratefull for. This is best done at the end of the day to reflect on the current day. The items you write down should be specific, for example "I am grateful for the warm hug my friend gave me after lunch" instead of "I am grateful for my family".
Good questions to ask yourself when writing your daily entry are "Why am I grateful for this? Why did this good thing happen?". You can also follow this template of writing your entry: "I am grateful for [            ], because [            ]".

This is inspired by the great Ted Talk ofShawn Archer named The happy secret to better work. Further readings are on Wikipedia/Gratitude_journal, there you will also find reference to the scientific literature on this topic. Also the excellent articles Gratitude Journal: A Collection of 67 Templates, Ideas, and Apps for Your Diary and Tips for Keeping a Gratitude Journal should be mentioned here as a way to learn more about the topic.