Thanks, Specifically

A gratitude journal that asks you something different every time.

Most gratitude journals ask the same question every day. People write the same answers (family, health, coffee), get bored, miss a few days and stop. This one is built to avoid that: a hundred entries, each with its own prompt, rotating through eight different ways of looking at a day, with a full page to write on and a made-up example on every page showing how specific a line can be.

It is for adults who have tried a gratitude journal and drifted away, adults who have never tried one, and anyone who finds "be grateful!" hard to take on a bad day. The hard-day pages are for that.

What is inside

• A 20-page guide, read once. Why gratitude journals get dropped and what this one does instead; what the research honestly says it can and cannot do (with the studies listed at the back); the one skill of writing the thing, not the category, with before-and-after examples; how an entry page works; a page for each of the eight ways of looking, each filled in; your rhythm and what to do about missed days; a worked example of one person's first 25 entries and her read-back; printing and tablet use.
• The eight ways of looking: Three good things; One thing, close up; Go and notice; Who made it happen; Imagine it gone; Glad I did; Say thank you; and A hard day. Each has its own page layout, colour and picture.
• 100 entry pages in four stretches of 25. Every prompt is different. Entries are numbered, not dated, so a missed day leaves no gap. Each stretch opens with a photograph and ends with a two-page read-back: a tally grid to tick what the last 25 entries were about, and questions about what you noticed.
• The whole hundred: a closing page for your ten best moments and everyone who appears in the journal.
• Four hard-day pages that ask what happened, what held, one small thing if there is one, and what would help tomorrow. No silver linings required. Every entry page links to them.
• Two letter pages and a 90-line running list of small good things.
• Notes and sources: every study mentioned in the guide, with page references.

What you download

• Thanks, Specifically (144 pages, PDF) in US Letter and in A4, in colour, with bookmarks and a contents page. Use whichever matches your printer paper.
• Spare pages (16 pages, PDF, US Letter and A4): a blank version of every way of looking with a line for your own prompt, four more hard-day pages, letter paper, a read-back sheet and a fresh running list, for carrying on after the hundred.

Good to know

• Print it, or write on it with a stylus in a PDF app such as GoodNotes, Notability, Samsung Notes or Xodo. The contents lines and the hard-day links are tappable.
• You do not need to print it all at once: the guide tells you which pages make up each stretch. Black and white printing works; the colours are pale and the writing lines light grey.
• Writing lines are spaced for real handwriting, and every entry has a full page.
• The guide reports the research plainly: gratitude writing lifts most people's mood a little, not hugely, and is not a treatment for depression or anxiety. The book says so, and says where to turn if you are not all right.
• The people in the examples are made up.
• This is a PDF download. No physical book is shipped.