Let’s talk about gratitude. It’s good for your health and well-being, so in theory, it’s a great habit to keep in your daily routine. But if we’re being honest, when it comes to putting it into practice, it’s easier said than done.
Whenever I have a lot of work on my plate, I feel overwhelming stress. And unless I intentionally look for the positive things—the ways I find my job meaningful, the love and support I receive from friends and family, and so on—I start taking it all for granted. That’s not to say I haven’t tried out those daily gratitude journals in the past. It’s just hard to stay consistent.
Enter Gratefulness, the app that makes it easy for you to be more thankful and positive about the good things going on in life. And, if you’re the type to worry about publishing unrefined or incoherent thoughts, don’t worry. Your posts and information are all private.
Here’s how it works: According to Kristin Wong at Lifehacker, the app will text you each morning, and “you can reply anytime you’re feeling grateful for something.” Everything you send in gets stored in a personal account online, and you revisit the space to sort through your replies and even leave comments.
The best part is it’s opt-in. That means, if you’re not feeling particularly grateful at that moment, that’s OK. Once you’re up for it, though, your online journal will still be ready and waiting for you—either to remind you of the things you’ve appreciated in the past, or to be updated again when something good happens. It reminds you to do it every day if you’re the kind of person who needs reminding, but there’s no pressure to record anything if it feels forced.
That’s probably one of my favorite perks of it—that it’s a guilt-free gratitude system. And if you’re anything like me, this will be way easier to manage than any other journal or note-taking app. Something I always have trouble with when starting something on pen and paper is that I usually end up losing steam in the process after just a couple days. I run out of ideas, become repetitive, or feel disingenuous because I don’t immediately know what to say (yeah, as if my life is so difficult.)
Luckily, the people at Gratefulness also have some advice on what to do when you’re at a loss for words: “Try to think less of what you’re grateful for and reframe the question to something like ‘Who are you grateful for today?’ or ‘What is a food you are grateful for today?’ Being more specific will make it easier. The idea is to be more aware of the little things in life that bring you joy.”
When big-picture stress is getting you down, it makes sense that you’ll find some solace in the details. Curious to try it out? Check it out here.