20 Journal Prompts for Making Room for Silliness

Silliness is usually the first thing to go when life gets busy. It produces nothing, it needs no skill, and it is easy to call a waste of time.

Most of us still have the impulse. A goofy thought arrives, and a sensible voice speaks over it before it has finished. The impulse loses, and nobody notices that it was ever there.

Why silliness gets crowded out

The sensible voice usually asks what the point is, who is watching and whether there is something more useful to do. None of those questions is unreasonable. They simply add up, until a week contains no play at all and nobody can say when that happened.

This is not about forcing fun. A narrower question works better: when did a silly impulse turn up today, and what did you do with it? You do not have to do anything about it. You only have to notice it, and be honest.

20 journal prompts for making room for silliness

These twenty are taken word for word from the daily questions printed in The Silliness I Let Myself Enjoy. The journal has a different question on each of its 48 daily pages, and these are chosen from across the eight weeks. Choose one prompt and write for five minutes, in plain words, or doodle your answer. A small, specific moment is enough: the voice you put on for the cat says more than a general answer about fun. If a prompt does not fit your day, skip it and take another.

1. What goofy thing did you nearly not do today?
2. What small, unserious thing did you let yourself do that you might once have skipped?
3. What was the silliest thing you did today, however tiny?
4. What goofy thing did you share with someone today?
5. What in-joke or private word turned up today?
6. When did you tease someone, or get teased, with affection?
7. What goofy thing did you do today that nobody saw?
8. What small, pointless thing did you do just for yourself?
9. What would you have been embarrassed to be caught doing today, and why did you enjoy it?
10. What did you do today that you might have done as a child?
11. What did you do today with the same energy you had at seven?
12. Where did you let your inner child have a say today?
13. When did you move for no reason other than that it felt good?
14. When did you laugh with your whole body today?
15. What did you find funny that nobody else seemed to?
16. What did you read or watch that made you laugh out loud?
17. What nonsense did you make up on purpose?
18. What small game or rule did you create?
19. When did you feel a silly impulse today, and what did you do with it?
20. Whom would you like to be silly with more often?

A small exercise for today

Before you sleep, write down one silly thing from today, however tiny: a noise, a pulled face, a word you made up. Then write one line on whether the sensible voice spoke up first, and who won. Do not grade it. A doodle counts.

If nothing silly happened, borrow one from a film, a child or a pet, and note what made it funny. The aim is a record of the play you noticed, not a performance of it.

This is the idea behind The Silliness I Let Myself Enjoy: eight weeks of short daily entries, a doodle box on every page and a look back at the end of each week. It is a reflection tool, not a promise of results, and the pace is yours.