Includes Notion Template
Most evenings, the hard part is not knowing what happened. It is looking at it without making excuses.
The Stoic evening review is a short audit of what you did and said, what you would repeat, and what needs correcting tomorrow. Seneca describes the practice in On Anger 3.36, where he says he adopted it from Sextius.
“I pass the whole day in review before myself, and repeat all that I have said and done: I conceal nothing from myself, and omit nothing.”
Epictetus also quotes Pythagorean nightly questions in Discourses 3.10. The family resemblance is real. The surviving evidence does not give us a neat direct chain from the Golden Verses through Sextius to Seneca, so I would not pretend that it does.
The three questions are blunt:
- Where did I go wrong?
- What did I do?
- What did I leave undone?
This is not a scorecard for proving that you were good. It is feedback for the next rep.
I/ The journal I actually use
I’ve experimented over the years with many ways of using this technique, but nothing compares to the Notion template method.
In the free Notion app, I’ve set up this template which auto-fills whenever I open it at night:
Download the Notion template here.
I’ve tried longer lists of questions and shorter lists of questions, but this is the best list I’ve found to use consistently.
Sometimes you are tired and do not have the energy for a demanding writing prompt. On those nights, a few honest lines are enough.
If you use the morning version too, I share that template in my Stoic morning routine.
II/ Use audio when writing feels heavy
On nights when you would rather listen than type, use my eight-minute guided reflection on Insight Timer.
Listen to the guided visualisation on Insight Timer here.
I also keep two guided Stoic evening reflections together on the dedicated listening page. One is a modern Buddhist-Stoic adaptation. The other follows Seneca’s nightly review.
The review is not about ending every day feeling positive. It is about seeing one action clearly enough to train a better response next time.
If you want a simple way into daily Stoic practice, the free 7-Day Stoic Challenge gives you one practice a day without asking you to rebuild your life.