After a few months of personal regular use of my journal, I knew I had to turn this into a product so I could share it with others.
That commitment to share this project forced me to think about the design of it and product design, a field I had very limited knowledge of.
I began my product design journey with Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why”, an obvious starting point. His TED talk about design is phenomenal and deceptively simple.
Using his golden circle framework (Why/How/What) with Apple as an example I went to write down my own version.
And, I fell at the first block. I thought I would be easy, however thinking that clearly rarely is. I’m not lying when I say I was stuck at this point for weeks.
Then a breakthrough came when I was advised to find out and draw golden circles for my main competitors (The 5-Minute Journal, The Bullet-Journal, The Artist’s Way) as my own golden circle wouldn’t be too dissimilar to theirs.
Unfortunately no one puts this information neatly on their landing pages, I had to trawl through interviews and podcasts with the respective founders until I found my answers.
Here’s what I found:
The 5-Minute Journal
UJ Ramdas and Alex Ikonn
Why: Make their and others lives better (happier and more productive)
What: Use and implement models and structures of habits and behaviors based on scientific research
How: An easy to use guided daily journal
The Bullet-Journal
Ryder Carroll
Why: To help people live more intentionally
How: A mindfulness practice that’s disguised as a productivity system
What: A journal framework for capturing your ideas, keeping track of what’s happened to you, organising what is currently going on, and planning for the future.
The Artist’s Way
Julia Cameron
Why: To heal herself and others
How: A spiritual writing practice “spiritual windshield wipers”
What: A creative prompt based morning journal, where the users write three pages
Once I had these done, my own became so much clearer.
Tús Maith Journals
Eoghan Sheehy
Why: I help people thrive
How: I systematise the best practices of the most successful people in the world and integrate them with scientific principles
What:A guided daily journaling system.
Tús Maith Journals 