12 Video Diary Ideas, Sorted by How Much Time You Actually Have

Most video diaries don't fail because you run out of things to say. They fail because the diary has no shape: "record my life" gives you nothing to compare, no reason to press record today rather than tomorrow, and a pile of clips you'll never watch.

So these aren't prompts — there are 75 of those here. They're formats: what you record, how often, and what you'll have at the end. They're sorted by the only thing that really predicts whether you'll keep one going, which is how much time it asks for.

Pick one. Two diaries running at once is how both of them stop.

If you have five seconds a day

1. One second, every day

Record a single second of each day and string them together. Cesar Kuriyama did this for his thirtieth year and presented it at TED in 2012; his reason was that he couldn't remember the day-to-day of his twenties.

• You get: a six-minute film of a year, which is surprisingly watchable.
• It suits: people who want a record of a year, not of themselves.
• Usual failure: you'll miss days and the gaps feel worse than they are. Let them go; a second from the next day is fine.

2. The same spot, once a week

Prop the phone in exactly the same place — a windowsill, a mirror, the view from your desk — and record five seconds every Sunday. Nothing about the framing changes, so everything that does change is visible: seasons, a room filling up, a body, a garden, a child who has to stand on the same mark.

• You get: a time-lapse that's more striking than any single entry.
• It suits: anything slow-moving. Pregnancy, a renovation, a plant, a beard.
• Usual failure: drifting framing. Mark the spot with tape. The setup guide explains why the place matters more than it sounds.

If you have thirty seconds a day

3. One goal, one journey

The format Jourvelope is built around. Pick a single goal with something visible or audible in it, record yourself attempting it on day 1, and record a short entry every day after. The diary is the gap between the first clip and the latest one.

• You get: proof of change that your memory can't give you. People reliably misjudge how much they've changed — the reason this matters.
• It suits: a skill (a language, an instrument, a sport), fitness, recovery from injury.
• Usual failure: a goal that's too broad. "Get fit" has no day-1 clip; "run 5k without stopping" does.

4. One sentence about today

Say one true sentence about the day, then stop. Not the highlight — just what happened. This is close to what the BBC's Video Nation collected in the 1990s: ordinary people filming ordinary life, housework included.

• You get: the ordinary days, which are the ones you'll forget and, according to a 2014 study of time capsules, the ones you'll most underestimate wanting back.
• It suits: anyone who wants a diary without a project attached.
• Usual failure: trying to make it interesting. Don't.

5. The walk-home entry

Record on the same walk, drive (parked) or commute every day. Same cue, same place, so you never have to decide when to do it.

• You get: entries that are looser and more honest than ones recorded at a desk.
• It suits: people who already have a daily transition between work and home.
• Usual failure: recording while doing something that needs your attention. If you're driving, record after you park.

6. The energy check

One question every night: what took most of your energy today? Over a few weeks the pattern is more useful than any single answer — which meetings, which people, which kinds of day.

• You get: a record of where your days actually go.
• It suits: burnout, a new job, a period you're trying to understand.
• Usual failure: turning it into a complaint log. Say what took the energy, not who to blame.

If you have five minutes a week

7. The Sunday review

Once a week, two to five minutes: what changed, what didn't, what's next week's one thing. The longer format works weekly because it's rare.

• You get: a diary you can actually rewatch. Fifty-two entries a year is a manageable archive.
• It suits: people who find daily entries too much.
• Usual failure: skipping one week and losing the thread. If you miss a Sunday, record on Monday rather than waiting for the next one.

8. Explain what you learned

Once a week, explain something you learned as if to a friend who hasn't seen it. A coding idea, a grammar rule, a chess opening.

• You get: a record of how your understanding changed — the early clips are often more confidently wrong than you'd expect.
• It suits: anyone learning something hard over months.
• Usual failure: scripting it. The stumbles are what make the early clips useful later.

If you have an hour a year

9. Five questions, every birthday

Write down five questions and ask yourself the same five on every birthday. Who do you spend most of your time with? What are you worried about? What are you proud of? What would you change? What do you think next year looks like?

This is the Up series at personal scale — the documentaries that have revisited the same group of people every seven years since 1964. The power is entirely in the repetition: the same questions, years apart.

• You get: after five years, something genuinely unusual — a set of answers you can't revise.
• It suits: everyone, honestly. It's the lowest-effort idea on this list.
• Usual failure: forgetting the questions. Save them somewhere you'll find in twelve months, and don't watch last year's answers until after you've recorded this year's.

10. The sealed time capsule

Record a video message to your future self and don't watch it until a fixed date — a year, five years, the day you finish something. Talk about the ordinary details, not just the big feelings: what you eat, what you're listening to, what a normal Tuesday looks like.

• You get: the thing the 2014 rediscovery research found people undervalue most. In that study the capsules were written and opened after three months, so the effect over years and on video is untested — but the direction is clear.
• It suits: the start of anything: a move, a new job, a relationship, a degree.
• Usual failure: watching it early. Put the date in the file name.

11. A recording of someone else, once a year

Same format as #9, but with a child, a parent, a grandparent. Kids answering "what do you want to be?" every year is the obvious one; a grandparent telling the same story at 80 and 85 is the one people tend to wish they'd made.

• You get: a record no photo album holds — how someone sounded.
• It suits: families.
• Usual failure: none of the logistical kind. Ask before recording, and accept "no."

For a specific stretch of time

12. A recovery or treatment diary

A short entry every day through a recovery: an injury, surgery, an illness, physiotherapy. How far you can move, how you slept, what hurt. Researchers have used exactly this kind of record — in a 2000 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health, young people with asthma filmed their daily lives, and the footage showed clinicians triggers and medication problems they hadn't known about.

• You get: evidence of progress on the days it doesn't feel like any, and something concrete to show your doctor or physio.
• It suits: anything with a recovery curve.
• Usual failure: recording on the good days only.

All 12 video diary ideas at a glance

How to choose a video diary idea

If you're not sure, pick #9 and one daily format — #3 if you have a goal, #4 if you don't. The birthday interview costs an hour a year and becomes the most valuable thing you own in about five; the daily one is where the habit lives.

Whichever you pick, decide the cue and the place before day 1. That decision has better evidence behind it than anything else about keeping a diary, and this guide walks through it. When you get stuck on what to say, the prompts are grouped by what kind of day it is.

FAQ

What should I record in a video diary?

Pick a format before you start, because 'my life' has no shape. Good starting points are one sentence about each day, a short daily entry on a single goal, or the same five questions every birthday. Ordinary days are worth recording: people consistently underestimate how much they'll want them later.

How often should I make a video diary entry?

As often as the format needs and no more. Daily formats work best at thirty seconds or less; anything longer works better weekly. A diary you keep weekly beats one you keep daily for ten days.

What's a good video diary idea for a beginner?

One sentence about today, recorded at the same time and place every day. It takes ten seconds, needs no planning, and builds the habit before you take on anything more ambitious. How to start one.

What's the difference between video diary ideas and prompts?

An idea is the format of the whole diary: what you record, how often, and what it adds up to. A prompt is the question you answer in a single entry. You need one idea and a supply of prompts. 75 prompts.

Sources

• Kuriyama, C. (2012). One second every day. TED2012.
• Zhang, T., Kim, T., Brooks, A. W., Gino, F., & Norton, M. I. (2014). A "present" for the future: The unexpected value of rediscovery. Psychological Science, 25(10), 1851–1860.
• Rich, M., Lamola, S., Gordon, J., & Chalfen, R. (2000). Video intervention/prevention assessment: A patient-centered methodology for understanding the adolescent illness experience. Journal of Adolescent Health, 27, 155–165.
• Up (film series). Wikipedia.
• Nahra, C. (1999). Video Nation and Britain's camcorder citizens. Documentary, International Documentary Association.

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