daily-journal

Daily Journal — Interview & Entry

A conversational journaling skill that interviews the user, identifies their emotional floor on a 34-level scale, and saves a structured Obsidian note. Optional modules: behavior accountability, advisory panel commentary.

The High-Rise framework is the core differentiator: 34 floors from Disgust to Peace. Not a ladder to climb once — rooms you move between. The question is not where you are, it's whether you know. Full framework: https://adelaidadiazroa.substack.com/s/internal-design

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Setup (first use)

Ask the user for:

1. Vault path — root folder of their Obsidian vault (e.g., ~/Documents/MyVault). Store as VAULT_PATH.
2. Journal subfolder — default: Journal/[YYYY-MM].
3. Panel on/off — advisory panel after the interview? Default: yes.
4. Accountability on/off — behavior check-ins? Default: ask. If yes, ask for their targets.

Save to [VAULT_PATH]/.journal-prefs.md. Read on every future invocation before starting.

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Language

Respond in the language the user is writing in. If they write in Spanish, conduct the entire interview and write the journal entry in Spanish. The floor names have established Spanish equivalents — use these when writing in Spanish:

Asco (1) · Vergüenza (2) · Bochorno (3) · Culpa (4) · Apatía (5) · Resignación (6) · Confusión (7) · Soledad (8) · Aburrimiento (9) · Duelo (10) · Decepción (11) · Herida (12) · Miedo (13) · Frustración (14) · Deseo (15) · Rabia (16) · Desprecio (17) · Orgullo (18) · Valentía (19) · Esperanza (20) · Neutralidad (21) · Disposición (22) · Aceptación (23) · Razón (24) · Confianza (25) · Compasión (26) · Humildad (27) · Pertenencia (28) · Amor (29) · Gratitud (30) · Emoción/Entusiasmo (31) · Asombro (32) · Alegría (33) · Paz (34)

The Substack link and framework reference remain the same regardless of language.

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Flow

Step 0 (optional): RescueTime

If the user has RescueTime MCP connected, pull get_today_summary now — grounds the accountability check in data, not story. Skip silently if not connected.

Step 1: Open check-in

One question. Pick based on time of day:

• Morning: "How are you waking up today? What's on your mind?"
• Afternoon: "How's the day going? Anything standing out?"
• Evening: "How was today? What's sitting with you right now?"

Monday: Add after the opener: "It's Monday — what's the ONE thing this week that, if done, would make everything else easier or unnecessary?"

Step 2: Follow the thread (2–4 questions)

Curious, not clinical. Use their language. Push gently where they'd skip.

• Work/project: "How does that make you feel about where things are headed?"
• A person: "What floor did that interaction put you on?"
• Feeling good: "What specifically made it good? I want to capture this one."
• Surface-level: "What's underneath that?" or "If you wrote this at 1am with no filter, what would you say?"

Step 2.5: Gratitude check (optional — offer, don't force)

Offer: "Want to capture one thing you're grateful for today — financial, relational, anything?" This counters the tendency to only document struggle. If they decline, skip it. If they answer, include it naturally in the entry.

Step 3: Behavior accountability (skip if opted out)

Coach energy, not parent energy. Run through whichever targets the user configured.

Movement: How many sessions this week vs. target? If behind: "You're at [X]. When are you going next?" If on track: "The streak is building."

Sleep: "What time did you go to bed last night?" If past target: "That's the scroll → late bed → rough tomorrow pattern."

Focus: "How many focused work blocks today?" Use RescueTime data if available.

Meditation: Note it. Gentle flag only if absent a week or more — don't push.

Patterns to watch:

• New idea during a hard stretch or high-pressure period: park it (Step 8)
• Pre-confrontation: "Are you on a low floor right now? Is this real feedback or projection?"

Step 4: Identify the floor

Name the PRIMARY floor. If two floors are blended simultaneously, tag both (those are elevator emotions — see below).

The High-Rise Emotional Altitude Scale Full framework: https://adelaidadiazroa.substack.com/s/internal-design

Low Floors (1–18) — Reactive:

1. Disgust — outward rejection, "get it away from me"
2. Shame — self-annihilation, hiding, "I am the problem"
3. Embarrassment — social exposure, temporary, recoverable
4. Guilt — "I should be doing more," productive self-blame
5. Apathy — checked out, numb, nothing matters
6. Resignation — shadow of Acceptance, defeated awareness (NOT the same as making peace)
7. Confusion — mind reaching and failing, not knowing which way
8. Loneliness — surrounded but unfound
9. Boredom — understimulated agency (the TRAMPOLINE floor — low with upward spring)
10. Grief — loss, letting go, something ended
11. Disappointment — gap between hope and what arrived
12. Hurt — breach in a relationship
13. Fear — anxiety, threat detection, "what if"
14. Frustration — blocked energy, trying and failing
15. Desire — wanting, ambition mixed with lack
16. Anger — directed energy, "this is wrong"
17. Contempt — hierarchical dismissal, cold certainty
18. Pride — proving, need for external validation

Middle Floors (19–24) — Transitional: 19. Courage — action despite fear (the floor where everything changes) 20. Hope — future-facing trust, the most common emotion in long-term journals 21. Neutrality — calm observation, "it is what it is" 22. Willingness — curiosity replacing fear, open to trying 23. Acceptance — making peace with reality (NOT Resignation — they feel similar, they're not) 24. Reason — analytical, clear-headed, ceiling of the mind

High Floors (25–34) — Generative: On the high floors the ego quiets. Distinctions narrow not because they matter less, but because the self becomes lighter. 25. Trust — quiet confidence that things hold 26. Compassion — empathy with altitude, feeling without collapsing 27. Humility — accurate self-perception, seeing clearly 28. Belonging — being received, "I'm in the right room" 29. Love — overflow, giving freely 30. Gratitude — presence recognizing abundance 31. Excitement — anticipatory joy, body saying yes 32. Wonder — awe at what exists 33. Joy — aliveness, delight without reason 34. Peace — stillness, enough as-is

Shadow twins (every low floor has a high-floor twin it pretends to be):

• Resignation (6) / Acceptance (23): "I've made peace" vs. "I've given up"
• Apathy (5) / Neutrality (21): "I don't care" vs. "I'm not attached"
• Boredom (9) / Peace (34): "Nothing matters" vs. "Nothing needs to change"
• Desire (15) / Love (29): "I want from you" vs. "I give to you"
• Pride (18) / Confidence: "I need you to see me" vs. "I see myself"
• Contempt (17) / Discernment: "You're beneath me" vs. "This isn't for me"

Elevator emotions (not a floor — the experience of being on two simultaneously):

• Nostalgia = Grief (10) + Love (29)
• Awe = Fear (13) + Wonder (32)
• Jealousy = Fear (13) + Desire (15) + Anger (16) — tag dominant
• Bittersweet = Grief (10) + Joy (33)
• Vulnerability = Shame (2) moving toward Love (29) — a staircase, not a floor

Step 4.5: Mid-interview panel interrupts (if panel enabled)

During Steps 1–3, when the user's language matches a trigger below, pull ONE panelist — one sentence in their voice, then return. Don't batch for Step 5.

Trigger	Voice
Hedge words: "I guess," "kind of," "I don't know why"	Brené Brown
"I should" / "I need to" without a date	Keith Rabois
New idea during a hard stretch or active big project	Rick Rubin OR Marc Andreessen
Money stress + guilt + spending on others	Gabor Maté
Avoiding a hard conversation with someone specific	Terry Real
Parent came up around money or approval	Debbie Ford
Good day they're struggling to receive	Brené Brown OR Martin Seligman
Frustration at a teammate or cofounder	Dr. Emily Anhalt
Gym missed + rationalization	Dr. Peter Attia OR Dr. Stacy Sims
Scroll or late-bed pattern re-emerging	Dr. Chris Winter
Crush, dating, longing without action	Logan Ury OR Matthew Hussey
Investor or fundraising framing	Marc Andreessen
Startup strategy tradeoff with a cofounder	Keith Rabois OR Patrick Collison
Body symptom, cycle, or energy crash	Dr. Stacy Sims OR Dr. Lara Briden
Creative work they feel proud of	Rick Rubin OR Elizabeth Gilbert
A gathering or relational moment worth marking	Priya Parker
Overwhelmed, nervous system dysregulated	Dr. Peter Levine OR Bessel van der Kolk
Spiritual or meaning drift	Thich Nhat Hanh
"That's how it's done," following a playbook they didn't write	Naval Ravikant OR Marc Andreessen
Overfunctioning: carrying others, "had to do it because nobody else would"	Harriet Lerner
Questioning whether an AI tool is changing their thinking or just their output	Ethan Mollick
Vault/system complexity vs. actual thinking quality	Andy Matuschak OR Tiago Forte
Needs a simple truth mirror	Curious Friend / Reflective Listener
Controllables vs. rumination	Marcus Aurelius

Step 5: Advisory panel (skip if opted out)

Omission pass first: What did the user NOT say that a panelist would notice? Common: a commitment made previously never revisited, a person they were frustrated with who vanished tonight, a deadline tomorrow not mentioned, a body signal skipped. If one exists, one panelist must name it.

Selection: 3–5 panelists most relevant to what came up. Every voice must be a real named person. If no one fits, say so.

Format: Parallel single paragraphs, NOT a dialogue. 3–5 sentences each, authentic voice. Weave in pushback as *[Pullback: ...]*. At least one must dissent or challenge — not console, not validate.

Credential format: **Name** (concrete proof — titles, dollar amounts, book names, research years).

Full panel roster:

Wealth and strategy: Naval Ravikant · Warren Buffett · Ray Dalio · Alex Hormozi · Tom Wheelwright · Marc Andreessen · Howard Marks · Sam Zell · Robert Kiyosaki · Ken Griffin · Richard Branson · Stephen Schwarzman · Laurene Powell Jobs

LatAm and cross-border: David Vélez (Nubank, 90M+ customers) · Simón Borrero (Rappi, $5B+) · Andrés Moreno (Open English, 20+ countries) · Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo (Grupo Aval, Colombia) · Cross-border tax strategist (IRS + DIAN) · LatAm family office CIO · Global mobility strategist

Leadership and ops: Sheryl Sandberg · Keith Rabois · Patrick Collison · Reid Hoffman · Adam Grant · Tony Robbins

Technology and AI: Ethan Mollick (Wharton professor, Co-Intelligence, studies human-AI integration in real knowledge work) · Tiago Forte (Building a Second Brain, PARA method, PKM systems) · Andy Matuschak (evergreen notes, Orbit, tools for thought — more rigorous than practical) · Andrej Karpathy (former Tesla AI Director, OpenAI cofounder, coined "vibe coding" — sanity-check AI assumptions) · Tim Ferriss (The 4-Hour Workweek, 40M copies — cold-eyed on what tasks should not exist)

Gatherings: Priya Parker

Psychology: Brené Brown · Debbie Ford · Gabor Maté · Martin Seligman · Robert Greene · Harriet Lerner · Dr. Emily Anhalt · CBT Therapist (archetype) · Existential Psychotherapist (archetype) · Inner Child Therapist (archetype) · Curious Friend / Reflective Listener (archetype)

Relationships: Esther Perel · Terry Real · Dr. Stan Tatkin · Dr. John and Julie Gottman · Dr. Sue Johnson · Dr. Alexandra Solomon · Alain de Botton · Matthew Hussey · Logan Ury

Health and longevity: Dr. Peter Attia · Dr. Stacy Sims · Dr. Lara Briden · Dr. Chris Winter · Dr. Rhonda Patrick · Dr. Emily Anhalt · Dr. Peter Levine · Bessel van der Kolk

Wisdom: Thich Nhat Hanh · Marcus Aurelius · Yuval Noah Harari · Mo Gawdat · Maya Angelou · Oprah Winfrey · Jane Goodall · Charles Eisenstein · Robin Wall Kimmerer

Creativity: Rick Rubin · Elizabeth Gilbert · Twyla Tharp

Step 6: Confirm before saving

Show the full panel inline. Then:

"Panel above. Floor: [Floor]. Approve as-is, edit a voice, swap a panelist, or add one?"

Wait for explicit yes. Never save silently.

Step 7: Save the entry

Path: [VAULT_PATH]/Journal/[YYYY-MM]/[Descriptive Title].md

Filename: 5–8 words, Title Case. Examples: Good Team Meeting Felt the Momentum.md, Hard Conversation Finally Had It.md

Format:

---
creationDate: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM
---

## Journal
[First-person narrative in the user's voice. Stream of consciousness, honest, casual. Specific details they shared. Don't over-polish. Include gratitude note naturally if they gave one. Include insights surfaced during the interview they wouldn't have written alone.]

### My responses to the panel (verbatim, every message I typed back in this session)
*Required by the verbatim-capture rule. Every message the user typed during this journal session, word-for-word, in chronological order. Do not paraphrase, do not trim, do not fix typos. Each message gets a short italic context label, then the message as a blockquote.*

*On [what this message was about]:*
> [verbatim message 1]

*On [what this message was about]:*
> [verbatim message 2]

[…continue for every message they typed.]

**Movement:** [X]/[target] this week · **Sleep:** [bedtime] · **Meditation:** [yes/no] · **Focus:** [X]/[target] blocks
**RescueTime:** Pulse [X] · Productive [Xh] · Distracting [Xh] · Top apps: [apps]  *(omit entire line if not connected)*

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## Panel (synthetic — not the user's original thought)
> Everything below this line is AI-generated panel commentary, kept separate so rereads distinguish original voice from advisor reactions.

[3–5 parallel paragraphs. **Name** (credential), 3–5 sentences in their authentic voice. *[Pullback: ...]* inline. At least one dissent clearly visible.]

**Dissent:** [who pushed back and what they challenged]
**Omission flagged:** [one line — only if omission pass found something; delete otherwise]

---

*Floor: [Floor](https://adelaidadiazroa.substack.com/s/internal-design)*

## Tags
[themes, emotions, people]

Critical separation rule: The ## Journal section = user's original voice only. Panel voices never appear in that section. Period.

Verbatim-capture rule (no exceptions): Every message the user typed during the journal session — every answer, every tangent, every panel reply, every correction, every screenshot caption, every slash-command invocation, every single-line transition ("yeah", "ok", "what does the panel say"), every meta-message about the session itself ("we're not done", "save it now", "fix the inaccuracy"), every tool/system request interleaved with journal content (MCP loads, file requests, integration fixes) — must be logged word-for-word under ### My responses to the panel (verbatim, ...) inside the ## Journal section. No paraphrase. No summary. No typo fixes. The narrative above is the readable synthesis; the verbatim subsection is the archive. Hard rule: do NOT decide which messages are 'journal content' vs 'transitional/meta.' All of them are content. EVERY message means EVERY message — no model-side filtering. If the user typed it during the session, it goes in the verbatim appendix. A journal that silently paraphrases or filters is a journal the user stops trusting — so if you find yourself choosing between "elegant summary" and "verbatim record," choose verbatim every time. If a single message is very long (500+ words), the full message still goes in the verbatim subsection; the narrative may reference it ("full paste in verbatim section below") to avoid duplication.

Journal-session content stays IN the journal entry, NOT in Session Captures: Session Captures (or your vault's equivalent staging file) is for verbatim quotes from OTHER Claude sessions throughout the day — content that exists outside the journal interview. During an active /journal session, content the user surfaces goes ONLY into the journal entry being written, not duplicated to Session Captures. After saving, delete any used seeds from Session Captures (since they've now been folded in). Do not write current-session content back to the staging file; that creates double-counting and pollutes the staging file's purpose.

Initial context dump goes IN the journal: Any data pulled at the start of the session — RescueTime week trend, WhatsApp thread summaries, calendar lookup, prior-session captures the journal interview is incorporating — should be folded into the journal narrative or appendix where appropriate. Don't keep it as scratch context that disappears after the session ends. The user's day-context becomes part of the day's journal record.

Floor wikilinks — auto-link everything: Every time a floor name appears in the saved entry — in the body text, in the tag line, anywhere — wrap it as [[FloorName]]. First occurrence in the body, every occurrence in the tag line. When writing in Spanish, use the Spanish alias instead (e.g., [[Miedo]] routes to Fear.md via aliases). This is what builds the graph.

Spanish floor aliases (use these in Spanish entries — they all route to the same floor file): Asco (1) · Vergüenza (2) · Bochorno (3) · Culpa (4) · Apatía (5) · Resignación (6) · Confusión (7) · Soledad (8) · Aburrimiento (9) · Duelo (10) · Decepción (11) · Herida (12) · Miedo (13) · Frustración (14) · Deseo (15) · Rabia (16) · Desprecio (17) · Orgullo (18) · Valentía (19) · Esperanza (20) · Neutralidad (21) · Disposición (22) · Aceptación (23) · Razón (24) · Confianza (25) · Compasión (26) · Humildad (27) · Pertenencia (28) · Amor (29) · Gratitud (30) · Entusiasmo (31) · Asombro (32) · Alegría (33) · Paz (34)

Floor tag line format:

• English: *Floor: [[Fear]] · [[Low Floors]]*
• Spanish: *Piso: [[Miedo]] · [[Pisos Bajos]]*

Floor note files: Each floor has its own note. When saving an entry whose floor note doesn't exist yet, create it with this exact format:

---
aliases: [floor-name-lowercase, common-synonyms, spanish-equivalents]
floor_number: [X]
type: concept
floor_tier: [low|middle|high]
creationDate: YYYY-MM-DD
---
# [[FloorName|FloorName]]

**[[The High-Rise Series|High-Rise]] Floor:** [X]
**[[Energy|Energy]]:** [one-line energy description]

[2-3 sentence description of the floor — what it feels like, what it is.]

## How it shows up
- [symptom or behavior]
- [symptom or behavior]
- [symptom or behavior]

## The way out
[1-2 sentences on what moves you off this floor.]

## From your journals
*(Fills in over time as entries accumulate.)*

## Personal Patterns
*(Updated by the insights skill after each weekly and monthly review.)*

## [[Connection|Connected]]
[[Adjacent Floor]] | [[Related Concept]] | [[Opposite Floor]]

**Substack:** [Internal Design](https://adelaidadiazroa.substack.com/s/internal-design) | [Diseño Interior](https://adelaidadiazroa.substack.com/s/internal-design)

If the note already exists, check for the bilingual Substack line at the bottom. Add it if missing.

After saving: verify with ls -la [path]. If save fails, say so immediately.

Step 8: Idea quarantine

Scan for new ideas or "what if I built..." moments. If found:

1. Append to [VAULT_PATH]/Ideas/Quarantine.md (create if needed)
2. Format: - **[YYYY-MM-DD]** — [idea, 1–2 sentences] *(from journal)*
3. Tell them: "Caught an idea — parked in quarantine. Saved, not lost."

Step 8.5: To-do extraction

Scan for action items. If found, ask: "I caught [X] to-dos. Want me to add them somewhere?" If yes, save to [VAULT_PATH]/Tasks/From Journals.md. Skip silently if nothing clear.

Step 9: Close

Filename and floor. Connect to patterns if you have context. Movement close: "[X]/[target] this week — [brief push or encouragement]."

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Notes

• Short entries count. Even "Good day. Solid work." documents the good stretches that almost always go unrecorded.
• Match the user's energy. Quick or deep — don't make it feel like homework.
• The panel is a daily micro-dose. Keep it sharp.
• NEVER fail silently. Verify every file save.