Rule IX - From Chapter 1 - General Rules for the Improvement of Knowledge

"IX. Once a day, especially in the early years of life and study, call yourselves to an account what new ideas, what new proposition or truth you have gained, what further confirmation of known truths, and what advances you have made in any part of knowledge; and let no day, if possible, pass away without some intellectual gain: such a course, well pursued, must certainly advance us in useful knowledge. It is a wise proverb among the learned, borrowed from the lips and practice of a celebrated painter,

"Nulla dies sine linea",

'Let no day pass without one line at least:'

and it was a sacred rule among the Pythagoreans, That they should every evening thrice run over the actions and affairs of the day, and examine what their conduct had been, what they had done, or what they had neglected: and they assured their pupils, that by this method they would make a noble progress on the path of virtue.

Nor let soft slumber close your eyes,
Before you've recollected thrice
The train of action through the day:
Where have my feet chose out their way?
What have I learnt, where-e'er I've been,
From all I've heard, from all I've seen?
What know I more that's worth the knowing?
What have I done that's worth the doing?
What have I sought that I should shun?
What duty have I left undone?
Or into what new follies run ?
These self-enquiries are the road
That leads to virtue, and to God.

I would be glad, among a nation of Christians, to find young men heartily engaged in the practice of what this heathen writer teaches." Dr. Issac Watts

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Improvement_of_the_Mind

This would be the perfect poem to read each evening before writing in a journal. What new follies were done, what worth doing was left undone that could have been done.