I Let Generative AI Illustrate My Journal Entries: Here’s Why I’m Hooked

You’ve probably used generative AI to help with brainstorming, creating notes, and for other creative projects. But have you thought about using it to bring your journal entries to life? I was curious to see whether this would work, and the results were spectacular.

What Did I Illustrate With Generative AI?

To make this a fair experiment, I used several notes and scenarios for AI to try and illustrate.

1. My Goals for Next Year

I’ve set some big goals for 2025, and I naturally spend a lot of time visualizing. Well, that’s how I like to say “my brain wanders off in countless directions”, anyway. I’ve put in some serious effort to stop procrastinating and start working on my goals, but I was curious to see how Adobe Firefly would interpret my goals.

Here was the prompt that I gave the software:

My goals for 2025 are to reach a high level of financial security, commit to five CrossFit workouts per week, and have the best mental health of my life by doubling down on journaling and meditation. I also want to reach C1-level Danish in terms of speaking and start winter bathing at least twice per week. Moreover, I aim to eat a 90% unprocessed diet and limit my content consumption even further than I already have.

Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to create an illustration that allows me to visualize my goals. Please create an image with all of the above so that I can refer to it whenever I need. I want no text in my image.

This image is quite stunning and matched what I was looking for—I like hiking a lot and want to spend more time in nature next year.

I tried the same prompt in ChatGPT, but it didn’t produce exactly what I was looking for, and it also included text (most of which was illegible). This was despite trying to get around the fact that generative AI is notoriously poor at creating text.

2. The Progress I’ve Made Over the Last Few Months

I’m a very goal-oriented person, but I sometimes lose track of my achievements. To remind myself of how far I’ve come recently, I gave Adobe Firefly the following prompt:

In the past few months, I’ve made lots of new friends. I’ve also been more consistent with my gym progress and reduced my phone screen time to less than an hour per day. Moreover, I now consistently meditate and journal again. I’m proud of these achievements and want to illustrate them. Can you create an image of a person journaling and working on a big goal?

Clearly, as you can see, Firefly loves mountains just as much as I do…

I realized with this prompt that it’s important to be specific; the image above was part of my fourth attempt. Using a clear AI prompting formula would’ve made things less strenuous.

3. My Weekly Review

Although good at getting things done, I could bet better at evaluating my week. To tackle this problem, I now allocate time in my schedule to weekly reviews, and I asked Firefly to illustrate my most recent review:

I want an image that depicts my most recent week. This week, I’ve been consistent with four workouts per week and signed up for a new business software tool that’ll help with my travel blog. I’ve also enjoyed success with my new weekly schedule. Can you create an image that depicts all of this?

Let’s just say that the climate where I am at the time of writing certainly isn’t beach weather. Nonetheless, I think this image depicts my review quite well…

4. My Priorities

Having lots of ideas has the upside of being wildly creative. However, it also has some drawbacks; one of those is forgetting what I’m supposed to be focusing on. So, I figured that it would be a good idea to make generative AI visualize what I should be focusing on in this season of my life.

Here was the prompt I provided:

I should be focusing on: The gym, growing a business, and learning a language. Please create an image with a laptop, notepad, and some kettlebells.

The image I received was simple but effective…

It outlined everything I wanted to focus on with the utmost simplicity, which motivates me to improve my task management and productivity.

Why I Enjoyed This Exercise

While prompting was trickier than anticipated, I still really enjoyed this activity. Here are some of the top reasons why.

1. I Could Visualize My Personal Goals Better

Visualization is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful ways to achieve your goals. You need to believe that you can make something happen, and sometimes, generating a picture that reminds you of what you want will help you get there.

Most of my visions are quite abstract, and as a result, it definitely helps if I can see something that represents them in a more organized fashion. I’ll probably revisit Firefly to upgrade these visualizations in due course.

2. Illustrating My Growth Made It Real

Besides looking ahead to the future, I also liked this experiment because it clearly showed me what I have most recently learned. As a result, it reminds me that the magnitude is bigger than I often think. This can be particularly powerful with annual reviews, especially when you’ve made huge progress in certain areas.

Like visualizing my personal goals, I want to revisit these pictures every three months or so. Doing this would make it easier to understand that I am making progress and continue working toward the next level.

3. It Helped Me See Weekly Patterns

Another cool thing I’ve noticed about weekly reviews is that each week is different. You’ll naturally have highs and lows, and there’s often a theme that threads all of your events together.

By using AI to generate images of my weekly reviews, I find it easier to uncover those themes for each week. Looking back in a year or so would be fun if I kept up this practice.

AI isn’t just for bringing your ideas to life, but it’s also great for illustrating your notes and journal entries. You can use your images to highlight good and bad periods, and viewing your thinking in this way might make it easier for you to take the next step forward.