Hinge founder and CEO Justin McLeod credits his productivity at least partially, to his easy-going wellness routine.

McLeod founded the dating app in 2011, sold it to Tinder-owner Match Group in 2019 for an undisclosed fee and stayed on as CEO, growing Hinge into one of America's most-used online dating venues. The 38-year-old says there's one mental exercise he does everyday that helps him perform at his best.

"If there's one life hack I think that I use the most, it's probably a gratitude list," McLeod said on a recent episode of LinkedIn's "This is Working" podcast. "If I'm feeling down or resentful or whatever, I always find that just writing out a list of 10 things that I'm grateful for is a way to instantly turn around my world view."

Journaling for at least 15 minutes a day can boost your problem-solving skills and help you recover from traumatic experiences faster, studies show. The practice "allows you to track patterns, trends and improvements over time," bestselling authors Deepak Chopra and Kabir Sehgal wrote for CNBC Make It in 2019.

When you're bogged down by stressors, or what you're lacking personally and professionally, a gratitude journal can serve as a constant reminder of your wins. McLeod finds comfort in "the process" of writing out his thoughts, and looking at the people and circumstances in life he's thankful for "over and over again," he said.

"Doing anything that gets me out of my head" helps make his day better, he added.

Using journaling to get ahead

Plenty of successful people say they've used journaling to keep themselves focused and mentally balanced.

Oprah Winfrey once kept a gratitude journal for a decade, writing down five things she was grateful for every day, according to a November 2012 issue of "O, The Oprah Magazine." The billionaire reportedly wrote phrases like, "A run around Florida's Fisher Island with a slight breeze that kept me cool." and, "A long and hilarious chat with Gayle about her blind date with Mr. Potato Head" to remind her of the small joys in life.

Glossier founder Emily Weiss' self-care routine includes five minutes of gratitude journaling each day, she told Vanity Fair in 2019.

And if you'd like to put a spin on the popular writing exercise, social scientist Arthur C. Brooks recommends keeping a "pain journal," he said during a panel at The Atlantic Festival in September 2023. 

In a Harvard Business School course he teaches on happiness, Brooks asks each student to write a journal entry briefly detailing a painful experience they went through, and how it made them feel, he said. After a month, they return to the entry and write down what they learned from that experience. After six months, they include something positive that's happened as a result.

"Inevitably, you wind up writing things in those spaces, and after a while, you start looking forward to writing in your pain journal," said Brooks. "Because you get to look at the ways that you've learned and grown and benefitted."

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