What to Record When Nothing Interesting Happens

It's day 12 of your video journal. You've captured birthday candles, a sunset, your dog doing something cute. But today? You woke up, went to work, came home, made dinner. Nothing happened.

This feeling is the number one reason people abandon daily video journaling. And it's based on a misunderstanding about what makes a moment worth capturing.

Why "Boring" Days Matter Most

Here's the truth: the ordinary days are exactly the ones you'll forget without documentation. Five years from now, you'll remember the birthday party. You won't remember the Tuesday afternoon you spent reading on the couch, or the way the light came through your kitchen window while you made coffee.

Research on nostalgia shows that people consistently underestimate how meaningful mundane moments become over time. The everyday details of your life, the ones that feel unremarkable right now, are precisely what your future self will treasure most.

Your future self doesn't want a highlight reel. They want to remember what your actual life felt like.

10 Things Worth Recording on Any Day

When you can't think of anything "interesting," try one of these:

• Your morning routine. The way you make coffee, the mug you always use, the light in your kitchen at 7am. Future you will find this fascinating.

• What you're eating. Meals change, tastes evolve. That random weeknight dinner will become a time capsule.

• Your commute or walk. Streets change, buildings come and go. You won't remember this corner in ten years.

• Someone laughing. People matter more than events. Capture the humans in your life being themselves.

• Your pet doing nothing. Just existing. Sleeping on their favorite spot. They won't be here forever.

• The weather outside your window. A grey Tuesday, a rainy afternoon, the first hints of spring. Seasons are beautiful in aggregate.

• Something you're working on. A project, a hobby, a half-finished puzzle. Progress is invisible day to day but stunning over months.

• A sound. Your coffee maker gurgling, traffic outside, birds in the morning, the particular hum of your home.

• Your own reflection. You're changing, slowly, always. Your face tells a story you can't see from the inside.

• Anything you looked at twice. If something caught your attention, even briefly, your attention made it meaningful.

The Mindset Shift

This reframe changes everything. You're not creating content. You're documenting presence. The goal isn't to impress anyone, including yourself. The goal is to bear witness to your own life.

When you stop judging moments as worthy or unworthy, you start noticing how many of them there actually are. A cup of tea. A text from a friend. The feeling of clean sheets. None of these are "interesting." All of them are your life.

What Happens When You Look Back

People who stick with daily capture often describe the same experience: watching a compilation of "boring" clips and crying.

Not because anything dramatic happened. But because they can see, undeniably, that they were alive. That the ordinary days added up to something. That their small, quiet life was full of moments worth remembering.

The clips from exciting days are great. But the clips from nothing days? Those are the ones that make you realize your whole life is worth capturing, not just the highlights.

Start Today (Even If Nothing Happens)

You don't need something interesting to happen. You just need to notice that you're here. One second is enough.

For more on building a sustainable daily practice, check out the mental health benefits of video journaling or learn about how MyChapters makes daily capture simple.