Table of Contents
Changelog
- 2025-08-20
- Initial publication
Rose, Thorn, Bud
First some context and background before getting to my thoughts.
The Rose, Thorn, Bud mindfulness exercise is designed to get you to think about the day’s events. It’s basically a mini journal entry.
The Aloha Foundation has a good overview here and EasyRetro has a more comprehensive breakdown here.
Please Note: At the top of the page is a quick reference image that can help with prompting when running this exercise.
Using this exercise
This exercise was suggested to me recently as I have a habit of focusing on the bad and ignoring the good. Life is full of both and it’s not terribly healthy to forget there is good, despite the world being a dumpster fire of doom lately.
Given I already keep a daily, long-form journal; finding a place to run this exercise daily was a bit of a problem.
This kind of mindfulness exercise works best for me at night, just before going to bed, when I’m away from analog writing supplies and I tend to prefer analog writing supplies for exercises like this. The exercise also functions a mini journal entry for me and provides ‘gap fill’ on days when I don’t journal. My journal is how I generally keep my shit together and having a way to reduce the amount of brain and energy I need to create a journal entry on bad health days is a big deal for me. Even if the day’s entry is a ‘mini’ entry. I also only use my journal for ’long form’ entries. Mini entries aren’t a thing in my journal for a variety reasons specific to my brand of cognition.
Due to these confounding factors I spent a lot of time trying to find a good place for recording these daily records. I ultimately settled on Obsidian. Obsidian allows me to easily and reliably track my daily exercises over time. For my analog desires, I can print entries using archive papers and inks for long-term storage and safe keeping. It’s not perfect for the analog and long-term posterity desires I have, but it is sufficient.
Having an Obsidian vault allows me to make my entries just before bed using my phone or equivalent digital devices. I can even sync the data to my main computer environment. This is exactly what I need in order to have success with this exercise on a daily basis.
I can also refer back to my Obsidian vault entries if I need a nudge when sitting down to journal for the day. This has proven very helpful on days when I’m a bit more ‘out of it’ than I’d prefer.
Obsidian vault
The Obsidian vault I created can be obtained here. There should be a green button titled Code with a little down arrow next to the text. Clicking on this button and selecting Download ZIP will get you a full copy of the vault. I’m using GitHub for hosting so I can keep track of any revisions I make over time. It’s not perfect but I need a way to track changes over time and GitHub is the least-worst option I’ve found to date.
The nice part with this Obsidian vault is it works properly on mobile devices. You can use it in any Obsidian environment. It’s also small and lean. There isn’t an excess of crap getting in your way. You should be able to open the vault and get under way.
If you’d like to know how to use the vault, the Readme file has a good overview (it’s shown on the page linked above). It is included in the Obsidian vault too so you can refer back if desired. The readme also includes an overview of the Rose, Thorn Bud exercise with some prompts. Everything you should need is in one place: the Obsidian vault.
A screen shot of the vault showing a monthly synopsis page is below.
Going Forward
I plan to continue to run the Rose, Thorn, Bud exercise daily in addition to my normal daily journal entries. I’ve found they both help me and they work together to keep me more calm than using only one or the other.
This is especially good for me as I no longer have gaps in my daily journaling. Having gaps in my daily journaling bothers me a bit and being able to address that brain gremlin has proven to be a big win.
I may have gaps in the paper journal or the Rose, Thorn, Bud list; but the two, when combined, ensure continuity and remove pretty much all gaps in my daily journal efforts.
To the human that suggested Rose, Thorn, Bud: thank you.