How I Monk #21 - Julia's Story

February 19, 2025 Monk Manual

This is the twenty-first in our series of emails called “How I Monk.” In this series, we will be highlighting + celebrating members of the Monk Manual community as they’ve meaningfully applied our tools and resources to find peaceful being and purposeful doing in their everyday lives. If you’d like to be featured in a future “How I Monk,” share your information with us here… #HowIMonk

Name: Julia Riley Davila

Occupation: Lawyer by day, mom by night - but the lines are a little blurry

Location: Chicago, IL USA

A bit about who you are and how you spend your days:

I'm a lawyer, a mom of two littles, a catholic, a book lover, a perpetual-leather-bound-journal-buyer-that-I-never-write-in type person, and a Monk Manual convert. Most days are a bit of schedule Tetris between emails, meetings, constant logistics of kid stuff, and (if I’m lucky) a home cooked meal and something resembling a workout! I enjoy biking with my family (we have a family cargo bike), swimming, running, and spending time at parks and our local lakefront (Lake Michigan). Also I would happily sit outside under a tree reading all day if I could make it pay my bills.

What originally drew you to the Monk Manual?

One year, I bought a Monk Manual during the American annual "get organized" January. I had finished weaning my daughter around Thanksgiving and was trying to find a new groove in the new year. I can’t believe I started Monk Manual over four years ago! Propitiously, I started that January 2020 right before Covid hit North America. Wildly, Monk Manual’s more traditional structure of planning combined with reflection and journaling ended up being incredibly useful and centering during those early, eerie months. Equally surprising - I seem to have stuck with it. I remember seeing the archive labels early on in the store and thinking “who would ever use those or need them?” Apparently, the answer is ME!!

Do you have a favorite prompt or section?

My two favorite prompts are “Habit Insights” and “Meaningful Moments” from the weekly reflections. I like “Habit Insights” because as I consistently do it, I feel the patterns of what habits (good and frustrating) are easier to own and address. I say feel very intentionally because it's often my feeling of a habit that drives its perpetuation or helps me uncover the underlying internal driver of a habit. “Meaningful Moments” helps me focus every week on the experiences I had that aligned with my values and re-feel personal connections to people I interacted with.

Practical Monk Manual Tip:

One of the most healing things I take from Monk Manual is on the daily prompt "one way I can improve tomorrow" is to ask myself instead "what went right today that I want to repeat tomorrow?"

When you were first getting started, what part of the Monk Manual did you struggle with most?

There were two big areas that were initially a struggle and still are my toughest parts. (1) being intentional about my three “gratefuls” in the morning and (2) truly reflecting at the end of each day. (1) Writing down things I’m grateful for doesn’t come easy to me, and so I really didn’t want to make it an “easy” daily practice - I wanted these to be meaningful, different, and specific things every day to help myself be more present to the good things in my life. (2) Reflecting at the end of the day was not something I made the time to be consistent about early on. However, absent the reflections, Monk Manual started to feel like another in the long line of to-do lists. I did the Being + Doing course in the month of May (right before my birthday) two years in a row (2022 & 2023), and it really helped me get more value out of the reflection part of the daily pages.

How has your life changed since using the Monk Manual?

Monk Manual really helps me see where my habits, thoughts, or focus areas have shifted over days, weeks, months, and years. Working through my archive, I can see how my efforts and energy were spent in the many overlapping seasons I experienced. It also helps me baseline how my thoughts were at a given time so I can consider if I’ve shifted or repeated in certain directions. Then, I can more thoughtfully ask: do I still value this or that? Is it something I started, stopped, or continued? Did it help when I was in that moment? Would it serve me in my current season? My self-analysis default is to focus on what went wrong or focus on all the negatives about where I am or where I may have thought I was. I honestly looked this summer at what I was “worried’ about in prior years and was amazed at how much focusing on little steps had brought me forward in both doing and being goals since that point.

What suggestions would you give to new Monk Manual users?

I would give the same advice I give to new moms- it's ok to go slow and find your own rhythm. One of the nice things about Monk Manual is that there is no “right way”; there’s many ways to make the set of products work for your life. The blogs, Monday Momentums, courses, and different journals mean you can see how others approach the prompts, or use the materials - so don’t be afraid to try different things! For example, since I started Monk Manual I’ve read about the morning and evening routines. It always felt like a bit of a pipe dream for me (little kids, lots of work). However, this summer I really gave it a try and built a brief evening routine for myself. It not only helped me remember to do my reflections at the end of the day, I was able to move into bedtime with more mental and physical ease. As a bonus reflecting more consistently helps me re-savor joyful moments - like my kid LOVING ordering ice cream from a puppet!

If you’d like to be featured in a future “How I Monk,” share your information with us here.