diff --git a/docs/recipes.md b/docs/recipes.md
index 45ef18b4..570b3a8c 100644
--- a/docs/recipes.md
+++ b/docs/recipes.md
@@ -97,7 +97,10 @@ log_question 'What did I make progress with?'
 ### Display random entry
 
 You can use this to select one title at random and then display the whole
-entry.
+entry. The invocation of `cut` needs to match the format of the timestamp.
+For timestamps that have a space between data and time components, select
+fields 1 and 2 as shown. For timestamps that have no whitespace, select
+only field 1.
 
 ``` sh
 jrnl -on "$(jrnl --short | shuf -n 1 | cut -d' ' -f1,2)"