Journaling Suggestions

Journaling continues to be a balm for life, a way to record those sacred moments, a stirring up of the mundane into something a little more interesting, something to keep the itchy fingers busy.

I hope you do not lack for inspiration, but in case you do, here are a few different types of journals or diaries or notebooks you could try keeping in case you want to try something new for a little bit.

Morning Pages

This is the classic from Julie Cameron. She recommends doing three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing in the morning, to clear the cobwebs from your mind. You can dream, you can rant, you can make lists of things you want to do, you can write about how you don’t know what to write about.

Lots of people swear by this as a way to clean out their mental space. What comes to the surface might be what’s most at hand for your day. It’s also a great way to use up some of those empty or half-used notebooks on your shelf.

Memory-Keeping

This one is good for people who want to take the time to remember tiny details of life. A lot of Hobonichi users use their daily pages with illustrations, gluing in life ephemera, and there are some beautiful inspiration pages on social media.

For me, this form of journaling really picked up when I started using a weekly insert in the Traveler’s Notebook. There’s still enough format and structure to keep me at it, and if I miss a week or have some blank spaces, sometimes I take the time to think back to what happened and backfill, and sometimes I just leave the spaces blank.

I write about the things that happen in a week: PA day activities, music lessons, small accomplishments, lost teeth, new friendships, a really good cup of coffee, the sunshine.

And: what is also a lot of fun for me is the chance to use and use up some of my favourite stationery, new and old. This is especially fun for me to look back on because I write a lot of my personal celebrations, along with our family’s small adventures.

A Reading Journal

Some time ago I wrote a blog post on keeping a reading journal.

I allocate two facing pages for each book, and try to fill them up with thoughts, quotes, a summary, reviews, other books by the author I might try. The main idea is to keep track and to encourage a little reflection on the things that you’re reading.  

A Harriet the Spy Journal

If you’ve fallen out of love with your journal, you could begin making note in your journal of your day as it passes, with or without timestamps, getting into the habit of writing thoughts down and what you’re doing.

If you are a productivity person (this is all third-person knowledge for me that I’m passing on), this could also involve an awareness of time blocking and how you’re spending your day.

But, if you have the inclination, or you’re a fan of Lynda Barry, as I am, this is a fun exercise in noticing. What a joy and gift it is to spend some time just noticing all the things around you. The things you are doing, the people you are chatting with, the sweater around your shoulders, the light through the window, should you be so lucky to have one. The snacks you are having, the delicious things you have to look forward to, a Stranger than Fiction narration to turn the lights on in the quiet places of your mind.

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Journaling these days! I am still writing in my notebooks, and I hope your notebooks are still giving you little bursts of static inspiration. And from season to season, the notebooks I keep come and go, change form, serve different purposes, get schlepped about in different bags.

It is chaotic and exhausting, burning bright for this marathon of their childhoods, each of them getting something different from the one before, some advantage or disadvantage to being the first, the second, the third. And I schlepping my books and my journals around with me, knowing I’ll miss these days when I get interrupted halfway through a sentence because of those final loud splashes into the pool, a whistle blowing, a granola bar dropped on the floor, these precious conversations with other parents from which I have desperately gleamed the dregs of parenting wisdom and/or the awareness of my own gaping parenting deficits. A pen jammed in between pages to mark the spot.