Happy Sunday!

So, I was planning on writing a post for today that would share tips on, I quote, “destressifying your life.” (Catchy title, I know.) Buuuuut, halfway through writing it, I realized, “Hey, if I knew how to ‘destressify my life,’ I would have done it already.”

Obviously, that post is being put on hold until further notice.

BUT! In that post, I mentioned journaling, and for some reason, my brain decided to come up with different types of journaling.

Of course, that quickly morphed into this post.

So, without further ado, I present to you:

All pictures in this post by me!

(Just a warning: the journaling types get weirder as you go along. XD)

(Oh, and also - if you’re like me, you’ll feel constricted by the descriptions. I hereby give you permission: DON’T BE.)

This is the type of journaling you always hear about. It’s pretty straightforward: write what happened in your day, how you’re feeling, any funny snippets you overheard, whatever you want!

I do this one. I just write a couple paragraphs whenever I feel like it. (You’re supposed to be consistent with your journaling, but I mean, if you’re not feeling it . . . you can do whatever you want.) I use a multicolored pen, and every day I switch to a different color than the previous day. That way, when I flip through, I just get splashes of color.

Just a thought.

Note: you do NOT have to be good at art to do this!

This could be a sketchbook. It could be you just drawing what happened in your day. It could just be you drawing whatever you want, whenever you want. This one can go in so many different directions, seriously.

(But in case you were wondering, no, I don’t do this one. That journal would be an abomination to the earth.)

Oh, boy.

Guys.

This is seriously SO FUN. Yes, I admit, it does take a while to set up (well, that is, if you’re me and want to start off your journal with 10 solid pages of New Year goals/stuff), but you could probably sacrifice 20 minutes of social media a day to keep up. Bullet journaling is so much more relaxing anyways.

It can be whatever you want it to be. You can literally combine all these types of journals into it - or none of them. That’s fine too.

But the idea is for it to be a DIY Planner - you keep track of goals and tasks without anything preformatted in the notebook itself. If you want to see more of what it’s about, I highly recommend checking out AmandaRachLee's YouTube channel, although her journal is super artsy and I just can’t relate.

But I’ll be doing a post about this sometime soon, so I’ll stop my ramble here. XD

This is exactly what it sounds like. Just dump all your thoughts and feelings onto the page in the most unaesthetic way imaginable. The unaestheticness WILL make it aesthetic. (At least that’s what YouTube tells me....)

Yeah, it’ll be messy, but if you’re not a fan of linear journaling, this might be the thing for you.

Or, if you like taking pictures, you could just stick pictures into a notebook and label them with the date and WHA-LA! Instant journal.

......also known as a scrapbook. (Shhhh)

This is exactly what it sounds like. You track stuff.

It could be habits.
It could be books you read.
It could be how often you have gum infections.

That’s for you to decide.

(If someone understands this idea, great, explain it to me, please. I wrote it down and then promptly forgot what it was about. XD)



Pretty much the same thing as brain dump journaling, except you put it into a slightly more boring neat format.

This would be a fun one, I think. So, the idea is that you track what fandoms you’re in, when you’re in them, and gush all your squealy fangirl-y thoughts.

Of course, this is what I do in my regular journal half the time, but if you want to separate life and fandoms (spoiler - there is no separating them), this just might be the thing for you.

Similar to fandom journaling, you can spew your thoughts on your novels, write down new story ideas, edit, brainstorm . . . whatever the heck you want!

I kind of do this for my WIP The Silver Sword, and it’s an absolute MESS. But it’s fine.

Here you could write down songs you want to listen to, awesome lyrics, create your own songs . . . the possibilities are endless.


Obviously, there are way more kinds of journals than these - the sky’s the limit!

I hope that maybe this list has inspired you to journal in some way, shape or form. *whispers* you should totally try bullet journaling.

-Nicole