Has Journaling Never Been Your Thing? Try This

About Tori Thurmond

Tori Thurmond combines her creative writing background with her marketing experience in her role as the Content Specialist at Brookdale. When she's not writing, she's probably spending time with her two cats or knitting.

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How many times have you decided to give journaling a try? But each time, you only end up filling a few pages in your fancy new notebook before falling out of the habit and shoving your journal into a drawer, never to be seen again. Maybe you’ve written the hobby off completely, saying journaling isn’t really your thing. Not only can journaling help you keep track of your goals and thoughts but it may also help manage anxiety, reduce stress and help cope with depression.

Maybe traditional journaling isn’t for you, but here are four different types of journaling to try out.

Bullet Journaling

Bullet Journaling is for people who love lists and habit tracking. A combination of doodling and creating lists, bullet journaling could be perfect for you if you like to switch things up from month to month, as you can completely customize your bullet journal to your preferences.

How to bullet journal:

First, start with a blank or dotted journal. You can choose a simple journal while you test out if you like this form of journaling or go for something with a little more personality if that will make you excited to pick up your notebook each time.

Next, grab a set of pens or markers you like. Then decide what purpose you want your journal to serve and what you want to keep track of. Would a daily to-do list be helpful? Would you like to keep track of how much water you drink in a day or how many times a week you exercise? You could even draw up a weekly or monthly mood tracker to get a picture of how you’re doing mentally.

If you’re not sure what you want your bullet journal to look like, websites like Pinterest are a great place to get fun ideas. However, there’s no right or wrong way to bullet journal. Just have fun with it and do what works for you!

Embroidery Journaling

Whether you’re an experienced needle pointer or you’re looking to pick up a new art form, consider trying out an embroidery journal. This type of journaling is great for visual people because you choose a small image to represent what you did on a certain day. For example, if you spent a day at the beach with friends, you may choose to stitch a sun or some waves to commemorate the day. One of the best things about an embroidery journal is that at the end of the year, you’ll have a beautiful decoration you can hang on your wall to easily look back on your year.

How to embroidery journal:

All you’ll need is some fabric, and embroidery hoop, a few colors of embroidery floss and a needle. You can divide your embroidery circle into twelve sections for the months of the year or take a more free-handed approach. All that matters is that you stitch a little image for each day or your favorite memories for the year.

Junk Journaling

Don’t feel like you’re very artistic? No problem, that’s where junk journaling comes in. Are you a person who holds on to old movie or theater tickets, fortunes from the fortune cookies at your favorite place to order takeout or boarding passes from the trips you take? Then junk journaling might be for you. Junk journaling is a way to organize what might be traditionally be labeled as “junk.”

How to junk journal:

Grab your favorite journal, some glue or fun tape and start arranging your would-be junk into a fun monthly or weekly collage. You can add festive stickers or decorative paper to incorporate more color and personality into your junk journal pages. There’s not a right way to arrange your junk journal pages or a limit to what you can include. Just use your junk journal to keep track of events and outings you don’t want to forget!

Gratitude Journaling

With busy schedules and falling into normal routines, it can be easy to forget everything in our lives to be thankful for. Taking time to be thankful for different aspects of your life can improve both your physical and mental health. If just journaling about your thoughts and feelings every day hasn’t worked for you, try taking five minutes to write down something you’re thankful for each day or week. Before you know it, you’ll start noticing things you’re thankful for more easily and the little blessings will start to stand out in your days.

How to keep a gratitude journal:

Grab a journal that brings you joy, your favorite pen, and write down what you’re grateful for each day. That’s it! Depending on what works best for you, you could write down one thing that you’re thankful for or try to come up with several things you’d like to write down each day.