What is Journaling and Where Should You Start?

Despite popular belief, journaling has nothing to do with pretty, artistic pages. Not for me, at least. When I refer to journaling, I’m talking about the messy daily ramblings, the streams of consciousness, the moments of joy, of fear, of anger that goes from my mind to the page.

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And, trust me, I’ve done the pretty aesthetic spreads and pages. I did this for almost five years. It’s only recently that I’ve actively reflected on what, of my journaling practice, was working for me and what wasn’t. With this reflection came a gigantic overhaul of how I journal.

Starting Again

The funny thing is I returned to the original methods of the Bullet Journal. I referred back to Ryder Carroll’s original design. His method includes a key, an index, a future log, a monthly log, and then your dailies (not weekly spreads, daily ones).

See, the reason I latched on to the bujo in the first place was because of the combination of the planner and journal in one notebook.

When I look back at some of my old notebooks and journals, I used signifiers. I didn’t call it that, but I already had the beginnings of a bujo. I just didn’t know how to bring it all together.