The Top 10 Types of Journaling
“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.”
– Anaïs Nin
Journaling is an effective tool used to express oneself. Collecting thoughts, ideas, and memories all in one safe place. Standing the test of time, journaling has been a well-used method for self-expression, creativity, and record-keeping. The hardest part about starting a journaling practice is maintaining a disciplined routine. To help maintain your journaling practice it is important to choose a method that resonates with you. These are my Top Ten Types of Journaling to help you get started. It is easier to maintain habits you enjoy so experiment and find what works best for you!
The Benefits of Journaling
A quick intro into how journaling can benefit you:
Journaling sharpens our memory, providing a secure and safe system to log our experiences. It allows us to record our experiences, values, and patterns as we age. Showing the slight changes we make over time that go unnoticed. It is a beautiful way to look back on your life and relive those precious and sometimes difficult life moments, seeing them with new and kinder eyes.
Read a more in-depth account in the blog post The Benefits of Journaling.
The Top Ten Types of Journaling
One: Gratitude Journaling
Having a regular practice of gratitude helps to improve happiness, well-being, and our mental and physical health. Creating a gratitude journal is a powerful way to build the habit of being thankful. When you feel down it is helpful to have a central repository of everything you’re grateful for. A gentle reminder in your own words of the things that make your life beautiful.
Within this method of journaling, there are multiple ways you can express your gratitude.
You can keep it simple, jotting down a small list of things you’re grateful for every night. You can elaborate artistically, visually journaling the things you love.
My favorite method for gratitude journaling is to pick one thing I am grateful for and expand on that. It helps to keep this habit from becoming routine and thoughtless. Choosing one thing and diving deep into why I feel grateful for it makes the experience and gratitude that much more meaningful.
Two: Dream Journaling
Dream journaling is the practice of recording fragments of your dreams each morning while they are still fresh in your mind. They say dreams can be very telling about our subconscious thoughts. Recording your dreams, good or bad, helps to unlock those inner mysteries.
Some dream journalers sketch what they see, while others prefer to free-write in long form. There are even some journals specifically formatted for dream recording, with prompts and grids that help you analyze your thoughts. This method of journaling is restricted to the morning time, requiring a scheduled practice rather than an unrestricted timetable.
Three: Reflective Journaling
One of the more common uses of a journal is as a private place to reflect on the events of your life and process the related emotions. This practice can be very therapeutic and can help you develop your visions for the future as well as get to know yourself a little better. Reflective journaling allows you to open up an internal conversation with yourself on deeper topics. Creating a safe space for you to share and reflect on your innermost thoughts and dreams.
Four: Bullet Journaling
Bullet journaling combines any journaling goals into an organized system. Outlining your thoughts much like a to-do list.
This system can be used as a quick daily diary, a calendar, or a task manager. Excellent for the more Type A mind, this journal method can still be a place to reflect and process things, in a more organized and to-the-point manner.
The unique aspect of bullet journaling is that you don’t start with a blank page; instead, you use a journal with a dot grid pattern. The grid allows you to create beautiful and organized multi-colored layouts. Many dedicated bullet journalers use colored pencils, patterned washi tape, stickers, and more to make their journaling pages extra fun.
Five: One Line a Day Journaling
The One Line a Day journaling method is perhaps the easiest method to start for beginning journalers. Taking on a couple of different formats, the idea is to capture one important thing about your day in your journal. It can be anything you want. It even can be used as a habit tracker, to capture a specific memory, even log your gratitude.
Some journals format this method by creating space on one line on a page for each day of the year. Once the first year is up you go back to the beginning and start writing your new lines underneath, each day a new page. Providing an insightful snapshot of thoughts, memories, change, and progress on each of the 365 days of each year. As the pages fill, you’ll have years of happy experiences to relive, especially those forgotten moments.
Six: Idea Journaling
Idea journaling is a mix of organized content and free-form-flow. Great for writers, students, and entrepreneurs, this method helps to get your creative juices flowing. In essence, this journal is a brain dump. Creating a space for creative and thoughtful thinkers to unload and conceptualize their thoughts.
Writer’s block is common, having or wanting to write but nothing comes to mind. An idea journal lets you collect all your ideas in one spot you can refer back to in time of need. These journals are the best on the go. Keeping them with you at all times so you can capture a thought and write it down before you forget it. Ideas tend to build on each other, and having them all in one place helps you connect dots you may not have seen otherwise.
Seven: Art Journaling
Art journaling is similar to a sketchbook. It is a great way to practice your creative skills, develop your style, and document a freeform view of your experiences. Using whatever medium you prefer, you document your life and process emotions through visual art. Expressing yourself through pictures rather than words.
Art journaling can be a good starting point for those who excel in visual methods of learning and interpreting the world around them. Used as a safe space to explore your creative expression while documenting your life, art journaling kills two birds with one stone.
Eight: Daily Account Journaling
Daily journaling, is reminicing back to the diaries of our childhood days, where you document what happened to you during the day. It can be a long, detailed account of every hour, or a short list highlighting the main events. By writing an account of every day you get to practice self-discipline in a fun and interesting way.
Daily journaling can have multiple uses. It can be a space to process your thoughts and feelings about what happened that day. It can be a method used to check in with yourself or the progress of certain goals. Or even used as a tool to mark the passing of time, creating an in-depth window into your daily habits you can look back on in the future.
Nine: Illustrative Journaling
Also sometimes called visual journaling, this method can be another great way to combine artistic inclinations with personal reflections. Illustrative journaling unlike art journaling relies more on words than pictures. Creating a visual journal with pictures and words that illustrate your experiences and feelings, much like a comic book story.
Taking on a more reflective approach, you can doodle about whatever’s on your mind, log an account of your day, or follow a prompt.
Ten: Stream of Consciousness Journaling
Our tenth and final form of journaling is Stream of Consciousness. A journaling method that involves writing without a prompt or goal in mind. This method is more methodical in its outline than the others, while still allowing for a more unrestricted method of writing.
The goal is to free-write three pages every morning, challenging yourself to not stop writing until you’re done. This method of writing captures the good, the bad, and the mundane thoughts and feelings that pass through the mind. This method’s purpose is to allow these thoughts to pass through without any inhibitors like guilt, shame, or uncertainty. Quite literally capturing the “stream” of your consciousness it’s the purest state.
Final Notes
Whether you prefer to doodle or dictate, journaling has a number of benefits for us all. Within the realm of self-investment, I cannot recommend having a regular practice of journaling enough. When we first start our journey to self-awareness and fulfillment it is so helpful to have a personalized record of your progress.
Seeing down the line how your behaviors, thoughts, and habits have changed for the better is so rewarding. Journaling has been my way of keeping my peace and balance. Having a safe outlet for my heavy thoughts to get out of my head, allowed me to finally start to make progress on improving my mindset.
I encourage you to enter your journaling practice with curiosity, being quick to show yourself grace. Starting anything new can feel daunting, but remembering this is your way of investing in yourself and your well-being, helps to keep the pressure off. Journaling is just for you; to be yourself and express your thoughts with an open mind and clear heart.
Until nest time,
