Image source: Merlina McGovern
I always love seeing those super satisfying TikTok videos of people filling out their fresh, blank bullet journals. These artistic journalists seem to have infinite amounts of time and boundless creativity. Every time I watch one, I feel inspired. I think, “I shall buy a leather-bound blank journal. At the start of each month, I will map out the entire month and block off pages for days and for weeks. I will keep track of my daily stress, my daily creativity, my novel progress. I will be organized!”
And, then, of course, I hit the end of the day, and I can barely put together my thoughts for a three-minute read blog post, let alone set about the task of setting up a month’s worth o fbullet journal pages.
I think my problem was that I was getting too caught up in how many trackers and artistic doodles these journalists were using. It was all too overwhelming, and it was stopping me before I could even get started. So, I decided to keep it simple. I purchased a high-quality blank bullet journal that came with a set of stencils, markers, and washi tape. The pages are filled with a grid of dots so that I could shape my pages however I wanted. The stencils took the work out of creating artistic doodles from scratch. I also indulged in my girly side and bought gel pens and some vintage stickers to populate the blank pages.
Another problem? I already had a million unfinished journals scattered all around my house. It’s an addiction—I just can’t seem to stop buying journals.
But I quickly found my solution. Instead of this being a daily journal of my thoughts, I was going to turn this into a media journal. I would still separate it out by dates, by month in this instance, but I would write about the books I read and the TV shows and movies that I watched. This would not only help me keep track of the media that I was consuming, it would also help me to actually remember the damn stories and plot lines. The older that I’ve become, the harder it is for me to remember what I had for breakfast, let alone what I just finished reading.
So far, I’ve documented three months of my media consumption, and there is just something so soothing and satisfying to see my journal pages fill up with pretty images and pretty words. Journaling is not just some throwaway activity; it’s something that can actually help you improve your mental health. Because I’ve made it low-maintenance, it doesn’t really feel like an extra chore for me to get to at the end of each day. Instead, I put on some chill Lo-Fi girl sounds and write my daily stresses and cares away.
What about you? Do you have a journaling habit? Share your thoughts, and recommendations for supplies, in the comments below.
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