By: Nital Jain
When you grow up changing and experimenting with the type of journaling that suits you, finding an adult journal that fits perfectly for you can be a task sometimes. Journal writers have a much deeper connection to their journal and journaling changes us in a lot of ways, maybe we become wiser, our mental health has been affected and becomes better or we may have found ourselves documenting our life and feelings that give us pleasure.
Journaling for a lot of us has started with an innocent daily diary entry with logging in what we did every hour of the day and now to making proper spreads and creating themes for our journal. Some collect and stick polaroids, some collect dry leaves and flowers, some put mind maps, or create bullet journals, etc.
There are three things why you should maintain a journal, be it of any kind;
1.It is emotionally purgative
2. It evokes mindfulness and helps your mind to get rid of the confusion and lets it free
3.It makes your personality sharper and gives you confidence.
Here is a curated list of kinds of journals that you might keep to channel your thoughts;
1.The Free-Flowing Thoughts Journal
The free-flowing journal can be any blank page diary/notebook to channelise your thoughts and echo your inner voice on paper. It usually works as a therapy for some because you can clear your head and use your notebook as a safe space and normalise topics that are too sensitive for you to discuss with anyone or even say it out loud, so just pen it down. It is ultimately a blank canvas for your feelings to create an art of their own.
2. The Gratitude Journal
The gratitude journal is widely popular because it keeps you down to earth and always makes sure that you count your blessings at least once a day so that you don’t feel like you don’t have anything at all. The gratitude journal has boomed and rightly so, all it takes is for you to write 3-5 things that you are grateful and thankful for every day.
The trend of gratitude journaling is for you to always keep in mind to appreciate people around you and all the simple life joys that you have. It is one of the easiest methods to journal and it is a simple tool to bring positivity in your life like meditation.
3. The Manifestation Journal
A manifestation journal is a journal that you keep solely for the purpose that intends on you manifesting what you want into your reality. In this journal you write your goals, habits and careers that you want to manifest into reality for yourselves. It is basically sending messages to the universe about your needs and what you think you deserve. You don’t need any special template or notebook for this you can use any blank notebook. Manifestation works on the law of attraction and the 3-6-9 method is the most recommended one.
4. The Reading Journal
For people who love reading, keeping a reading journal can be a very good idea. The key to maintaining a reading journal is not only to write the synopsis of the book that you read but also writing your favourite quotes and what you perceived from the story. You can also create your own review book just to go back to it in 5 years and pick one of the books on the list to read again! Wouldn’t that be great?
For people who are into creative writing or collecting quotes, this is also a good way to preserve what you write or like. So, a reading journal is a good way to start journaling and it can also be your first step in becoming an author.
5. The Unsent Letters Journal
Although this is a generation of iMessages and voice notes there can still be times when you have a sudden urge to send out a letter/message to someone but you take a step back because you think it’s not the perfect time yet. What if you want to send a letter to your future child, or your future 50-year-old self or a letter to your past, your 10-year-old self?
This unsent letter journal helps you with that, sometimes you feel the hustle is real but only when you come out of it you realise it was not worth your time, energy or mental peace, in cases like these you should write yourself a letter and remind your future self that things are not that complicated after all. Even if you find it creepy to write letters to yourself, write letters to people who are not in your life anymore, just to make your heart content and to give your mind some peace.
6. The Travel Journal
Travellers usually maintain a travel journal but you can do it too. Write down all the places you want to travel to and all the places you have already been to. Create a template with pictures of the places that you want to go to in that city and then click a picture of yourself there and stick it alongside it. This is a very creative way to make your photo album as well as putting things beautifully and creatively. You don’t have to write facts and figures in your travel journal, just a flip through memories and how it made you feel to be there.
7. The Artistic Doodler Journal
Art is a therapy, even if you say you can’t draw you’ll find yourself drawing cute doodles on your notebook during a boring lecture or meeting. Art has many levels of satisfaction to it, even if you don’t know about it, you’ll at some point accept that it can be therapeutic. Make a doodle journal and start drawing simple doodles and infuse them with lots of colours when you are anxious or you can also draw a few doodles to describe your day like daily objects, fruits, small cartoon figures for your friends or family, etc.
8.The Bullet Journal
If you are a control freak and like to plan your year, months, weeks and days, a bullet journal is the best journal for you. You can track your goals, habits, incomes, etc and make flow charts and templates for the same.
The most popular form of journaling is bullet journaling as everyone has tasks and to-do lists to complete. Crossing out the completed tasks and to-do lists is also very pleasing. You can also create templates for other things in your bullet journal like your social media activity tracker, savings, sleep cycle and time, etc. You can also mix up your bullet journal with doodles and cute stickers, etc to make it look more eye-pleasing.
9. The Faith Journal
If you want to bond stronger with your faith/God then deepen your relationship with a faith journal by writing down your daily prayers and affirmations. Learn your favourite prayers and your favourite verses from your religious book and write them down, also reflect on your prayers and reading by writing down prayers that have been answered, and others that haven’t been answered yet. Faith Journal has helped a lot of people in making a good connection with their God and especially in a creative way by journaling.
10. The Junk Journal
Junk Journals are for all the stationery junkies who love collecting all sorts of papers and find it difficult to even throw away the scrap papers because they source all of them with their whole heart. The best idea to preserve all your supplies is by making a handmade journal, a junk journal. Materials of junk journals are always sustainable and are recycled. Junk Journals are like scrapbooks and can be used to document memories and photos, etc. People often put tags, receipts, movie tickets, photo booth pictures, tissue papers, flowers, leaves or plane tickets from a trip, etc in their junk journal. The most fun and creative journaling method is junk journaling. It has no rules, patterns or limits and can be created by an individual in their own unique way.
These are the most widely used journaling methods and we hope you find at least one that suits you the best. Got any other journal ideas? Let us know in the comments section below!
Happy Journaling!