If you’re looking for journal writing ideas, there is lots of choice ranging from different notebook themes to journal prompts or journal techniques that you use amongst your other pages.
The first thing to consider is why are you starting a journal and how will you use it in your daily life, or you may choose to have a non daily journal. The two most common reasons are to either clear your head or to capture memories. Some people like to use their journals as a way of keeping track of things that happen during the day or week, while others might focus on more personal topics like their relationships or spirituality. Once you know that, it will guide you towards some ideas for journaling more than others.
Another important thing to consider is how much time you will spend writing each day. It could be 15 minutes daily journaling before you start your day, 10 minutes before going to bed as part of an evening routine or even an entire day of writing.
Here are some journaling ideas to consider including in your journaling practice.
Ideas for Personal-Development and Self-Discovery
- Write down your affirmations
- Capture your thoughts as you read
- Write your story, a description of the person you want to be
- Identify a bad habit you’d like to change and explore what you can do
- Write about a healthy habit you can introduce today and how it would help you
Ideas for Health and Wellbeing
- Write down the things you are grateful for, you can even keep a gratitude journal
- End the day by writing the best thing that happened today
- Keep a mood tracker – this is common with bullet journaling where you use colours to record your mood each day
- Start the day by clearing your mind with Morning Pages (created by Julia Cameron in the book The Artist’s Way)
- Work on your fears by writing about the worst case scenario and how you’d deal with it
Ideas to encourage creativite thinking
- Turn a problem or challenge into a question e.g. how could I solve … and use it as a journaling prompt to explore different options
- Write about your vision for the future or your perfect day
- Capture meaningful quotes
- Use an image as a starting point
- Capture ideas and doodles
Ideas to aid productivity
- Write down your goals as a way of embedding them in your thoughts
- Make it part of your daily routine to write your vision for the day
- Describe your ideal and current morning routine, how can you reduce the difference between them
- Write down your priorities and describe why they’re important to you
- Introduce the bullet journal idea of combining your to do list with your other writing
Ideas for journaling techniques
Sometimes the idea you’re looking for may be a technique instead of a theme. Here are some techniques that can be helpful tools and give you fresh ideas when you put pen to paper.
- Lists – choose a number and keep writing until you get to the end e.g. 10 things you can do today that will move you toward your goal, 100 things you’re grateful for.
- Free writing – set a timer and keep writing until it goes off
- Art journal – draw, paint, scrapbook or any mix of these
- Unsent letter – write a letter to someone real or imaginary knowing you won’t send it
- Draw a mind map – discovering new levels of thoughts
- Write from different perspectives – write a conversation taking different roles e.g. present you and future you.
- Journal prompts – use a question to inspire your writing
- Time capsule – answer the same list of questions on a regular basis e.g. once a year so you can record how things change
If you have ever thought about starting a journal, there is no time like the present! Try some techniques and ideas for journaling shared in this post and start creating your own journaling habit. If you have any questions on the topic of journaling, please share them in the comments section below. I’d love to hear from you.
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