I was online looking for a book to hold greeting cards I’ve received from Danny and friends so that I can keep them organized in one safe space. As I did my research, I fell down a rabbit hole at 2 am and I decided I was going to start journaling. I didn’t realize there were different types of journaling until I started watching videos on YouTube. I always thought it was just writing down your feelings or writing about your day. I had no idea there was a world of journaling I knew nothing about. Some examples include reflective, art, visual, gratitude, and travel journaling. It turns out I already bullet journal but in the Notes app of my iPhone. If you know me, you know I have lists for practically everything in that app. I have lists of movies I want to watch for the month. I curate to-do lists for what I plan to accomplish on a particular day. I track the comics and books I’ve read. I write down my goals for the month. I create wishlists of things I want to buy and hope my urge to spend unnecessary money goes away. I just fucking love lists lol.
I’ve concluded that I’m not your typical journaling girlie. I’m not someone who needs to write every day because my days can be pretty redundant and I’ve never been a diary type of girl as much as I wanted to be growing up. Do you all remember those electronic diaries back in the 90s? 😆 I was desperate to be THAT girl, but I just wasn’t. I’ve stuck to blogging about different adventures I’ve gone on each month and expressing myself through photos, but blogs don’t allow me to express myself the way I want to visually. Back when I was a teenager I used to cut up my old teen magazines and then eventually dedicated a page of my notebook to doing a collage of one specific celebrity. Once I had enough photos it was just something I did to keep myself occupied during the days that I was bored. I miss creating collages. I always go to Pinterest and see digital collages, and I think to myself that I should take a leap of fate and start experimenting.So, I thought to myself maybe I could combine bullet journaling with some form of art journaling. It would be a way for me to creatively plan my life using visuals and cute graphics while also allowing me to incorporate collages or other forms of art. Thinking about this jolted my memory of a social media platform I discovered back in my college years called Glogster. Essentially, it was a website that allowed you to create graphic blogs that they called “glogs.” You were able to combine text, photos, video, and audio to create a web-based poster on a virtual canvas. I miss those days of Tumblr and Glogster. I preferred these sites 100x over social networks like MySpace and Facebook. I wish I could go back to look at my old glogs, but the site was shut down in January. Interestingly enough, the site focused on being more of an educational platform after 2015 for interactive learning and online education.
This seems to have answered my question as to whether I should go digital or make a physical scrapbook. The problem with physical journals is that I would need quite a bit of supplies. It reminds me of my days in cosplay. There was a lot of trial and error involved in making a costume, and so you ended up spending more money than you would have if you had commissioned a more skilled person to make your cosplay. I feel like the same will apply here. I also live in a small apartment in Brooklyn and don’t have much space to store art supplies or journals right now. I am more of a digital person anyway. I read comics and listen to books on my phone so isn’t far-fetched for me to digital journal. There is a part of me that likes the physical aspect of putting together a journal page with art materials and photos, but when it comes to physically writing down thoughts, quotes, or song lyrics I know my perfectionism will get in my way. I’m rather ridiculous when it comes to my perfectionism and I don’t think I want to deal with myself.
From my research and watching various YouTube videos, I found most people use Goodnotes to journal. You have to pay $9.99 a year to use the app, but I think the price is worth it based on how much I use it every day. I found a journal template from HappyDownloads with some cute digital stickers. Also, I’ve recently become obsessed with digital stickers from PaperHearsPlannerCo, which I found on Etsy. She does themed stickers for every month of the year, and I enjoy using them to decorate my calendar and planner. In addition, I’ve bought separate journals to track the movies, TV shows, and books I spend my time on this year. My planning journal doesn’t have the templates I want to track and review movies and books so I’ve opted for separate ones I found on Etsy from theprettynote.
So far, I’ve been enjoying planning out my calendar and weekly details in my journal. I also have trackers for habits, mood, sleep, hydration, exercise, and steps. Hopefully, I will start drinking enough water and stop drinking sugar with these trackers as they are making me more conscious of my sinful actions. LOL. I’ve also been creating a monthly bucket list full of the goals I want to accomplish and the places I want to visit. I have blank pages for every day of the month if I want to jot anything down. I’ve taken more of an interest in writing about my day because of these blank spaces. These are not entries you would find on my blog, but it will be fun to look back on my thoughts and happenings on a particular day.
I’ve made significant process in getting my movie journal up to date. It was fun writing out my thoughts on all the new films I’ve watched this year. My next goal is to tackle my reading journal. The reading journal will be good for me because it will force me to think more deeply about what I have read to write a decent review. I find that I don’t often remember books I’ve read in the past, so I hope this will help me retain content more easily. I think I also forget books because I’m listening to them through Audible. I have a harder time sitting down to read a book, so Audible has broadened my horizons as I can listen to books while I work or do other things. The downside to this is it’s harder for me to retain certain quotes I like or even know how to spell a character’s name correctly.
I didn’t know 2024 would be the year I became a journaling girlie, but I’m loving it so far!
Side note: I bought a whole ass iPad, but I never bought a greeting card holder. Moral of the story? I need help.
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