I have always been a yapper, and sometimes I struggle to keep things to myself that I absolutely should. So naturally, a journal is exactly the thing that I needed. I have been journaling pretty much for as long as I can remember. I first started doing it sort of consistently in fifth grade or so, and even when I wasn’t regularly writing traditional journal entries, I always had an “emotional support notebook” that I carried around with me everywhere I went. These were full of doodles, OCs, stories, “spy notes” (I was obsessed with spy stuff as a kid) and complaining about whatever was getting on my nerves at the time (there was always something). My notebook was always the one place that I could be completely myself.
I journaled pretty consistently throughout high school and the first half of college. While I was in college, I developed a new method of journaling that I called “goal journaling”, which helped me keep myself accountable and moving towards my goals in life. So for a while, that was my journal setup- one for planning and one for venting.
A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a video of someone describing their “journaling ecosystem”, which was a concept I had never heard of before and was immediately fascinated by. Until I started my goal journal, I had always been a one-notebook kind of girl, but recently I have fallen headfirst into the world of journaling ecosystems. Some people only have two or three journals in theirs, but some people have upwards of eight. I personally can’t imagine keeping up with that many different notebooks, but the idea of having specialized ones does speak to me. “Techo Kaigi” is a japanese phrase that refers to having a setup of how you use your journals/ planners that I’ve seen a lot of people referring to it as.
I think a lot of adults’ only place for self-expression is social media, and because social media is so public and comes with so many toxic standards, this has the potential to whittle down the things that make you unique. Having a journal again- taking time to decorate it with stickers and fill the pages with things that are just for me- has allowed me to focus back in on who I am and who I’m becoming. Journaling may seem juvenile, but I think in fact it just requires a level of vulnerability that many have not shown since adolescence. Being yourself is much harder in adulthood, but I believe the risk is worthwhile.
I have met folks who said they don’t journal because they don’t have anything to say, or they find it boring to write about their day. The truth is, though, you don’t have to write about the things that happen in your daily life. In fact, journaling doesn’t necessarily have to include longform writing at all! Maybe you want to explore junk journaling, which involves saving little pieces of packaging and other bits of trash, and giving them new life in creative spreads; or art journaling, which involves representing your thoughts and feelings with different art mediums rather than just writing. You can mix all sorts of different journaling together in one journal, separate them into different ones, or just pick the one kind of journaling that speaks to you.
Personally, I currently have a standard “diary”, an “everything” sort of journal, that among other things includes junk journal entries and doodles, and the aforementioned goal journal. This is a system that I devised for myself in 2022 because I wanted to track my progress towards my life goals, big and small. Since then, it has evolved to include all my general organization and planning needs. I think of this notebook as a physical extension of my brain, and after falling off with using it, I got back to it after my forgetfulness caused me to miss deadlines for two kind of big things I really wanted to do. My brain tends to be very cluttered, and having a place to put everything that is designed for my chaos really helps in a way buying a planner from the store never has. I don’t want to spend my life wondering what else I could have achieved if only I was more organized and made better use of my time. This journal system helps me to keep myself focused and accountable. Having a journal ecosystem has really made me feel like myself again.
A couple years ago I read about the American Diary Project on reddit (I think), and once I found out what it was, I immediately signed up to be a volunteer. The project, dubbed the “diary archive for everyday folks,” preserves the diaries of people from all over the country, with some dating back as far as the 1800s. It’s an incredible undertaking, and one that will surely have an impact that resonates across generations. The voices of people whose writing would have otherwise ended up in a landfill will instead be read by many- people like them who will find solace in their words, and perhaps people very unlike them whose perspectives may be changed by experiences that they could never relate to. I think it’s amazing that Kate Zirkle decided to start this project and I’m so proud to be part of the mission. You can check out my recent guest blog post here, titled “Should you re-read your old diaries?”