Welcome to Journaling June! I hope you are ready to get journaling because I’m coming atchya with so many journal ideas that you had better find one you are excited about!

Many of us aspire to keeping a journal, but sometimes traditional journaling is not our thing. I strongly believe that the key to journaling is having it be something YOU are excited about. It’s your journal, so make the system work for you!

Here are twenty-four ideas for different types of journals you could keep. I’ve included a small description of each type but for some I will be doing full posts to cover journaling in that style. Look for those later in the month!

1. Gratitude Journal — Each time you write in your journal, write about the things your grateful for. Big and small things. Be specific. Being grateful is a great way to improve your outlook on life.
2. Scrapbook — Whether you prefer digital or paper scrapbooking, this is a fun a creative way to capture memories.
3. Blog — If you are a digital kinda person (oh, goodness. That makes it sound like you’re a robot. Blog post idea to remember: journal prompts for robots). Anyways, you might like keeping a blog if traditional journaling just is not your thing. If you don’t want to start a blog, maybe you would like simply typing up your journal entries in a word doc.
4. Spiritual/Scripture Journal — Take note of the things you learn in the scriptures, at church, from General Conference, or any spiritual insight or prompting you have.
5. Traditional Journal — Pen to paper, buddy! Write away!
6. Bullet Journal — There are tons and TONS of ideas for bullet journals on Pinterest. I’m not the greatest bullet journaler but I think they are pretty cool! Go for it!
7. Fitness Journal — Keep track of your fitness habits, goals, and daily progress.
8. Quote/Commonplace Journal — Commonplace journals are so much fun to keep and look back through if you are a lover of words and feed off of good quotes.
9. Travel Journal — Write about your travel plans, ideas, dreams, and experiences. My dad keeps a hunting journal. Make it totally your own. If you visit a zoo no matter where you visit, keep a journal about each one. Maybe you are trying to hike a trail in every state. Write about that.
10. Project/Hobby Journal — Write about what you love to do. My journal is filled with pages of me talking about music, reading, writing, drawing, cooking, ect. If you are passionate about something, writing about it should be pretty easy.
11. One Line a Day Journal — It’s as simple as that. All you have to do is write a single line each day. I’m a talker, so journals like this don’t always work the greatest for me, but when I have a goal to write every day it takes the pressure off me to only have to write a single line if I don’t have anything else to say.
12. Friend/Social Journal — Write about your friends, why you get along (or why you don’t), what you do together, what they have taught you.
13. Food Journal — I have never kept a food journal, but I’ve read a few things about them. The idea is very similar to a fitness journal because you can use it to log what you cook, what you eat, your food goals, ect.
14. Self-Reflection Journal — Just what it sounds like. You take the deepest parts of yourself and put them on paper. Again, you can find many prompts on the internet if I don’t get around to writing about this one in greater detail.
15. Junk Journal — Oh, my, goodness! I was introduced to junk journaling last year and it is insanely fun! If you like taring cute paper and gluing it somewhere than you will love junk journaling. *record scratch* That was a terrible description. Let me try that again. Basically, it’s more crafty than journaly, but you can make it totally your own and mine still includes lots of writing and traditional journal qualities. Junk journaling is a little like scrapbooking because you use paper and it’s crafty but it is a fun way to journal or log quotes, poems, or other such things.
16. Reading/Book Journal — TBRs, book logs, and those fangirlings that your non-reader friends don’t want to hear about are all things your journal longs for.
17. Art Journal — No matter your medium I’m pretty sure you can journal with it. Some ideas include, doodling, painting, drawing, sketching, or anything else. Your art can be a great way to journal. And every so often, if you feel like it, maybe add some writing in too. It looks so cute to surround your journal writings with doodles or other art.
18. Ideas Journal — Keep a log of ideas you have and more will come. I am a firm believer in idea/what-if journals.
19. Photography Journal — Maybe you don’t love all the scrapbooky stuff but you are passionate about photography. Put pictures in your journal or a simple photo book, maybe add some description, and you are good.
20. List Journal — I am a girl of lists as you might already know. I make lists for everything. Make lists of everything!
21. Family History Journal — Whether you are trying to learn something about your own ancestors or you want to pass something on to your posterity about their family history I would highly recommend you keep a family history journal. Write down stories you hear, memories you have, ect. Learning about your family history is so important! I can’t emphasize that enough.
22. Poetry Journal — Are you a poet? Bear your poetic soul to the pages of a notebook. You deserve it. Improvement begins with paper. (Oooh, I think I need to make that a moto.)
23. Short Story Journal — Use your journal as a way to create characters and miniature stories. Writing short stories is fun because it takes the pressure of a 50,000+ project of your shoulders and the story can simply be however long it is. Short stories are also a great way to decide if an idea could become a bigger story. There is great value in writing short stories because it builds your skills in creating the basics in a story and you can improve your writing.
24. Moments to Remember Journal — Similar to a photo journal or a line-a-day journal, this idea is a quick way to capture moments you want to remember. Simply list them in your journal and add the date. A goal of mine is to do this one year and come up with the same number of moments as the year (e.g. 2,021 moments to remember in 2021).

Hopefully this list has gotten those rickety wheels turning inside your brain. Anyone can journal if they are excited about it! Go for it.

And remember: Improvement, even greatness, begins with paper (and a pen)!

If you have a journal style that works for you, tell me about it! Share your ideas in the comments to keep people’s gears rolling.