Panache

Journaling is not all about scribbling your deepest emotions on paper. It can be about collecting your favorite things, recording your favorite moments to look back to, and doing whatever you find interesting.

There are many journaling options available in the world nowadays. You can choose any that you find interesting.

Below are some journaling types that can interest you and propel you towards this habit.

Also read: How to approach journaling as a newbie?

Also read: This one journaling exercise can give you closure.

Traditional Journaling

The first type of journaling is traditional journaling, where you write about your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and experiences. You tell your journal how your day went. What was different about it? How are you feeling at the moment? How do you relate with everyone around you?

In traditional journaling, you are the boss. Your journal revolves around you. It is your most important friend who wants to know every aspect of you. You do not need to pretend when you are writing in it. You can be as honest and as vulnerable as possible. Scientists, Psychologists, and Philosophers have expressed themselves through their journals over the ages.

Having the fear that someone will read your journal and may know your darkest, deepest thoughts is pretty common. This fear also led many people to either stop writing or not write. However, the advantages of journaling outweigh the fear. You will be glad you did it.

Health Journaling

Is one of your New Year’s resolutions to stay healthy this year? Do you want to track your diet and your calorie intake this year? Do you want to keep track of how much you weigh and exercise in the gym? Then, the best way to record and do better is to have a health journal.

Through health journaling, you cannot only note how many calories you consumed, but you can also note down recipes and cuisines that can help you achieve your goal. You can note down your gym gains and losses over time.

This journaling not only helps you understand your body better and intake but also helps you to record how it changes for the better. You can let people know how much eating healthy and following an active lifestyle can change their lives.

Productivity Journaling

I am among those people who despise the fact that I was not productive enough throughout the day. I want to get more done but barely get through my to-do list. This gets me thinking that I am stuck in a productivity rut and might never achieve my goals in the given time.

Productivity Journaling has worked magic for me for the past 6 months. It helps me record my yearly, monthly, and daily goals. So, I not only record my daily to-do lists but make sure that I have the foresight to work on my long-term goals accordingly. It also saves me from getting burned out.

Anyone regularly struggling with getting enough done should try productivity journaling at least once. You will get constant motivation as you will be able to see how much you have accomplished throughout the day and month. It can also help you get the satisfaction that you are progressing.

You can finally make time for some self-care activities in your schedule. And would not feel guilty about it.

Book- Reading/ Movie  Journaling

If you are an avid reader and love to escape on the carpet of story-telling, you are going to love this journaling. Having a reading list is not enough. To completely absorb the book, you can write about your favorite stories, why you like them, and how they impacted your life.

You can now record all the moments when you closed the book and stared at the wall while thinking about the characters and storyline. Hence, make a list of books that you have already read and which ones you would recommend others to read.

Similarly, you can record your movie-watching experiences as well. If you are a movie buff, you can record all the movies and re-visit them when they helped you change your life when you needed them the most. Who needs a letterbox when you can make a library that is exclusively personalized?

This journal can be the legacy you would like to pass on one day.

Inspiration Journaling

What has inspired you lately? Is it a person? A story? Some circumstances? Or a dramatic shift in your life? Inspiration journaling is not that common, but if you can do it, it can give you enough of a boost to get through any problems you face.

You can collect quotes, images, videos, and any notable achievement from your life that you can be proud of. It can be a photo album with captions about the days you were proud of yourself.

Life is unpredictable. So, instead of waiting for someone to show you the light through the darkest times. You can be your own light and get yourself through. Inspiration journaling is like collecting force fields and elixirs when you are tired because of the toughest battles of life.

Quotes / Poetry Journaling

Collecting the things that inspire you, you can also collect quotes that resonate with you. Every person on this planet has their own values, morals, beliefs, and thought processes. You may or may not resonate with everything that comes by in your life.

Therefore, it is important to keep a collection of quotes, couplets, haiku, or poetry that represent you and are only for you. They can be the reflection of your current mindset and your current emotional and mental being.

Once you maintain that record, you will notice how your thoughts have changed over the years and decades. How your understanding has matured and you no longer are attracted to things that get you excited during your teenage years. It will be your book to reminisce through when you get slightly older.

Gratitude Journaling

The world talks about gratitude journaling and its benefits. The therapist suggests this and claims that it can change your life. Yet, many people wonder what to write in their gratitude journals.

Gratitude journaling cannot be for everyone, but for anyone who truly wants to do it and can put their faith in it. It can bring a dramatic shift. You do not need to write in it regularly. You just need to write when your heart is full and you are feeling great about your life.

Note down the moments when you are truly grateful for the things you have. You do not need to write that you are grateful that you are breathing and have food when you have other severe things to take care of. You can write about the time when you had a great meal after a long day and you were thankful for it.

However, many therapists suggest gratitude journaling to make a habit and change the attitude. However, you do not need to do it regularly. You can do it when you want, how you want, with the things that you are truly grateful for.

Also read: How to do gratitude journaling the right way?

Travel Journaling

Collecting boarding passes, entry tickets, and foreign currency makes a huge part of Travel Journaling. It is not all about pictures and memorabilia. It is to record and look back on all the moments that you spent at foreign locations when you were enjoying yourself.

Travel journaling is another type of unconventional journaling. Most people nowadays make travel vlogs and call it journaling. But as mentioned above, you can add much more to your travel scrapbook and make it a perfect album for when you don’t want to or can’t travel anymore.

You can make a list of all the places that you would like to visit. The hotels where you would prefer to stay, the activities you want to do at those places, the cuisines you loved or didn’t like, even after listening to all the hype.

Future-Self Journaling

Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years? It is a fairly common question asked during interviews. But have you ever seriously thought about it? Would you like to make some promises to your future self? Would you want your future self to be a certain way?

These are a few questions that you can solve in your Future-Self journal. You can write letters to the future and affirm that you will be able to achieve what you want to achieve in your life. You can call it a way for manifestation as well.

Future-self journaling can fill you with the hope that you need at the moment. It makes you goal-oriented and free from any distraction that comes into your life. You can observe a change in your self-esteem and self-confidence while you do it.

Dream Journaling

Dream Journaling was never a concept I thought of until I understood the significance of understanding our subconscious. There are many things that our conscious selves do not understand at all about our mental and emotional well-being.

However, it is necessary to understand ourselves when we are feeling emotionally lost in our lives. Or are unsure what steps to take next. There are a lot of things that our dreams can tell us about our spiritual being.

You can note down your dreams and find meaning behind them. Try to decode what your mind or subconscious is trying to tell you. Many people practice dream journaling and have been able to understand themselves better.

Conclusion

Have you been journaling? How long have you been journaling? How has journaling changed your life?

Which of the above journaling methods are you looking forward to trying? Did you know all the journaling methods listed above? Did any method surprise you? Please let us know in the comments.

Also read: How cognitive journaling can change your life?

Also read: These things are stopping you from journaling regularly.

Also read: What is shadow work? And how to do it right through journaling?