How My Journaling Has Evolved

This month marks a four-year anniversary since my first “serious” stationery order - and as you all know, I have not looked back since. It got me thinking about how I started journaling, what has changed over time, and how my journaling has evolved since I started on this journey.

My aforementioned first “serious” stationery order was from Hobonichi. I purchased a spring 2017 A6 techo and wrote consistently in it from April to December. I mostly focused on writing about my day and used a few stickers and washi tapes to decorate the edges. Although I haven’t gone back to the Hobonichi since then due to feeling pressured by daily pages, it’s what inspired me to keep journaling ever since then. I also got spoiled by the amazing Tomoe River paper!

During summer of 2017 I bought my first traveler’s notebook in olive and began creating weekly spreads. I was still very much exploring and figuring out what I liked. I remember journaling on the dining table at night and having so much fun with the creative freedom I had.

Falling in love with the traveler’s notebook system also meant I inevitably got into their parent company Midori’s MD notebooks, which are known for their cream-colored pages (though Midori has crisp white pages in their cotton notebooks as well) and ability to take different types of ink. I really enjoyed the A5 size for a time because of all the extra space, and even lugged it with me to New York and Europe for travel journaling.

I experimented heavily with all kinds of notebook sizes after that, which helped me understand my own preferences better. I opened up a Field Notes to use as a blog brainstorm book for a while. I picked up another traveler’s notebook in the passport size and completed projects like December Daily.

Eventually, I settled for notebooks with a slimmer horizontal profile that fit well in one hand and were easier for grab-and-go situations. I found the Jibun Techo Biz in the A5 slim to be a great planner and the Nanami Paper Cafe Note in B6 slim to be the perfect size for an everyday diary. The regular/standard size traveler’s notebooks always stayed in my lineup in any given year, as I continued to use them for travel journaling, junk journaling and decorating.

Although I still enjoy creating weekly spreads, I’ve been writing more in the last few months. Since my writing is often reflective and extremely personal, I don’t share these pages often on social media. The Cafe Note from Nanami Paper has it all - the good and the bad, with zero filtering from my brain to paper. It helps me unwind from stressful days and process the news I read.

The same thing can be said of my work planner during certain weeks, where the pages can have confidential information. Ever since my responsibilities began to expand at this job, I have to write down very particular things I need to remember, and sometimes that includes reminders for me to check in with specific people that I work with or projects that haven’t launched yet.

I’ve also been using the BK Grid as a content planning notebook, where I jot down my thought process in planning these blog posts as well as the occasional videos I post. Doing so gives me a fairly good idea of how the first draft will turn out, and being able to visualize what I want to say before having to type it out makes my thoughts flow more smoothly. If I think about it, it’s a little funny - I can erase and edit all I want digitally, and yet I still feel more at home when I take the analogue approach first.

As I kept sharing my work online, there were times in the past when I felt like I journaled for the purpose of this blog and social media. At this point, that feeling has largely dissipated, and I’m thankful for that. Instead of focusing on numbers, I remind myself that I enjoy this hobby for what it is. I think of how it gives me a sense of identity and happiness outside of my full-time corporate job.

I think it’s incredibly important to do something for ourselves out of pure personal enjoyment, and journaling scratches that itch for me! Having connected with so many others in this community who love documenting as much as I do has only added to that existing happiness I feel when I open my notebooks. I’m excited to see where I will be next year in this journey, or better yet, in another four years.

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