My Journal Collection + How I Fill Them

After being dragged by my friend the other day when I mentioned that I had bought another journal, I decided to sit down and take a long look at my notebook/journal collection. The first thing I noticed was the sheer amount of notebooks that I own. After counting three times (because I kept losing track) I concluded that I have at least 57 notebooks. I know I have more in boxes in the garage or in a bin under my bed, but for the purpose of this post, I'm just going to be looking at the 57 notebooks that I have on my bookshelves. I haven't written in all of them, but I've written at least one thing in at least half of them (I counted writing in 32 notebooks). For most of my notebooks, I buy them because they're pretty, but then once I get home I suddenly have no idea what to write in them and/or I don't want to make any mistakes or mess something up. I know that's ridiculous, since notebooks are literally made to be whatever you want them to be, but I strive for organized perfection, which leads me to abandon notebooks after a few pages. However, for some reason I have no problem using the 50 cent composition books I bought at Target three years ago to write all of my school notes in. I guess I just don't care about them as much. That being said, now that I've been reusing composition books, I do find that I'm a bit more attached, since I've fit four semesters into those bitches, but I will have no problem tossing the less useful notebooks once I graduate next year.

As I was looking through my notebook collection, I began thinking of the various ways that I fill my journals. Some are more organized than others, and I find that those journals are used more than ones that I haven't organized or decided to dedicate one thing to. Since starting a bullet journal last year, I've found that most of my journaling is done there, but I still use other notebooks besides my main bullet journal since I feel like my bullet journal needs to be pretty and perfect, and not a mess like some other notebooks. This can also be in part because I spend a lot of time watching journaling videos on YouTube, and I desperately want my journal to look as pretty as the ones I see online even though I have no artistic abilities. That being said, I find journaling videos to be fun and calming, and I got inspiration for this blog post after I watched this video by Jordan Clark where she discussed how she uses her journals. Not only is the video really fun and relaxing, but it got me thinking of all my journals and how I use them. While I won't be going over all my journals in this post, or even all of the journals that I've written in, I do have a few key journals that I thought I'd touch on in this post, and then if you want, I can make a follow up post where I talk about other notebooks. 

First up, we have my Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks. I used and completely filled up the teal journal last year when I used it as my bullet journal for 2018. I wrote a post about how I set up that journal and I'll link that here if you want to go and check it out. I currently use the gold notebook for my 2019 bullet journal and even though I haven't really posted about it, I still have a lot of fun working with it, making it look cute, and having a space to jot down things I did each day. My favorite spreads that I do are my concert spreads where I print out pictures from concerts and tape them in with parking receipts, wristbands, or anything else that I got at a concert. The gold notebook is the dotted version, while the teal notebook is the grid version, and while I personally think I like the grids a little bit more than the dotted version, I do like how the dots fill the entire page, whereas the grid notebook had a blank space at the top of each page to write a title/date. I got the light blue notebook early this year after I realized that the dotted notebook was slightly different than the grid notebook, and I wanted a place to practice spread ideas or color palettes in a space that I was able to be a bit messier in. This journal is definitely useful to me, as it allows me to mess up or practice and be less-than-perfect in the same type of notebook as my regular bullet journal without any of the pressure of feeling like I need a perfectly aesthetic bujo. I also use this notebook to do various pen tests with all the pens I get to see how they look on the page. Overall, I would really suggest having a second notebook that is similar to your regular bullet journal, especially if you're like me and feel like you need a notebook where you can test spread ideas without committing to putting it into your actual bujo.

This next set of notebooks includes two pocket-sized Moleskine journals that I got on sale at Target and a simple lined journal that I just bought from Amazon. The small black journal has blank pages and I use it as a simple journal to jot down lists, drawings, and ideas that come to mind. For example, I have one page dedicated to bullet journal spread ideas, another page has a list of things I plan on selling or giving away when I move this summer, and another page has lavender doodles. This notebook is great for me because it's small enough to fit in a small purse and take out if I have a random thought or idea, plus it was on sale and who doesn't love a sale. The small green journal has lined pages and I use it exclusively for creative ideas. So far, I have a short story idea, and then part of another short story that I just wrote in the notebook. Again, this is another nice notebook because it's small, but I find that I don't take it with me because if I rarely get story ideas while I'm out, and if I do I just hastily type them into the notes app on my phone. The third notebook in this set in the newest addition to the family -- the one that caused my friend to drag me and thus partially inspired this post. I have to say that this is my most used notebook so far in the sense that I've had it for two days and I've already filled in eight pages. I use this whole notebook as one giant brain dump. I make lists of things I have to do, I write down my favorite song lyrics or quotes from shows I'm watching, I write down something I did that day, or I just journal about how I'm feeling. I don't know what it is about this notebook, but I really love having a place where I don't have to worry about anything being pretty or perfect, and instead, it's just an everyday journal that I constantly have open and next to me. Plus, it was only $5 on Amazon, and it's surprisingly durable and the pages are thick and nice. 

Next up I have these pretty pastel Moleskine Cahier soft covered journals. These are actually two packs that were in the same colors, but one pack had blank pages and the other pack had grid pages, so I bought both. I've had these for a few years, so I don't know if you can still find them for a good price or not, but I love these little notebooks. They're small enough that you can have one notebook dedicated to a single thing. I used the yellow grid one as my first bullet journal when I started college back in the fall of 2017. The journal lasted me until the end of the year, then I upgraded to the teal Leuchtturm 1917 from above for 2018. I use the blank lavender notebook to write (shitty) poems in pencil (for some reason I only write poems with pencil?), one of the pink notebooks I used as a random journal where I had packing lists, important things to remember, tattoo ideas, etc, and the blank yellow notebook I use exclusively to plan a novel I've been planning/working on for years that will most likely never see the light of day, but I've had the idea for so long that I always end up coming back to the story. All-in-all, these little journals are great to have dedicated to a single idea/use because they're so small that it's easy to fill it up and  you don't have to feel overwhelmed having a larger journal for one idea.

Last but definitely not least, we have my collection of journals that I've kept each year since the 8th grade. I used to keep a journal for each school year, then a journal for the summer, then I would get a new journal for the new school year and the cycle would continue. I kept these journals going from 8th grade up until my senior year in high school, or maybe even the summer after my senior year. For some reason, I can't find the journals for the summer of 2013 and for my freshman year of high school, but I'll probably find them while I sort through boxes while I move in a few weeks. I actually think that I might do a whole blog post dedicated to my favorite quotes from these journals because I looked at one a few weeks ago and I was so funny and dramatic, so that might be a post to expect before 2020. Even though my love for journals and writing goes as far back as I remember (I can picture a Webkinz themed journal from third grade that I know I still have somewhere, as well as a notebook from second grade filled with little stories), these journals are at the heart of my journal collection because I somehow managed to document five whole years of my life (seven if you count the fact that I still keep journals, just in a different format) in simple composition books (plus one spiral and one small notebook I would use during senior year when I was bored in class oops).

Despite the alarming amount of notebooks that I own, I find myself grateful that these are the things I recklessly buy because I think there's a story with each notebook, even if there's nothing inside. This might just be my stationery-obsessed ass talking, but there's something really magical about collecting journals and notebooks, whether they're really pretty or super simple.

~Maddison