You see, journaling and I don’t have the best relationship. As much I aspire to be AmandaRachLee with my ~aesthetic~ bullet journal, I often get tired of journaling. I find it helpful when I first start and love pouring my thoughts into the pages every day, but after a while, I fail to find the motivation to continue. So, for the big 2020, I decided to experiment with a new form of journaling that I’ve been able to keep up for 8 months and counting!
The story behind my bizarre journaling method: basically, I owe it all to my sister (if you’re reading this, hi! This is a shoutout less subtle than last time!). If you don’t recall that iconic first post of mine, my sister started a blog when she studied abroad. Instead of posting paragraphs of word vomit like I do, each day she would post 3 things she did that day, 2 things she learned, and 1 thing she ate (see sis, this is why I texted you. This style of blogging seemed relatively low maintenance and didn’t seem like it required an overload of time each day.
So, four magical years later, I decided to turn her old blogging style into my journaling style. Instead of journaling each day, I would journal once a week, with one journal “page” per week (I did this in a Google doc). Each week, I would write about three good things that happened that week, two things I’m grateful for (count your blessings <3), and one thing I learned (because you learn something new everyday). I also gave myself room for a “brain dump”, where I could write whatever I wanted: rants, thoughts on a book, other weekly events, how I’ve been feeling, all that.
Some weeks I’d journal almost everyday, and some weeks I’d do a weekly roundup on Saturday night. Some weeks I’d expand my list of good things that happened to five or six items, and some weeks I’d struggle to put things on the page. Regardless, this more low-maintenance version of journaling is much more sustainable than any other attempts at journaling that I’ve tried before. I can remember the good things about each week, realize how much I have to be grateful for, and look back and see that the bad things that I might’ve ranted about in the brain dump weren’t too disastrous after all.
So, I hope this helps some of you! Maybe I’ll transition into traditional journaling and live my best AmandaRachLee life eventually, but this is what works for me now :) Here’s the journal template that I’ve been using:
Week of MM/DD/YYYY:
Three good things:
Two things I’m grateful for:
One thing I learned:
Brain dump:
Note: cover photo was taken in China
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