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Hey there! Are you thinking about picking up journaling this year but worried about your ability to follow through? Have you tried to journal before but been frustrated by your inability to stick to a system or make it pretty? Have I got the "system" for you!
This is my journal! It's just a 3 subject notebook I picked up at the store. I tend to carry it everywhere. As you can see, the cover picks up stickers, which is my ONLY concession to aesthetics.
I've used the 3 subject sections to very loosely organize the journal. The first section is general "scholarship." This is diss notes, notes from conference presentations, book review outlines, whatever. Sometimes I do visual notes, sometimes I just scribble out words.
Section 2 is my miscellaneous section. It truly is just whatever the heck I wanna write down to remember later: recipes, shopping lists, ideas for a story, right now I even have a little diagram of a board game I wanna try to design. Just put whatever here!
And section 3 is teaching stuff! This is lesson plans, observation notes, meeting agendas, sometimes grades (make sure to dispose of properly later!), whatever.
By letting go of the idea of a pretty journal or even a coherent system, I've found I can actually stick to "journaling." I have no requirements for when and how I write in this, but it's always available to scribble down whatever I feel like.
If you're a person who struggles with bullet journals and the like, I really do recommend trying this. I will never have a journal pretty enough for IG, but something about the beaten-up, water (and coffee!) stained pages filled with my random thoughts really works.
The most important thing to remember about this system is: it does not matter. If you have to scratch out stuff it does not matter. If you put something on the wrong section it does not matter. If you forget the journal and find it again months later it does not matter.
Nothing about this journal exists for anyone or any time except for me and any moment I happen to find it useful. It doesn't have to look nice, it doesn't have to speak truth, it doesn't have to exist for posterity. Its value comes from being worthless.
Everything about this is designed to fight "notebook anxiety," that feeling of dread you get when you open a fresh notebook and try to figure out how to use it. Fuck it, this was ephemera before you even bought it. Draw a dick or rip out the first page or something.
