Journals – 10 Types for Organizing and Creativity

This post may contain affiliate links provided for your convenience. We earn commissions if you shop through the links on this page. I am also an Amazon Associate and earn from qualifying purchases Read my full disclosure policy.

Sharing is caring!

Have you heard of a bullet journal and wondered what it is? Journaling is a popular pastime for many writers and reflective thinkers. It’s also popular as a creative outlet. This list of 10 types of journals shares ideas for planning, organizing and creativity. There’s something to appeal to everyone.

open pink journal on top of blue journal with stack of 3 journals and flowers nearby with title text overlay reading 10 Types of Bullet Journals for Organizing and Creativity

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Dedicating time to write in a journal can be a great way to relax and unwind at the end of the day. Many psychologists will say that journal writing is even downright therapeutic. While journaling to write about your thoughts and feelings in the traditional sense has its place, keeping a journal has become much more diverse and specific in intentions these days. Whether you are a frequent journaler or simply someone wishing to try out something new, take note of the following suggestions. These ten types of journals will  inspire you to become more organized and introspective, in addition to more motivated to keep a journal.

Types of Journals – For Organizing and Creativity

Bullet Journal

Bullet journaling is a creative new journaling technique that allows for a customizable writing experience. Bullet journals are meant to be used for rapid record keeping, personal organization, and planning. While you can certainly purchase specific journals that provide bullet journaling guidelines, accessories, and techniques, any simple notebook works well for a bullet journal. (You can even start bullet journaling for $1!)  It’s how you personalize your bullet journal that makes it meaningful and useful to you specifically.

Many people take the initiative to creatively produce bullet journals that work perfectly for them. This could mean creating an index, writing in color-coded ink, and using shorthand and symbols for rapid expression of thoughts. Many people also use bullet journals in order to plan for the future and to create specific pages dedicated to themes of personal interest. In a sense, a bullet journal attempts to be an all-purpose commonplace book for you to stay on task and organized while reflecting about your everyday life.

Gratitude Journal

Sometimes, people reserve journaling as a tool for unloading their emotions or to simply vent and complain. However, many studies in psychology emphasize taking the time to express gratitude regularly. A gratitude journal allows you to reflect on a daily basis about the things that you are thankful for and why. Gratitude journals encourage writers to think critically each day about each meaningful moment. By focusing on the positive, you will realize quickly just how much you have to be grateful for, and you will become more motivated to outwardly express your appreciation to others.

Dream Journal

How many times have you awoken from a vivid dream in the middle of the night only to fall back asleep and wake up in the morning forgetting about it completely? Keep a small notebook on your bedside table to log the dreams that you remember. By tracking your dreams, you may notice that you have reoccurring dream sequences that present repeated imagery. Sometimes, you can recognize patterns on your own and interpret what your dream sequences may mean. You can also look up dream interpretations to receive further guidance with interpreting symbols that are particularly vague or abstract.

Travel Journal

A travel journal is a great tool for an adventurous spirit. Keeping a travel journal will allow you to specifically log your thoughts and feelings about each trip that you take. New travelers will find travel journals a great way to measure growth and confidence when traveling to different places. Seasoned travelers can even keep a travel journal to reflect on locations, cuisine, sightseeing, inspiration, cultural events, and more. Travel journals can also be kept as a kind of scrapbook, using photographs and tangible trinkets that represent all of the different parts of your trips. Keeping notes in your journal about photos that you take will help you remember ever detail later when you return home.

Food Journal

If you love to cook, explore restaurants, and try out new cuisine, a food journal might be the perfect fit for you. Some food journals can be kept as a kind of recipe book. Perhaps you have found new recipes in cookbooks or online, and you want to try them out in your own kitchen. You can log the ingredients, any modifications that you have made, and also keep track of flavor profiles, wine and dessert pairings, and more. In addition to journaling about your own kitchen experiments, you can include in your food journal experiences at new restaurants and reflections about the flavors of recently-sampled cuisines. A food journal can make you a better chef and a more thoughtful food critic, helping you develop your palate over time.

Time Capsule Journal

People keep time capsule journals in order to chronologically monitor the events in their lives of high value. This kind of journal is intended to keep track of news, sports, and events in popular culture that are particularly moving, intriguing, and important. You can scale this kind of journal from big, global occurrences like the Olympic Games, monumental events in your local community, or you can even keep track of events that are more personal for you, including your family and friends. This kind of journal is meaningful as you compose and organize your specific entries. However, over time, it will create a chronology of all of the major events that have made an impact on your life.

Meditation Journal

Using a meditation journal can be an excellent tool for marking a divide between your personal and professional life. If you use a meditation journal, you can create a routine on a daily basis to jot down your thoughts and worries and ponder solutions as soon as you come home from work. This will help you to mark a more natural transition from one realm to the next and it will help you to unwind. Put on a change of clothing and some relaxing music, and see where 15-20 minutes of decompressing with a pen in hand will take you.

Planning Journal

A planning journal serves the purpose of an expanded, organized agenda. The purpose of this journal is to create short lists or brainstorming notes about the things you would like to get accomplished within a certain period of time. Planning journals often include daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly calendars in order to keep track of time and to-do lists to reach goals. People who use planning journals often check off or cross out their completed tasks in order to track their success. These journals are a great way of measuring personal progress over time.

Creativity Journal

For the creative and artistic personalities, this kind of journal serves as a personal log of all of life’s little moments that have caused inspiration. Creativity journals serve as great tools for writers and artists to take notes about settings, characters, situations, and motifs within daily life that they can later apply to their creative work. Creativity journals can be great for experimental writing sessions and serve as useful references for inspiration during particularly tough periods of inspirational blocks.

Project Journal

If you have a hobby or find yourself frequently undertaking personal projects, this style of journaling will work well for you. Journaling for projects allows for you to set goals, brainstorm lists of materials, monitor results, and reflect upon any factors that may have hindered your project completion. You can keep track of notes for what helped you be successful in addition to jotting down suggestions for avoiding hassles in the future. Project journals make excellent resources for innovative minds to maintain organization and monitor success.

Pink journal cove with other journals stacked nearby -

Are you inspired to try one of these types of journals yourself? Why not check out Bullet Journals – What You Need to Know. There are even different types of bullet journals in addition to the ten types of journals listed here. 

For more simple and powerful productivity tips, hacks and printables, see the table below. You can scroll though the table and look for ideas or search for specific ideas with the magnifying glass in the upper right-hand corner (on desktop). Click on the topic and then click through the specific article.

About the Author:

Lillian at Jofelo.com is an avid journal enthusiast. She fell in love with both paper and online journaling as an adolescent. Now, she is a huge fanatic of bullet journaling for keeping herself organized and jotting down any sources of inspiration on a daily basis. She claims that journaling is responsible for helping her maintain a calm demeanor in all facets of her life.

Similar Posts

4 Comments

  1. I used to keep a gratitude journal, but I don’t anymore. It was a nice thing to have. It made me think more about things I was thankful for that happened during the day, so I would have things to write in my journal at night.

    1. I’ve never kept a gratitude journal myself, Brenda. I’m not sure why, but you’ve got me thinking seriously about making the commitment.

  2. I love reading your inspirational. There is one thing I’d like to change. That is the advertisements! They take over the page and make reading difficult and I tend to become.e frustrated and delete entire content.
    Could you please have the address placed anywhere but in the middle of content? Thanks

    1. Barb, thanks so much for letting me know. Life is frustrating enough, I certainly don’t want to add to that. I’m looking at what changes I can make to enhance your reading experience. Take care.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *