If you’re new to keeping a blank journal as a planner, the empty pages offer a new world. They focus your creativity and boost your positivity.
Why?
Handwritten planners offer a break from all the bings and beeps of digital reminders on harsh screens.
If you’re new to using a dot journal or a blank weekly planner, it can feel intimidating to start. My number one suggestion is to start following some accounts on Pinterest or Instagram to see how other people are using their pages.
If you love the stationary section of the craft store, but never really seem to fill out those planners and journals, this post is for you!
The concept of using a journal in therapy has permeated pop culture. For example, BBC’s Sherlock is narrated by John Watsons online journal blog at his therapist’s suggestion. Usually, these examples show the subject writing down reflections on their life in a narrative format — to move the plotline forward.
I use my journal for self-care but, not as a diary.
Lately, I’ve been trying to think of different journal-keepers in pop culture like Felicity (Felicity TV series) with her audio-tapes and Kirk’s Star Trek Captain’s log. Writers often use this format to give a first-person narration that brings you into the character’s inner world (like Ally McBeal‘s fantasy sequences).
Sometimes, I go to art galleries and simply stand in awe. I don’t have an art degree, or even a body of creative work. So, the thought of developing a collection of studio art is awe-striking to me.
I wonder if I could ever be so creative.
When I think of a character that radiates positivity, without being saccarine, I remember Anne Shirley. She’s a tad melodramatic at the beginning of the “Anne of Green Gables” series.
Overall, she is a thoughtful person who shapes her worldview around a belief that good things will come to her.
One year, I accidentally had a summer of reading memoirs — or memior-like fiction. I picked up several from the library and devoured them for weeks. They included well know works like Lolita and Memoirs of a Geisha. Some of them were long-time must reads like Wintergirls and The Bell Jar. Others were of-their-time impulse reads like Prozac Nation, Wasted and Girl, Interrupted.
I love looking through weekly spreads to get inspiration for my own designs. Some weeks, they’re really beautiful and carefully created. Other times, they’re raw and practical — as I put them together in a hurry (like the one below).
