The 5 Easiest Steps to Start Journaling

People often scoff at the idea of keeping a diary. What they don’t recognize is that journaling is an art. Through journaling, you can track your self improvement, gain mindfulness, reflect on life events, and more!  Besides this, it is also a great way to start or end your day in a calm yet collective matter. Writing with a good pen in a nice notebook, will after a while, also become a truly enjoyable moment which will improve not only your handwriting but also overall grammar knowledge. It can be rewarding to reread old journal entries and to note how things have changed. Journaling is an art, and it’s also a discipline—like every discipline, you need to start somewhere. We love to journal on a daily basis with our pens, and it would be amazing to inspire you or educate you just a little bit about writing down your thoughts, achievements, and troubles. And although we talk and focus here mainly regarding journaling with a notebook and a writing instrument, digital journaling is an amazing alternative and a low barrier way to get started.

Here are five easy steps how you can start daily journaling and also enjoy it from the beginning! (And ps, there’s a bonus tip in the end showing you some items that will make it easier and more enjoyable!)

1. Start Small and Simple

The thought of keeping a daily journal may seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. To start journaling, you don’t need to fill pages and pages of your journal every day; instead, start with a smaller task. Set out to write one thing a day. It could be one thing that you are grateful for each day, one thing that happened each day, one thing that made you happy each day…the list could go on. Who knows, you may find that you have more things to write than just one sentence. It’s not so much about the quantity you write, but getting used to writing on a regular basis will make it easier for you and more enjoyable to read back! Another great tip that worked for us was that when you don’t have any inspiration or are just in an extreme hurry just write down bullet points and come back later to add some extra text.

2. Make it Habitual

Through setting out to handwrite one thing in your journal each day, you will already be training yourself to make journaling a habit. But, what happens if you forget one day?

Don’t worry!

If you find yourself forgetting to journal each day, then develop habits that will help you remember. If you go to bed at the same time every night, then sent an alarm to remind you to journal—the same thing goes for if you wake up at the same time. It may also be helpful to journal in the same place every day. And in the beginning, this might be a bit difficult and challenging, but it will get easier along the way, and you will do it without even thinking about it! A tip that helped us a lot was leaving the notebook open on a desk with the pen next to it. Then when we walked past it, a small reminder was there from oh yeah, I haven’t written anything today. Make the barriers to start writing as small as possible.

3. Clear Your Mind

One of the best things about journaling is—there are no rules! You can write, draw, or tape whatever you want into your journal. Let your journal be a place where you can unload your thoughts. You don’t have to be organized, and you can be confident that no one else has to read what you are writing. Fill the pages of your book with how you feel, song lyrics, reflective journaling, what your goals are, anything! You’ll likely find that putting your thoughts into words will allow you to truly clear your mind. And it’s not only relaxing, but you act in one way as your own therapist, reflecting on your day and thinking what went great, could go better, …

4. Make Inspiration Lists

Sometimes it can be difficult to find subjects or just words to write about. A strategy/method that has been proven to work for a lot of people is creating inspiration lists. An inspiration list is basically a list of subjects that you can fall back on when your inspiration is low, or the day was quite dull and uneventful. This can be subjects you are thankful for or something you want to learn more about. By having this list, you make it on a daily basis easier to write, and especially on the days where you’re struggling. This is to avoid that you then won’t write and break the habit. Besides having this standard list, we love to make once a month an extra inspiration list of activities, books, people we would like to accomplish in that month. It’s a great way to motivate yourself, while not putting too much pressure on yourself.

5. Just Go for It

So, you want to start a journal, but you don’t know what to write? The best tip we can give you is just jump in the deep and start writing about anything and everything you can think of. Pick up your (wooden) pen, crack up your hardcover journal, and just start writing. Brainstorm what your dream job is, write about where you want to travel, scribble a drawing of your favorite houseplant. Tell yourself, “I will journal every day for one month.” See what happens! You can write for just one minute or hours; it really doesn’t matter, and that’s the true beauty of journaling. It’s a personal journey where you will develop as a writer and person.

Daily journaling is a wonderful way to process your thoughts, keep track of your experiences, preserve your brilliant ideas, and more. Now, what are you waiting for? Start journaling!

6. Equipment to get started

You can journal perfectly on a piece of paper from the printer and a pen you got with the cereal. But you can make the process for yourself so much easier and especially more enjoyable if you use materials that represent you. Because once you fall in love with journaling, you want to do this daily, and then you need really good material. If the little details about journaling make you excited, you’re going to be more eager to write your thoughts.

Although we really love pens, it’s not the basis of journaling; this is really your hardcover notebook. I probably don’t have to tell you, but you can find these in every shape, color, size, and quality. And any notebook essentially works, but we want to show you three notebooks that we think would work for everyone and make you look forward to writing in it!

– Personalized Journal

What is better than a journal that is personalized with your favorite pictures, logo, or even a name? It makes the journal really stand out and also really yours. If this doesn’t motivate you to get started, we also don’t know anymore what will 😉

Find out more about this personalized notebook

– Recycled Notebook

Although a personalized planner is great, you might also want to consider a more sustainable notebook. Last years these gained significantly in popularity, and these stone books tell a fascinating story and are super satisfying to write on! We suggest Paper on the Rocks, their products look fantastic, and their story is genuinely unique.

Learn more about these awesome recycled journals

– Retro journal

If you don’t like the personalized and find the stone paper just too much, you can always go for a good old retro journal. Just a book with a sturdy hardcover outside. Nothing more and nothing less, just great to write in!

Find more about these retro journals

Of course, after choosing your perfect notebook, you will also need a matching pen that has at least the same qualities and is a joy to look at. There are millions of instruments out there that all manage to do the job. But we like a wooden pen; not only is each product unique out of wood, it represents a story that no other writing tool can tell. A tree has been growing for years, and all these stories fit in your hand. Besides that, the most important part is that these pens write damn well, and we are really proud of them. To make it easier for you, we choose three of our personal favorites for each person’s writing style, and we are confident you’ll love them.

– Olive Ballpoint Pen

We could talk for hours about our pens, but the Italian olive pen is one of our true favorites. One of the first pens we ever made, and it’s crafted from an old olive tree originating from an olive oil vineyard! This is an amazing trusty pen that will make writing for you easy and comfortable.

Check out our olive pen

– Thuya Fountain Pen

If you maybe want to write a bit more unique and elegant, our fountain pens are precisely that! This thuya fountain pen glides over the paper, and you can use any ink to make it personal and super easy to use. Made from beautiful Moroccan Thuya wood, this pen is breathtaking and a real eye-catcher.

Learn everything about the thuya fountain pen

– Zebrano Rollerball Pen

Maybe you find a fountain pen a bit too complex and messy, well then our rollerball pen is the perfect alternative. It writes extremely smoothly and fits perfectly in your hand for short and long writing sessions. This pen is made of Mexican zebrano wood; although the name speaks for itself, this pen has a glow over it in the sun!

Find out more about this one of a kind rollerball pen

Essentially with these two items, you can start journaling and writing for years to come. But it might be good also to have a small stationery set consisting of some colored pens/markers and maybe a whiteout to remove small mistakes. This will make your journal even nicer and more enjoyable to read back in the future!

Thanks a lot for reading our blog post regarding journaling; hopefully, you learned something, and you will start soon on your own daily journaling journey. And if you have any questions or want to share your results with us, don’t hesitate to contact us.