rethinking my journaling practice
I've been journaling regularly for almost 10 years now. I started bullet journaling in my second year of high school as a way to keep up with school and personal tasks—I’ve been doing it consistently ever since. The simplicity of an analog journal combined with the tangibility of writing and crossing off lists has been the best way for me to actually stay productive.
Over the years, what was once a pristine bullet journal with strict styling and layouts has become a more chaotic “everything” journal. Every idea, sketch, thought, and still my bullet journal pages, go in here.
When I was in school, a lot of my class notes also ended up going in this one journal. I felt like it was simpler to keep everything in one journal rather than having different notebooks to keep track of and organize.
I am beginning to rethink my journaling practice, however, and I would like to explore options that are still flexible and accessible while being more searchable and organized.
I have at least more recently switched to also keeping a morning pages book. This is a simple composition book I keep by my bed. I also sometimes do nightly pages. Having this separate is at least helpful in allowing me to get out thoughts, feelings, and events before and after the day in a way that is reflective and centered on mindfulness rather than productivity.
I think making diary posts and committing to blogging more is even serving as a separate journal in a way.
The primary benefit, currently, of having a singular journal is that it is always accessible. It is easier to keep track of and switch between pages of one journal than trying to manage multiple. But the inability to really concisely search my journals is irritating me—especially when it comes to learning and research notes.
I've been trying to keep more specific note-taking left to my Zotero—this way I can link notes with sources, topics, and tags easily. But I always struggle with the distractions that any sort of digital note-taking causes.
I would like to play around with more note-taking/journaling on a dedicated site. A digital commonplace book is what I would like to create.
Something with specific pages/tags for topics, while also being able to maintain a chronology of notes. This way I have the ability to link, include photos, etc. The goal of this is documentation and record-keeping of my own exploration and the ideas that arise from it.
I think the key needs for any journaling system for me is something that is present, accessible, and flexible. The flexibility of both traditional books and custom HTML sites appeals to me for their ability to display and hold information in different ways, even in the same place.
This is an ongoing journey for me.