Sometime in the cold days of December 2024, I decided to take on a rather new and exciting hobby. It was an idea I had been considering for months leading up to the new year. I purchased a Moleskine classic notebook that would soon become important to me and committed to my new hobby, junk journaling.
In all my years of daily journaling and filling journal after journal with thoughts, feelings, my everyday life, and experiences, I felt a sense of boredom and was often in a gray area with my journal. I loved writing, but I also wondered if there was any way journaling could become more creative, less dull.
Junk journaling was first introduced to me on TikTok. I had my doubts given that the name was junk journaling, but after doing my research, I realized that this was truly a form of journaling. So, with excitement, I decided to start my own junk journaling to see if this perhaps sparks my interest in journaling about my life again.
Some people enjoy other forms of journaling, but this was something different. This isn’t supposed to be writing neatly between the lines, and it doesn’t have to have an organized structure. It’s supposed to be filled with your unorganized thoughts in whatever way you want them to be, and it’s a chance to be as creative as possible, just for yourself.
Although most are unsure what to put in these journals, it is important to remember that it can be whatever you want it to be. Remembering you can slap a receipt from the grocery store or cut a logo from a box of candy as an entry is freeing. This is a less structured scrapbook with a lot less pressure to make it perfect.
Marking down my days in this journal leads me to feel less gray about writing and actually look forward to making a spread with my junk. Some days my spread consists of my trinket blind boxes; other days it might be things I collected from being in the city with friends. It gives me an opportunity to look around my surroundings closer in hopes of finding something for my journal.
It is something that also connects me to a large community. Posting spreads online can lead to meeting great people and getting to see what they create as well. I, for one, created an Instagram solely for my spreads in hopes to inspire people to start their own journal, too, which has happened. It is a great way to show others your creations and also to feel great about what you have created.
I know some people have struggled to commit to daily journaling because they don’t feel they have anything to write about or are unsure what to write about, so my suggestion? Junk journal! It is worth all the glue sticks in the world and all the cutting just to create something, especially for yourself to look back on.
Perhaps it may not be for some, but it is always good to know a form of journaling that one day you can share with someone else or maybe someday feel bold enough to try. As for myself, I have found a routine in my journal, and I do go back and forth with my daily journaling and junk journaling.
I have found what works for me by creating an ecosystem of my journals and even adding my commonplace book as part of that system. It is an amazing feeling to know, no matter what, that I have found ways to journal and never feel that my journaling has to be dull and fully organized.
