When most people think about journals, they think of the blank leather covered books found in bookstores and gift shops. The reality is, journals have changed a lot over the last few years. Now you can get just about any type of journal you want… from weight loss journals to spiritual journals to gratitude journals.

Here are five different types of journals to record your thoughts…

Weight Loss Journals

If you’re working on weight loss, one of the steps experts tell you to do is keep a weight loss journal.

A weight loss journal is set up in such a way that you can keep track of your goals and achievements. There’s usually space for keeping track of what you ate, how much and what type of exercise you did. There are often checklists, spaces for meal planning, and a place for you to write down your thoughts on the day and how you’re feeling about things.

Planning Journals

Planning journals help you focus on your goals and stick to them through a series of prompts and checklists. There is a huge variety of these type of journals available. Almost anything you can think of to plan for, there is a journal out there for it.

For example, there are journals with themes such as goal setting, career, weight loss, parenting, travel, and blogging. Depending on the journal theme, these combination journals and planners will have pages with checklists or to-do lists along with areas to record your thoughts.

Devotional Journals

Devotional journals are another popular journal type that be used to record your thoughts about your spiritual practice.

Keep in mind, these are not themed for a specific religion or spiritual practice. The niche group of devotional journals are available for nearly every religion and offer a similar set-up across the board.

In most, you will find words of wisdom such as a scripture, passage, or quote and then space to write about your thoughts related to the daily thought or passage. These type of journals can be a huge help when it comes to charting your spiritual path and recording your spiritual growth.

Wreck Journals

As the name implies a wreck journal is one that you, well, wreck. Wreck journals are a very specific type of creativity journal created by Keri Smith. They are filled with prompts that include writing, drawing, coloring, even ripping out pages or poking holes through them. The idea behind these journals is to get stress out of your system while being more creative and opening yourself up to new ideas.

Bullet Journals

Bullet journals are one of the most popular forms of journaling. They make it easy to add things like calendars, lists, bullet lists, and task lists to record your thoughts. If you’re not into long-form writing, a bullet journal can be a great way to capture the important parts of your day as they happen.

I’ve been doing bullet journaling for years now, and the thing I love is that it lets you find your own journaling style. It doesn’t matter how you set up your pages so you have the freedom to go after your goals in a way that works for you. It really is up to you how you create your bullet journal and there’s no one right way of doing it.

Final Thoughts

So there you have it, a brief description of five popular journals. There are actually hundreds of journal types available. Decide what your goals for journaling and how you want to record your thoughts are and then start searching for the one that speaks to you. There is literally a journal out there for almost every topic or goal and every journaling level.

Happy Journaling!