Are you bored with journaling?
I get it, because I get bored with my journals sometimes too. I know that when it starts to feel like a chore, then it’s definitely a sign of boredom setting in.
There are a lot of reasons why you may be bored with journaling in its current form, there is one main one: you’ve outgrown your journal.
Although you may have started journaling in order to achieve a goal, work through an issue, or even just to help keep you organized, at some point you may find that it’s no longer needed and it’s time to move on. If your main reason for starting a journal no longer fits, it’s only natural that you may need to change things up a bit in order to keep up with the habit.
Here are four ideas to keep you from being bored with journaling...
Idea #1 – Create Daily Journaling Prompts
Having a daily journal prompt is a great way to keep you on your journaling toes. The trick to this being organized enough to plan ahead. You want to do this weekly or even monthly. This will give you enough to keep you busy, things to look forward to and things to focus on.
For example, you can create prompts that deal with upcoming events at work, goals you are trying to reach, or events that you are looking forward to. You can also create prompts about books you are reading or movies that you want to see. You want to make sure that your prompts are detailed enough to require more than a one or two line answer.
This way when you get bored with journaling, you can grab a prompt and find something new to write about.
Idea #2 – Do More Than Just Write
There’s more to you than just words, so shouldn’t your journal also be more than just writing? Why not try adding images, drawings, doodles, or adding other items such as newspaper clippings, and other mementos from your life.
No matter what the original purpose of your journal was, it’s personal to you and you should be adding things to keep it that way. You may find that no one understands why you just wrote down a date, a time, or put in a small piece of paper. You know that the date may be something important in your life, the time may be when something amazing happened to you, or the small piece of paper may be the last note a family member wrote. Make your journal about more than writing… make it about your feelings too.
Idea #3 – Decorate Your Journal
You can liven up your journaling by decorating both the inside and the outside of your journal. Personally, I use a lot of washi tape and stickers to decorate my journal. When I get really ambitious I’ll draw, or grab a page from one of my coloring books and paste it in so I have something to color.
The whole point is to make your journal something that you want to spend time with.
Idea #4 – Consider Sharing Some Entries
Sometimes the boredom with your journal can come from the fact that no one sees it but you. If you need a little outside motivation, you might consider sharing some of your journal entries with others.
There are a lot of pros and cons to deciding to share your journal entries, and I’ll cover those in an upcoming post. If you do decide to share, you might want to choose one of the less personal entries such as a picture you’ve drawn or a poem you’ve written.
Final Thoughts
The next time you feel bored with journaling try one of these tips and see if it helps you gain back some enthusiasm for creating a new entry. Who knows, you may find new journaling ideas that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. Let me know how it goes!