Intro to Journaling 101: The Magic of Putting Pen (or Sticker, or Washi, or Whatever Sparks Joy) to Paper
Grab your coffee or drink of choice, crack open a fresh notebook, and let’s turn blank pages into a journal spread! In Papel Arcano’s ‘Intro to Journaling’ series, we’ll dive into the basics of journaling, journaling techniques and aesthetics, types of stationery and supplies, and everything else you need to know if you’ve ever wondered how to get started with journaling.
By: Debra Skinner
Ink before apps: the case for journaling by hand (even in 2025)
Screens may be handy, but paper is healing. Studies show handwriting slows the heartbeat, improves memory retention, and helps process stress. If you’ve ever found yourself wondering if journaling can help with mental health or anxiety, you’ll be pleased to know research suggests that it can! There’s certainly been an increased interest in journaling prompts for mental health - especially since the 2020 pandemic - but journaling can be about more than just writing down your thoughts (and, if that’s not your vibe, you don’t even have to do that!). Add a swoosh of washi or a mischievous sticker and you’ve got a page of memories that’s part diary, part art, all yours.
An Over the Garden Wall themed journal spread by Dino (IG @dinolemons).
How to start journaling
It may sound cliche, but in order to start journaling you first need to figure out what about journaling sparks joy for you. That may take some trial-and-error, or it may even change throughout your journaling journey – and that’s okay! Ultimately, journaling and stationery are simply about connection, whether it’s connecting with yourself when you write in a diary or connecting with a friend when you send them snail mail. So, time for some introspection: who (or what) are you trying to connect with?
Are you trying to connect with a more productive part of yourself? Then your notebooks may end up containing more to-do lists, notes, habit trackers, and time management techniques.
Or, maybe you’re trying to connect with your inner thoughts or record memories – your journal might just be page after page of handwriting, daily gratitude prompts, or mood trackers.
Perhaps to you, journaling is about expressing your creativity and fostering connections with friends and family. You might have inserts for watercolor painting or spreads devoted to friend hangouts and family holidays.
You might be trying out journaling just to see if it works for you; in that case, your journal might be a chaotic mess of lots of journaling techniques, skipped pages, and half-finished spreads.
There’s no one right way to journal. There are as many ways to journal as there are journalers, and over time your journal or notebook or diary will end up being a unique collage of the things that matter most to you.
A visually-heavy journal spread - journaling doesn't necessarily have to include writing if that's not your preference. It can be more like a work of art! Spread by Dino (IG @dinolemons).
Types of journaling
If you’re having trouble figuring out what’s drawing you to journaling, no worries – we’ve got you! We’ll cover some common types of journaling so you can try out what works for you. And remember, you don’t have to stick to one type, even in the same notebook! Mix-and-match journaling styles until you find your perfect journaling recipe.
Micro-Jotting and Gratitude Journaling
Pressed for time? Commit to just a sentence per day. It might be profound (“Accepted imperfection today”) or petty (“Neighbor’s dogs started barking at 4am again”). Over months, these micro-entries weave a surprisingly vivid chronicle. A dated five-year journal makes tracking easy, or you can DIY with ruled inserts and a cheeky sticker as a daily bullet. There are even journals that provide a new short journaling prompt every day.
Alternatively, use gratitude journaling to develop a small habit with a big impact. Each day – morning coffee in hand or bedtime lamp aglow – list three to five things you’re grateful for. That’s it. Over time, this simple practice rewires your brain to scan for sparkle instead of doom-scroll data. Keep it simple with dot grid pages or dress it up with botanical stickers and rose-gold ink; the gratitude does the heavy lifting.
Best For: the time-deprived, those who want to try journaling with low commitment, and anyone craving a quick daily dose of journaling.
Notebook Recommendation: We love the simple Mnemosyne A6 Daily notebook for micro-jotting and gratitude journaling. With one page per day, it’s perfect for jotting down a sentence about your day without leaving you feeling like there’s too much blank space. And its compact size (about 4”x6”) means you can easily carry it with you to journal whenever is most convenient for you.
Planners / Productivity Journaling
One of the friendliest introductions to journaling, planners often use pre-dated layouts, guided prompts, built-in habit trackers, and checklists, so you can spend less time formatting and more time journaling. While planning can be incorporated into any type of journaling, pre-formatted planners already have at least something on the page so you don’t have to start from scratch. Planners are perfect for brains that crave a bit more structure but hearts that yearn for creativity – just layer on washi, color-code with highlighters, or place a few stickers to transform a pre-formatted planner into your customized planning companion.
There are many different pre-formatted planners, but they tend to include similar types of layouts. Monthly overviews help you keep the big picture in focus, while weekly layouts let you track your time. Daily pages provide room for writing down your thoughts and memories or decorating your planner with stickers and washi. Planners are also great for people just getting into journaling so you can start to learn your preferred layouts and figure out what matters to you. Skip filling out the checklists every week? Maybe you don’t need to use a planner for task-tracking. Love decorating your planner with stickers and drawings? Maybe your next notebook should be a bullet journal!
Productivity journaling using bullet journaling techniques, with sections drawn for each day of the week. Journal spread by Dino (IG @dinolemons).
Best For: Structure-seekers, neurospicy brains, and creatives who want to skip the formatting and get right to the decorating.
Notebook Recommendation: For task-trackers and a weekly overview, the Open Sea Luminaries Weekly Planner is not only gorgeous, but pre-formatted with sections for weekly planning, to-do lists, and notes. For a more comprehensive planner, this 6 Ring Binder from Paperian comes with quarterly, monthly, and weekly pages, plus extra dot-grid pages for notes – and it comes in Peacock Blue or Dandelion Yellow.
Bullet Journaling
Think of the bullet journal (or bujo, as many journalers call it) as a choose-your-own adventure notebook. Instead of pre-formatted sections, you fill a completely blank page with custom sections,check-lists, habit trackers, art, or anything else your journaling heart desires. Bullet journaling can use any type of notebook and any type of journaling technique, but a dot-grid notebook is most common to help guide formatting. Minimalists keep it simple; maximalists layer washi, stamps, and doodles until it looks like a stationery store exploded. Either way, it’s productivity wrapped in creativity.
Bullet journaling may not be ideal for the faint-of-heart or anyone who struggles staying consistent with journaling already because you start with a completely blank page every time – no pre-filled dates or sections to guide your journaling session. On the other hand, if you struggle staying consistent because the same layout gets boring, bullet journaling might be beneficial because you can change up the format every time – the framework flexes to whatever you need.
A bullet journaling in a dot grid MIdori notebook, with a blend of stickers and washi tape, hand-drawn sections for each day of the week, to-do lists and habit trackers, and more.
Best For: DIY-ers, stationery maximalists (or minimalists!), folks who love designing the perfect custom system, and those who want one notebook for tasks, thoughts, and doodles galore.
Notebook Recommendation: While you can technically bullet journal in any notebook, most journalers like to use dot grid notebooks to help guide their bujo designs. The Midori dot grid notebook is one of the most commonly used by bullet journalers – and it comes in multiple styles and sizes, such as A5 Dot Grid, A6 Dot Grid, A6 Blank, and more.
Bonus Tip: The Midori notebooks are so popular partially because you can optionally add one of Midori’s clear notebook covers, which you can use to protect your notebook, decorate your journal, or hold stickers or ephemera – they come in both A5 and A6 sizes, as well.
Art & Collage Journaling
Part sketchbook, part vision board, part diary, art & collage journaling is where handwritten thoughts bloom beside magazine cut-outs, gel-pen lettering, watercolor art, and the occasional coffee ring (authentic patina!). There are zero rules – today’s spread might be a moody gouache painting; tomorrow’s, a neon sticker riot with quotes about self-love. If your brain speaks in images more than paragraphs, this is its native tongue.
Art & collage journaling tend to be more popular among those who gravitate towards the aesthetics of journaling. Collage journalers pride themselves on a perfectly-placed sticker and elaborate themed spreads. Again, while there are technically no rules to collage journaling, the name inherently means most journalers who identify with this style often use mixed-media and a combination of some of the other journaling techniques we’ve described. Art & collage journalers tend to lean away from productivity and tracking techniques, but not always – their to-do lists or habit trackers might just be written in gorgeous font or be disguised as a hand-drawn array of flowers.
A collage-style journal spread in a dot grid Midori notebook, using pages from books and manga, stickers, washi tape, and markers.
Best For: Visual storytellers, mixed-media experiments, and journalers who want their notebooks to double as works of art.
Notebook Recommendation: As with bullet journaling, many art & collage journalers like to use dot grid or blank notebooks. One of our personal favorites is the Astronomer notebook designed by The Creeping Moon. Not only is it a gorgeous hardcover linen notebook that will protect your creations, but the thicker blank pages will hold up to acrylic markets, fountain pens, and layers of glue.
Travel Journaling
From airport doodles to the itinerary you painstakingly planned and printed, a travel journal is all about capturing your favorite aspects of your journeys. One of our favorite types of journaling, travel journaling also has few rules – document as much or as little of your travels as you’d like! These don’t have to include far-off destinations either. Jack from Papel Arcano has an Illinois Travel Journal, where they keep memories of their local travels with friends and family. If travel journaling has one golden rule, it would be: keep everything! Whether it’s a boarding pass, train ticket, sticker from a coffee shop cup, logo-emblazoned napkin from a restaurant, travel guide, paper map, receipts, chopsticks wrapper, or quite literally anything else you can get your hands on during your travels (as long as it’ll fit in your journal!).
And, don’t stop there – travel journals aren’t just meant to document your travels, they’re meant to travel with you so you can record your memories in real time. Jot the smell of sea salt by the beach, sketch the crooked alley that led to discovering a delectable cannoli, or tape in pictures of your favorite moments throughout the trip. Want to get advanced with travel journaling? Pick up some watercolor paper and a portable watercolor pan to paint any fantastic views you come across, or pack a mini photo-printer so you can print stickable pictures on the go.
A travel journal spread in a Traveler's Notebook using both art & collage techniques and junk journal techniques, with cut-outs from postcards, stickers, and washi tape.
A gorgeous travel journal spread with red and pink motifs. Spread by Dino (IG @dinolemons).
Best For: Wanderlusters, memory magpies who hoard ticket stubs and receipts, and those who want to savor a journey long after unpacking.
Notebook Recommendation: We might reveal our love of The Creeping Moon by picking two of their notebooks in a row, but The Wanderer notebook is just too perfect as a travel journal! This notebook also has a hardcover linen journal, so it will hold up to being stuffed in a suitcase – not to mention, the cover artwork is imbued with a sense of adventure! The dot grid layout is also ideal for travel journaling, whether you want to write your trip itinerary, document your memories, or use the grid guidelines to make the perfect spread.
Tracking Journaling / Hobby Journaling
Books, films, podcasts, audiobooks, tv shows, exercise, dreams, wines, budgets – anything you can track, you can journal! If you want a way to document your experiences or keep savoring your favorite things even after you’ve finished them, tracking journaling just might be for you. Log quotes that stirred your feels, document star ratings, write book or movie reviews, map character journeys, or recall the perfect wine that paired with each tv show you watched. Tracking journaling boils down to a personal archive and time-capsule of what each experience meant to you.
And as with travel journaling, tracking journaling can be as minimal or as complicated as you like, from a simple list of what you watched that month as a section in your bullet journal to an entire journal around your hobby. There are endless categories of tracking journals, but the most popular include book journals / reading journals and media journals (films, tv shows, music, etc.) – some people even like to doodle or print out book covers or film posters and devote one page to each piece of media. Tracking journaling, aka hobby journaling, is slightly different from habit tracking: habit tracking is typically tracking something you want to do more regularly (in particular, daily) and uses a check-list style, versus tracking journaling is often more extensive and involves writing your subjective thoughts or creating a spread around the experience.
A Dungeons and Dragons hobby journal with both functional character stats information and aesthetic floral stickers. Spread by Dino (IG @dinolemons).
A hobby journal for reading - while this style is quite extensive, with sections for information about the book, personal thoughts, notes, favorite scenes, and more, a hobby journal can also be as simple as listing the books you read each month.
A cosplay hobby journal, with reference photos, drawings, pattern and material ideas, and inspo pics.
Bonus: next time someone asks for recommendations, you’ll have receipts and aesthetic spreads ready to support your favorite picks.
Best For: Data-driven dreamers, hobby collectors, recommendation givers, and anyone who loves receipts (the fun kind) on what they watched, read, sipped, or lifted.
Notebook Recommendation: Have way too many hobbies? Us too! Pick up a 3-pack of the Midori A6 dot grid or a 3-pack of the Midori A6 blank to use for tracking your top hobbies!
Junk Journaling
Imagine a scrapbook that raided a curiosity cabinet. Junk journaling stitches together ticket stubs, bakery bags, vintage book pages, fabric scraps, pressed leaves – anything headed for the recycling bin until you rescued it. Pages are sewn, stapled, or taped into chunky, tactile spreads that crackle with memories.
Junk journaling is sometimes considered a form of art or collage journaling, but is differentiated by its focus on sustainability, repurposing, and upcycling. Further, junk journalers often like to use found or discarded materials. It’s all about crafting as much as you can by hand and creating a completely personalized, one-of-a-kind journal.
A collage-style junk journal spread in a dot grid Midori notebook. Using a page from a visitor's guide (left), a postcard (center right), and a ticket stub (far right).
A collage-style junk journal spread in a Traveler's Notebook. Using pages from a pamphlet (left), a sticker from a coffee cup (center right), and even a piece of a napkin from the train food car (bottom left).
Best For: Sentimental scavengers, zero-waste crafters, thrift-store treasure hunters, and tactile souls who turn “trash” into heirloom-worthy art.
Notebook Recommendation: Junk journaling usually means using what you already have – even if that means a half-used composition notebook from your last college class or the back of an opened envelope. That being said, if you need something to keep all your pages together, consider a binder like the Kokuyo Campus Slide in B5. Simply hole-punch your envelope or receipt or page and add it in! This binder comes in light blue, dark blue, pink, or grey.
Remember: these categories aren’t silos—mix, mash, and invent your own hybrid spellbook of productivity, art, and memory. Papel Arcano’s shelves are stocked with dot-grid notebooks, sticker sheets, journaling accessories, and washi for every vibe. Happy journaling, fellow magic-maker!
Still stuck? Want to see examples of how other journalers bring magic to their notebooks? Keep an eye on the Papel Arcano Instagram for information about our journaling meet-ups every other month. The next one is Saturday, July 19th, 2025. Hope to see you there!
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About Debra Skinner
Debra has been a stationery lover for 10+ years and a lifelong writer of articles, blogs, speeches, and more. As a native Illinoisian and a member of the Chicago Stationery Club, she is an ardent believer in the importance of third spaces and enjoys visiting stationery stores all over the world. On her most recent stationery voyage, she fell in love with Papírna Stationery and Papír Plojhar in Prague, Czech Republic and Bomo Art in Budapest, Hungary. Debra works in data analytics and journals in her free time, accompanied by her beloved boxer Korra.