An Overview of 2018's #JournalingJourney

Hello, everyone! Happy new year! December was such a crazy month for me, from celebrating my 24th birthday to having so much fun during the month's festivities. It was a good time to disconnect a little bit but now that the new year is here, there's no more excuse to dilly or dally the plans I have for the blog and for you guys!

There are so many ideas floating in my head right now, mostly for personal projects as well as this blog but if there's one idea I'm super positive about, it's that I'm back to journaling again! I started the first few months of this blog focusing on (failed) watercolor attempts plus getting back on track with planners and journals but along the way, due to a variety of reasons, I stopped.

One of the main reasons why, though, is that I didn't feel like I was using the right tools. The outcome became frustrating over and over again, even if the journal entry was a happy one.

2017 was a trial and error for a hell lot of things. Other than this blog, it was a journey of journal trials and errors as well.

(See also: Planning Ahead: Tips on Choosing The Right Planner For You)

With that said, here's a quick rundown of my realizations, what didn't work, and how everything's falling into place this year,

The journal type mattered. A lot.

There's a need to narrow down purposes and acknowledge what you really want to do

I first fell in love with planners and journaling way back in high school (2008-2011) but for some reasons, I stopped keeping one in college. It took around 2 more years before I opted to give it another go so, too excited to go back to journaling, I ended up getting carried away with the things that other people do. I included trackers, tried calligraphy, tried watercoloring; but because I was insanely dependent on pretty Instagram and Pinterest posts, I didn't have peace with what I have or what I can do.

This year, I opted to narrow things down and accepted the minimal skills I had with art. A few doodles here and there, a to-do planner, a planner for the blog, and a ring-bound notebook / planner for everything else including work notes, sidelines, and my writer portfolio. Narrowing down helped me a lot because I had less to maintain and update.

(PS: I have another 5-Year journal by Midori. Not in the photo, but I've been jotting down simple summaries on it on how my day went. It's exciting to know how my days would change in the next few years)

Keep a mindset of journaling for you and you alone

Back in 2017, I was so damn obsessed with prettifying my journal pages because I knew I had to post them on Instagram. It was a personal unspoken rule of sorts but eventually, that mindset kept the fun out of the activity.

Journaling is actually very therapeutic and now that I've learned some lessons, though I still post my pages (if I like them), I learned to tell myself that I'm doing this for my eyes only -- for me to look back on someday and laugh or smile about the things my journals contain.

Here's what I tell myself:

Pau, it doesn't matter if your art is not as good as theirs. It doesn't matter if your flatlays don't look as good as theirs. Just keep true to what you want to put in it and take a simple snapshot if you want to share it on social media. 

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It's the second week of January 2018 now (and the first anniversary of this blog!) as I write this and though it's too early to tell what this year holds for me, I'm pretty glad it kicked off in such a good way. I hope everyone's having a great start, too!