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WAYS TO MAKE JOURNALING FUN

11 Most Creative Ways To Make Journaling Fun

Having any difficulties with enjoying bullet journaling? Tracking your habits, ticking off certain to-list items can only be fun to a certain extent but after a while, you may become bored and tired of this. The last thing you’ll want to do is stop journaling because you don’t have that motivation to continue.

There are many ways to make journaling more fun with just a few tricks such as adding a simple doodle or quote page, taking part in challenges, or turning your journaling into a creative art journal. However, the ideas don’t just stop there. 

We’ve put together a full list of ways to make journaling fun and increase your enjoyment level. At some point in this article, you’re going to wonder why you hadn’t thought of these ideas before.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

1. Add a Creative Mood Tracker

Tracking things are more fun than you realize but it’s an even greater experience if you track in a particular manner.

I found that if you use a creative mood tracker designs, they can encourage you to keep up with maintaining your habits. You’ll also have that excitement to color that particular day in just to see how the final image turns out each month.

If you’re not used to doodling or even drawing, there are tutorials that will show you how to doodle every step of the way to create beautiful mood trackers that are slightly complicated.

However, what makes a mood tracker page really fun is that there are endless ideas to try each month.

Here’s a few mood tracker ideas you can create:

  • Hot Air Balloon
  • Turtles
  • Planets and Stars
  • Animals
  • Fruit (Pineapples, Strawberries, Cherries, Kiwi)
  • Flowers and Plants
  • Leaves
  • Gems and Crystals
  • Ice Creams

They may be challenging to draw but that’s what makes it fun! Also, these spreads will make your bullet journal look incredibly artistic and unique.

As long as you keep it simple, I’m pretty sure it won’t be too difficult to recreate. There are many easy mood trackers to try if you’re a complete beginner and I recommend starting off with drawing flowers or leaves since those aren’t too complicated or detailed.

If you’re looking for a minimalistic mood tracker, I recommend this ice cream one:

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Though you can color each line, you could use shades of black and grey to color it in (if you have a black pen theme going on) or you could draw a pattern to fill this tracker up.

The trick here is to look for a mood tracker idea that will speak to you and one that will excite you to look at and color in every single day.

2. Participate In Challenges

One way to have more fun journaling is to try new challenges that will push you to discover unexpected favorites.

There are many challenges that will require active participation on your part and trust me when I say, the following challenges are not only fun but you’ll become super creative in the process.

You can choose one of these or pick a few to try since they aren’t too time-consuming but it will definitely work those artistic muscles!

One Expression a Day Challenge

If you love drawing kawaii faces or smiley faces, then this would be a great way to track how your day went. You can create a box spread for 30 days or add 7 boxes on a weekly spread to fill these in.

Draw them in pencil, black pen, or use different colors to match the expressions (yellow for happy, blue for sad, red for angry, or light yellow for feeling mellow).

If you don’t want to doodle, then you could opt for using stickers. This exercise is also an ideal way to journal about self-care!

One Word a Day Challenge

You could use this one word a day to challenge yourself to come up with creative words to express your day.

This one also works for writing one sentence a day either to describe your day or to write about something positive.

one word a day bullet journal page idea

Design Idea via Silva and Bold

There’s no need to go overboard with decorating this page since the main focus should be on the words but if you do want to make it more fun, try writing the words in different fonts.

Or keep the words in one font but use an exceptionally attractive heading for the title.

Doodle a Day Page

This particular challenge makes me really excited! Similar to drawing an expression a day, if you’re a person who loves to draw often, then this challenge will not only improve your skills but you’ll feel more accomplished every day.

Here you don’t need to stick with a particular theme but you can doodle anything that comes to mind.

If you’re not fond of drawing actual images, try a mandala format or simply use a block format so you can draw different shapes and patterns in each which will still count as one doodle a day.

3. Inspirational Quotes Log

quotes for bullet journal spreads

This is a new idea that I’ve been testing lately to improve and practice my hand lettering skills but also a way to keep motivation high when I’m working or studying.

Having a specific page for only quotes makes it useful to write down an inspirational quote that I find in a book or read online and it’s easy to refer back to when you need a quick pick me up.

In case you’d like a few inspirational quotes to include in your own journal, these are my favorites:

  1. “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
  2. “Quality is not an act, it is a habit.” – Aristotle
  3. “Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best.” – St. Jerome
  4. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
  5. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain

4. Start A Vision Board

Envisioning your dreams is important to attaining your goals in life and what better way to do so than with a bullet journal vision board.

There’s countless ways to creating one that will make journaling fun and exciting but the benefit of including these in your journal is that you can always make adjustments and add more to make your board filled with hopes and dreams.

You’ll also get to explore different layouts and in a way, it becomes a creative exercise that’s designed to be productive and fun at the same time.

Here you can use different images that match your vision of the future (whether that’s a dream house, car, job, or travel plans).

You could also create vision boards for smaller goals that are attainable in the near future such as passing an exam and use an incentive in these boards to push you further for getting those A’s.

Vision boards are incredibly useful and enjoyable, especially if you put in the time and effort in making it look good.

5. Journal About Funny Topics

Another way to keep a journal completely full of fun and giggles is by journaling about funny stories and ideas.

You could always start writing down memorable adventures or experiences you had with your loved one.

Perhaps you could relate an amusing story that you’ve recently experienced while walking in the park, at a family get together, or even a scene from a book or movie.

The aim here is to discuss any topic or memory that had a positive impact on the way you felt when you first heard or saw something.

A while from now when you reread these entries you’ll be thrilled to remember these incidents. It can also be used to boost your mood when you’re feeling down!

6. Pick From A Jar

This one will definitely make you excited to journal and that’s the element of surprise.

On a piece of paper, write down a few bullet journal related topics and tear each one or write them down on a small page and fold them into squares.

Grab an empty bottle or container and when you’re ready journal every day (or whenever your journaling routine is), pick an idea from a bottle.

You’ll be excited to try a new idea without knowing what you’re actually getting for that particular time.

7. Save Money In A Fun Way

Saving money is fun right? So, why not make journaling about money entertaining. All you need to do is draw a piggy bank or a mason jar bottle and write down your savings goal with a level to separate each.

Here’s an example of a bullet journal money tracker that explains it much better than I could:

ways to make journaling fun - money saving trackers

Image Source: Sugar Panda Co

The drawing will be colored in with the more money you’ve saved and at the very end when you have reached your goal, you’ll be over the moon to see your work of art with money in your pocket!

Or you could try adding this awesome game-board themed tracker to shake things up:

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If you loved Monopoly as a kid, this is one epic way to make sure it plays a role in your adult life. It may sound a bit silly but trust me when I say this one over here is definitely an enjoyable activity.

8. Draw Your Life

Make your journaling unique and memorable by drawing your life. The purpose of this page is to be only about you and what you like or dislike.

Here’s how you do it:

  • Begin by writing down your name in the middle of the page
  • Start drawing things you like to do (hobbies, favorite tea, places, clothes, colors, etc)
  • Write down a few words and decorate the pages

It doesn’t need to be really detailed drawings (even stick figures will do) but you could create a story of your goals, accomplishments, where you want to go, where you’ve been, and stuff that made an impact on you.

You can also write a few words next to each doodle to discuss what occurred at that specific time in your life.

This idea is pretty similar to ‘draw my life’ on YouTube except here you’ll be doing it in your bullet journal.

9. Journal About Your Favorite Hobbies

Here’s another interesting way to keep the momentum up and that’s by journaling about things you like such as reading, swimming, running, or even about your favorite singers and actors.

You can discuss each of these hobbies in detail by creating a specific journal for each.

You can check out our reading journal guide that will show you all the trackers and ways to design one if you’re mad about reading.

Or if you’re passionate about songs, check out these Kpop journal ideas to see how you can enhance your fangirl experience.

Journaling about something you love will no doubt make anything you do in a journal related to those hobbies entertaining. The trick is to always be trying new spread ideas to get a taste of what matters to you most.

10. Art Journaling

Art journals are perfect if you’re a lover of using supplies such as acrylic, gouache, and watercolor paints.

The main purpose of these journals is to be visually creative and expressing your thoughts and ideas through images rather than simply with the use of words.

It combines these two formats into one and makes a journal more in-depth.  The great thing about these journals is that you’re free to be as abstract as you want and even if all you can do is a few splashes of paint here and there, that’s totally fine and acceptable! As long as you’re having fun, that’s all that matters.

Of course with art journals, they may require thick paper otherwise you’ll have the headache of messy pages and ink bleeds to deal with.

11. Creative Journaling

Similar to the one above, a creative journal is more focused on discovering your inner talents and could be used for solving problems. It’s a great way to find new ideas and discover a few hidden talents.

You can use a creative journal to answer questions or write down what pops into your mind or explore self-reflection through the use of journaling prompts.

It’s easy to reflect on certain matters with creative journals and you’ll often find these types of prompts included in daily journaling.

Another option is to start writing down poems in a creative journal or even paste pictures from magazines or even cutouts that matter to you.

12. Conclusion

Finding ways to make journaling fun wasn’t so hard now, was it? As you can see, there are plenty of ideas to use and you can always come back for me when you’re done with a particular idea.

If you keep trying new things and browsing for ideas, journaling will always stay fun and useful to you. Make it a habit to try at least one of these ideas to use in your bullet journal and I’m sure you’ll never have to be afraid of the journaling slump again!

Which of these ideas did you enjoy? Are there any particular ways you use to make journaling more fun? Leave your thoughts below to share with others!

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