I hope you like journals!

Inside my bottom desk drawer, I have stacked the completed journals that I have written over the past three years. I don’t normally open this drawer, just because it’s full of stuff I don’t really need out. So, when my curiosity about how many journals I had finished and how long it had been since I started all of this, I was surprised by the number of journals I had completed and how long it had been.

I normally guessed there were three completed journals, but to my surprise, I actually completed five. As I said, I don’t open this drawer frequently. And as for how long it’s been? Early January 2023 was when I had my first entry. Safe to say, I was impressed. So, I wanted to write a little bit about my three years of journaling and what has changed since then.

When I got my first journal, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. Was it going to replace my digital journal on my Day One app, or was this going to be something I pick up and write whenever? If this was going to be my daily journal, was I okay with rambling in it?

I started to write whenever I felt the need to vent. One of the times was about my fear of natural disasters. They scare me, and had kept me up one night, so I decided to write about it, and what do you know, I fell asleep shortly after! That was one of the few off-topic writings I had, early on. The rest was about work and what’s going on at home.

I wasn’t consistent in writing in my journal right away. Some entries were spread out a few days apart, at most twenty days, before the time I wrote in. It wasn’t my daily driver at the time, as I still journaled on my MacBook. It wasn’t until the end of February that I wrote how I needed to make this journal a daily habit. Luckily, at the time, there was a month-long challenge in March to write in your journal daily. I thought this was it, this was what would get me to use my journal more often. And by golly, that’s what kick-started it for me!

Filling Out the Page

Once I started the habit of writing daily, the next thing I changed in journaling was how much I would write per day. Early on, it was as little as a few sentences, and as much as a page, spaced with paragraphs. This would leave a lot of empty lines on the pages, and I could have filled them.

On a post in the journaling Subreddit (r/Journaling, if you’re interested), I remember seeing a comment saying how good it feels to fill out the entire page of your journal. To leave no empty space in there. I thought that it wasn’t a bad idea, and maybe I should do that myself. And by golly (doing it, again), they were right! Because once I skim through my completed journals, I see nothing but lines filled in with words and scribbles, because I can’t spell, but no empty spaces. A complete journal.

This goes without saying, but do what you feel is best. You can write a few words, draw the entire page, or fill the entire page. It’s your journal; have at it!

A Page A Day – Daily Reflections

Somewhere in the beginning of my journaling, I went from writing whatever was on my mind at the time, to daily reflections on how my day went. It might’ve happened when I switched to filling out my pages, where I needed content I could use to write out a full page. It also could’ve been from the journaling Subreddit that gave me the idea to do that. I don’t fully remember.

The problem I gave myself when writing these reflections was that I was writing that same day in the afternoon and wouldn’t write again until tomorrow. If anything else worth mentioning happened after that journal entry, I would wait until tomorrow to write it. Which is why I decided that the best day to write my reflections would be the day after, so I would have everything that had happened and wouldn’t miss a thing.

Most of my days are pretty boring; I work from home four days a week, and I don’t go anywhere afterwards. So, I do go off the beaten path and write on specific topics that might have happened throughout the day.

For example, I had a boring day on the 20th of January, but my journal entry was focused on how, later that evening, I received a call that my father had passed (If you want to know my feelings about him, you can read my microfiction story here). I reflected on those feelings there, because it was better than writing, “Work was work…” and trying to fill a page with that.

You get the hang of it when you’ve been doing this for three years now. It takes time and the ability to love your own writing. I know I struggled with it early on (my post, Three years of Writing, is a good example of how I felt when I started writing).

Letters To My Future Children

For a gift my wife got me back in 2024, she bought me a journal from Barnes & Noble. For almost two years, that journal had no writing in it, that is, until December 2025. I wanted to use that journal for something special because it was gifted to me by my wife. Something that should have some involvement with her (even if she’s not writing in it). So, on a long drive one day, I thought of the idea that this journal should be letters to our future children.

It’s the same concept as my reflections journal: I write a letter to them every day, and I fill the entire page with my writing. It could be how our day was going, or any piece of information that they might not have known. The same example about my father, I’ve written a letter to them about how they’ll never get the chance to meet him. While it could be a sad moment for them when they read it, I explained what kind of man he was and why I feel the way I do.

I always end my letters with “Okay, love you kids!! Love, Dad.” There’s hope that I do get to show them these letters, try to decipher my handwriting, and learn some new things about their mother and me. I’m also excited to finish the journal I’ve started and write in the one I bought last week. I love the little lobster on the front cover!

Purchasing Journals

And to show it off—my pile of shame! Below is my collection of journals that I have purchased (or gifted) throughout the three years.

From left to right in columns: The journals I have completed, journals I have not touched, journals I have started but don’t keep up with, and my daily journals. It’s a lot, but I have the time to write daily, so they get some use.

For Christmas, my wife got me a Barnes & Noble gift card, and they have a decent selection of journals. I’m looking to splurge on the gift card to have one big journal haul, then set myself on a buying ban. Books haven’t hit me as much lately, and that’s another story with how many we have sitting on our shelves.

If it wasn’t for talking to my therapist, I wouldn’t have ever started journaling. I don’t want anyone to ever think that journaling is silly or not for them. It’s for everyone. You don’t have to write daily reflections or letters to someone; you can fill it with recipes, write poems, or just about anything.

By any chance, you’re staring at a set of stationery, and a journal has caught your eye, take it! You’ll never know what you can create inside of it.