Can I finally make journaling stick?
A deep dive into my NEW practise for 2025
Hello, I’m Molly, a full time creator based in the Scottish Highlands. Subscribers can enjoy weekly posts around the themes of slow living, thriving in a creative career, books & nature. Members get access to ALL my content, including video tea times, slow scrolls of all my favourites and seasonal book reviews.
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We all know that journaling is good for us. It’s been proven to help reduce stress, boost creativity, help with problem solving, increase self-awareness and even improve productivity.
So, why can’t I make this habit stick?
Over the years, it feels like I’ve tried it all. I’ve taken inspiration from ‘The Artist’s Way’ and tried morning pages, which describes the concept of writing 3 pages of text shortly after awakening. I was consistent for exactly 22 days. And then I stopped entirely.
I’ve tried free journaling, but end up staring at a blank page. I’ve tried using prompts, but could never decide on the perfect one. I even had a brief rendezvous with bullet journaling, before discovering that Notion worked far better when it came to organising my life (you can buy my Notion templates on my Etsy store).
Last year, I stepped it up. I bought myself a brand new journal, ransacked Etsy for supplies and binged watched journaling videos on YouTube and Skillshare (my favourites are linked below).
And for a while there, it worked. I was certainly journaling more often. But I still couldn’t quite make it a regular habit and started to wonder whether it was time to accept that journaling just may not be for me. Is it really worth all this hassle?
Short answer. Yes it is. I just needed a new approach.
What I learnt in 2024
Rather than viewing 2024 as a failure, on reflection, these months were all about exploration.
So what did I learn?
I can’t journal on a schedule. I’ll admit that this floored me at first. As someone who plans everything, I was finding that scheduling journaling was putting undue pressure on myself and it was better to wait until I felt the urge to create. I’m still working on this!
I prefer writing about nature than drawing it. Although I did enjoy the few sketches/watercolours I produced this year, I found that I got the most joy from completing regular written entries in my nature diary.
Simple prompts work best for me. Although I occasionally enjoyed more creative prompts, for my regular writing I preferred to keep things simple with my most used prompt being ‘Today…’
I prefer to journal in the colder months. This is when I feel most like creating and documenting my life and completed far more journal spreads in the autumn/winter compared to the spring/summer.
I love making pretty collages. This felt like a throwback to my childhood hobby of scrapbooking and helped me express my creativity when I didn’t feel confident enough to create my own artwork (which was often!)
The joy of turning junk into art. By the end of last year, most of my materials were coming from ‘junk’, such as greeting cards, gift tags and wrapping paper to name a few. A fab way to reduce waste and very budget friendly!
The usefulness of micro-tasks. Over time, I learnt to split up my journaling, rather than trying to complete an entire spread in one sitting. This could mean cutting up materials, painting a base colour or even looking for inspiration on Pinterest.
I work best with a mix of journals. Although the minimalist in me would love just to have one journal, the reality is, I find it much simpler and more motivating to have a mix of different styles to suit different purposes.
My 2025 journaling practise
Continue written journaling
I’d love to continue regularly writing in my journal as I find this is a wonderful tool for reflection and it also helps in developing my writer’s voice.
A flexible nature diary
I got so much joy from my nature diary last year that I intend to continue it in 2025. However, I want to be more flexible and likely more sparing with this writing, to allow me to spend time on other writing projects as well.
Have fun with my junk journal
This practise is purely for my inner child. Its my form of play and allows me to both develop my creativity and reduce stress levels - as long as I don’t try to be a perfectionist about it!
Want some journaling inspiration?
I love megjournals YouTube channel and this has been my go-to source for junk journaling inspiration.
I have an entire playlist dedicated to journaling on Skillshare, with some of my favourite classes being -
Turning memories into artwork: A beginner’s guide to scrapbooking
Memoir journaling: Make your life richer through stories
Fictionalise your life: How to keep a writer’s diary
An introduction to nature journaling
Writing for self-discovery: 6 journaling prompts for gratitude and growth
You can get a 30-day free trial with Skillshare using this LINK
I’d love to hear about your journaling practise, so please do share in the comments!
Until next time,
Molly xx
The image is beautiful! I like the idea of collages - such a nice way to capture the atmosphere of a day, trip, season etc.
For me, what has helped most for sticking with the habit was 1. accepting that I don't write every single day and 2. not putting pressure to write a lot of text. I say to myself that if I only write "Today I went for a walk & saw a robin" that's fine. I've never *actually* ended up with a single sentence -usually things start to appear once I write.
I don't really do anything very consistently. Learning that's ok.