Journaling in 2022

Hello my Lovelies, 🙂

Happy New Year! 🙂 Did you have a great start into 2022? We had a relaxed one. We played some board games with a friend and my husband cooked a lovely Japanese soup called Nikujaga.

So, as you know I skipped the setup for a bullet journal which still is a strange feeling. Nevertheless, I started my Hobonichi. I was quite sure how it would turn out great and whether I could fall in love with that new kind of usage or if I would need some time to get some drive.

But no… No, I‘m already in love after just these few days. The first time I didn’t have extra pages for a lot of things. If I start something special on a certain day then I mark it on the page for that day. I don‘t overthink how I can use the space of each day. Surprisingly I haven’t got any troubles to fill the pages with words, stickers, washi, or even little doodles.

How I Use The Different Areas

If you know Hobonichi Cousin, there are different sections in it. There are the months where every day has a little box with some lines, after that are the weeks with the time line for each day of the week and at last there is the section where every day has its own page.

To the first section: The monthly overview.
I use it for my trackers. I track the weather, my mood, vacation, and some fitness thingys 🙂
For my sleep I drew a time line at the side next to the month.
The weather is a little doodle on that day and beneath it is a smiley for my mood. My fitness dates are just the words and numbers. Then the tiny box for each day is full. 🙂

The second section: The weeklies.
This is for my time/self management. Last year I had the feeling that I didn’t plan my time well. Some days were packed with to dos and other days were quite relaxed but I didn’t use them to find some relaxation. Due to that, I will use the weeklies to see my potential free time and learn to manage my time better. Next to the week I write down what is really urgent like making appointments or some special events. For the intervals I use different colours. At the moment I haven’t got any special colour for every to do or activity. It is just important that I see the difference. I know, a lot of journaling addicts would say now that I should need a colour code… Well, nope! No! I don’t have to do that and I simply won’t, thank you very much. For next week it accidentally happened while I was thinking and I took one colour and thought about the intervals. 😀
I use some stickers or washis as well just for fun.
If I have to make changes then it could be interesting because I‘m not sure how I will do these ones. Well, we will see how it develops when I have to do it. 😉

The last section: The days
I write down my daily tasks which aren’t more than five per day, so I can manage to do them after my working time.
There is a little time line as well and sometimes I mark my daily routines or time spent in there as well but it isn’t a duty for me to do that.
I do also write about the day or just some random thought which are on my mind. Sometimes I‘m taking notes for things which I would like to do/make or which books I could read. I practise my doodling again because I missed it. I didn’t doodle for quite a long time and on my daily pages I have the space for a cute little picture. It doesn’t have to be something from that day, in most cases it is just something random.
I use washi, stickers, different colours as well. So my pages are colourful and they don’t follow any colour code.

What I Learnt From Just A Few Days

Surprisingly I‘m quick because I try to journal every day. I need about 30 minutes to fill in my daily stuff and plan the next day. Last year I journaled three to five times a week but it was a lot to remember or to plan ahead. This method is quite comfortable at the moment.

I‘m totally in love with the thin paper. Two years ago I had a Hobonichi Cousin for random journaling testing and I adored the paper at that time as well. I use a ball point pen, my Zebra Zensations, and my Brush Pens by Ecoline. There isn’t any bleeding, just a little bit of ghosting/see through but this is quite normal because the paper is really thin. I personally like a little bit of ghosting because you can see that someone is writing on it. For me it is a signal that the paper comes to life.

The quote under a day is interesting. My Japanese isn’t that good so I can’t read without any help. Because of that, I usually ask my Auntie Google for some help 😀 In some cases her translation seem to be great and meaningful, and sometimes it’s just utter nonsense :-D.

It is really comfy and I hope that the whole year will be like the first nine days of the year so far. 🙂

How do you journal? Did you change something in your way of journaling?

Wisdom of the day: Use our old methods but try new ways and you will be surprised what magic can happen because of it.

Love to you all,
The Evil Journalista Chrissi