The Ultimate Guide to Types of Journaling: Find the Style That Fits Your Life (31 Ideas)

If you’ve spent any time researching the types of journaling to find a style or technique you like, you will have come across several variations. Things like gratitude journaling, positive journaling, reflective journaling, bullet journaling and more. In fact, you are probably a bit overwhelmed at this point. Are they all separate journals or one big time suck?!

Well, I’m here to help straighten it all out for you. Because I believe that there is a secret power to journaling in a way that suits your life. One that makes a big difference to how you see and react to the world and people around you.

To help you get back on track and find exactly what you need, I’ve created my ultimate guide to the different types of journaling you could try. I’ll take you through several different techniques and show you how to pick one, or mix and match to create your own unique style.

Grab a cup of tea, a notebook and bookmark this page. There’s a lot to get through, and I don’t want you to miss a thing.

How to Use This Guide to Types of Journaling

I’ve tried many different types of journals and journal techniques over the years, including preset journals and DIY options. This has given me a unique perspective on what I like and don’t like, which has culminated in my own approach to documenting what and how I document.

During my early research, before I found my own journaling path, I found information to be either biased to a preferred way of doing things or so open-ended that I didn’t know where to start. Nothing to guide me and help me make the most of my journal habit.

I want to reassure you. This isn’t going to be one of those guides. I’ve written this specifically to inform you and to allow you to dive into specific techniques or points when and where you think you need to.

I’ll cover:

1. How to journal for beginners
2. 34 different types of journaling
3. How to find types of journaling styles that suit you

So, if you are ready, I’d like to start with my advice on how to start a journal.

How to Journal for Beginners: My Hot Take

If you are starting a journal as an absolute beginner, the first thing you’ll want to know is whether there are any rules to journaling correctly.

The fast answer is no.

There aren’t any strict rules for documenting your life. But to make journaling work for you, I believe you have to start with your ‘why’.

Why do you want to journal? And what does that entail?

Maybe you want to feel more productive or organised. Perhaps you want to record life moments. Maybe it’s something else.

Whatever your ‘why’ is, it’ll guide you in creating a system that keeps you engaged and happy to journal regularly. Because ultimately, once you find that perfect system, you will have built a tool to help you achieve your goal. That’s a powerful thing.

And remember, this is where journaling differs from keeping a traditional diary. Journaling allows you to record, capture and reflect on specific aspects of your life that you want to make a difference in.

Here Are 34 Different Types of Journaling You Can Try

I’m going to give you a list of 34 types of journaling (or techniques) now. Each will come with a short explanation and links to deeper research if you need them (as I say, this is about you exploring what you think will help you set up your journaling system).

1. Gratitude Journaling: The aim of a gratitude journal is to encourage more appreciation in everyday life. By deliberately choosing to be thankful, you’ll start to create a more positive outlook on life with this method.
2. Positive Journaling: Works similarly to recording gratitude, but it explicitly focuses on recording the positive things that happen each day to counteract any negative moments.
3. Free Writing Journal: In a free writing journal, you task yourself to write straight for a set period on a specific topic. The process helps you see and feel things more clearly, so you can decide how to move forward.
4. Bullet Journaling: A bullet style journal is a form of rapid logging that helps you visualise tasks and take action without wasting time.
5. Guided Journaling: Usually a prompt-formatted journal that you either buy as a preset or create to help you journal each day on specific topics.
6. Reflection Journaling: An opportunity to reflect on the day or week passed and set intentions for the next.
7. Morning Journaling: Think of this as taking action on your day ahead by setting goals, tasks, and plans.
8. Dream Journaling: A reflective journal that looks explicitly at your dreams and their possible meanings.
9. Travel Journaling: A way of capturing memories from each major or mini trip you take.
10. Wellness Journaling: A way of tracking and balancing your wellness (physical, mental and emotional).
11. Art Journaling: A visual journal that explores thoughts, emotions and creative expression.
12. Commonplace Books: A curated collection of things that interest you and you wish to remember. Almost like your own encyclopedia!
13. Memory Journaling: A process of recording memories that you wish to explore, usually through free-writing.
14. Tarot Journaling: Drawing and recording daily tarot card readings.
15. Goal or Visualisation Journaling: A process of journaling that helps you to organise, visualise and break down goals into tasks, and records your outcomes, thoughts and feelings around the process.
16. Mood Journaling: A mood tracker, essentially, which can be expanded to trialling things that help you improve your mood over time or handle moments where your moods are triggered to swing. It’s also useful to help you consider relationships and boundaries that affect your overall well-being.
17. Book Journaling: A log in which you record books you’ve read, usually with some sort of rating applied. You can also use it to record quotes or passages, as well as your thoughts and feelings about characters, discussion points and book topics.
18. Career Journaling: A helpful journal that records all aspects of your career, from where you have been to what you’d like to achieve. You can also create career goals and work towards them using this journal.
19. Business Journaling: Pretty much a business version of a career journal. Here, you record all aspects of your business, including goals, thoughts, feelings, and intentions.
20. Food Journaling: Recording everything from favourite recipes to places you’ve eaten at. You could also use a food journal to explore new dietary requirements or world cuisines.
21. Fitness Journaling: A way to record exercise and fitness goals, sessions and feelings towards keeping fit.
22. Nature Journaling: An observational log on seasonal changes in nature or recording new finds.
23. Moon Journaling: Specifically looking at lunar cycles, a moon journal can be a way to record how the moon’s changes affect your well-being and experiences.
24. Spiritual or Faith Journaling: Using spiritual or faith influences to set intentions for your day or make changes in aspects of your life. It can also be used to record passages or psalms that interest you or that you have found new meaning in.
25. Pregnancy/Parenting Journaling: A family log, essentially, recording milestones, thoughts and feelings.
26. Junk Journaling: Usually an extension of art journaling (see above), junk journaling focuses on using everyday finds and things we might otherwise throw away to create an expressive moment.
27. Project Journaling: A log for recording specific work or personal projects, such as a house move or finding a new client. It might contain your goals, tasks, intentions, thoughts and reflections. You could also use this idea for work projects if that helps.
28. Pocket Journaling: Essentially, a pocket-sized notebook that you use to record details throughout your day. Everything from prices and measurements of things to train times, quotes, thoughts, ideas or to-do lists. A great catch-all where you prefer analogue over digital notes. You can also use a pocket journal in conjunction with other journals, such as a mood journal, travel journal or something else.
29. Relationship Journaling: A way to record and explore your relationships. Not every relationship needs to be intimate to warrant recording; instead, the process is more about how to improve and maintain relationships that matter.
30. Finance Journaling: A log for financial matters and your thoughts and feelings about them. You can include incomings and outgoings, savings goals, and more. Just as you can explore your approach to things like savings.
31. Ideas Journaling: An ideas journal is, really, an extension of a pocket journal. Rather than just ‘making a note,’ you are exploring your ideas fully here. You’ll ask yourself, “How can I turn this idea into a reality? Do I need to? Where and how do I need help?”
32. Letter Journaling: In your letter journal, you could write letters to someone you know or yourself. They never need to be read by anyone, except you. Unless, of course, you use your journal to record an exchange between you and another person, like a pen pal.
33. TV and film Journaling: Just like a book journal, a TV and film journal in which you record shows you’ve watched.
34. Music Journaling: Just as you would with a TV and film or a book journal, a music journal is usually a recording of the songs and musicians you have listened to or follow. A music journal could also be for your own song or music writing.

How to Find Types of Journaling That Suit You

Hopefully, by this point in the blog, you have some ideas of what sounds interesting and what you’d like to learn more about (add a comment if you’d like me to write something on a specific subject!). I want you to pause and remember your ‘why’. Why is it that you want to journal, and what does that entail for you?

Now I want you to ask yourself one more important question: “How much time do you have to journal? And how much time do you want to dedicate to your new habit?”

Maybe your mornings are wide open, so you could spend 20-30 minutes journaling. Or you may have a few minutes before bed. Wherever you find yourself, your answer matters because it will help guide you to types of journaling that work well for you.

Let’s say you want to try morning journaling and mood journaling; both answer your why, which is ‘improving your general outlook and attitude while feeling like you are getting more done’. But you have limited time. Do you really need two separate journals to achieve this, or can you condense it into one easy-to-fill-out bespoke journal layout?

Let’s say you want to try gratitude journaling but aren’t sure exactly what it should look like. Would it be worth investing in a reasonably priced preset journal as a starting point?

Most of all, as you ask these questions, I want you to see it as an experiment, because ultimately that’s just what it is. You are finding your feet and developing a fun habit that serves you.