Is this too many journals?

I’ve been journaling for years and I am constantly trying new ways to record my memories, track my hobbies, and plan my days in my journals. Each year, my journal lineup changes slightly depending on my current habits and projects. And each year, I’ve added more journals to my lineup.

I talked in my previous blog post about how important it is for each journal to have a specific purpose that makes you want to keep filling the pages, so I’ll be sure to highlight what the purpose of each journal is, and what spreads help accomplish that purpose.

Here’s my journal lineup for 2024, hopefully this gives you some inspiration:

This blog post contains some affiliate links – this means that I earn a small commission if you shop through them. However, I will only ever recommend products I have used myself and truly love. As always, I appreciate your support!

Everyday journals:

For the past few years, I’ve used two journals on a regular basis: a minimalist “work” journal that I use for planning and taking work-related notes, and a more artistic “life” journal that I used to record anything outside of work: social activities, hobbies, and ideas.

Why split your work and life journals?

I started doing this right after grad school, when I realized I had gotten so overwhelmed with my work that I’d slowly given up my social life and hobbies until there was almost nothing left outside of work. Yes, I realize how dramatic this sounds, but at the time, it felt like I had crossed a threshold, and I wanted to get back on the other side of it. So, I started using a separate “life” journal to essentially track my life outside of work (and that is the story of how my memories spreads were born!). It has not only helped me keep some balance, but is now a lovely record of my most important personal events.

I keep this separation now because I know I will want to keep my personal journal forever, but not my work planner. I also want to be able to keep personal thoughts and art in my journal without risking it getting lost or damaged or, worse, risking a colleague getting a peak inside my soul! So it just made sense to leave one journal at home and carry a more minimalist, professional journal with me at work.

Of course, if that isn’t as important to you or you work from home anyways, it makes sense to want to keep everything in one place. I will say the one thing I feel like I miss out on is making pretty spreads to plan out my work week on!

1. Life journal

Purpose: memory keeping, practicing art
Essential spreads:

Memory log. This is the main purpose of my journal, so I make sure to include this spread every month. It’s essentially a list of all the days in the month and I’ll write something next to days where memorable events happened.
To do list. Sometimes this takes the shape of a weekly list, sometimes it’s a running list for the whole month, but this journal also helps me keep my personal sh** together.

Hobbies. In line with the memory keeping idea, I like to use my journal to keep track of my current hobbies or obsessions. Sometimes I’ll make a list of songs I’ve been listening to, or books I’ve read, or TV shows I’ve watched that month. Sometimes I’ll include some sketches or ideas for my latest craft obsession. It’s been really fun to see how my tastes have changed with time.
Art! This journal has effectively replaced my sketchbooks, and I use monthly decoration themes as motivation to practice art regularly. For this reason, this is the journal you’re most likely to see in my instagram and tiktok posts.
Memorabilia. I also typically will have a few random pages each month to keep mementos, letter drafts, lists, ideas, stationery hauls, calligraphy practice, trip planning, drawings – everything and anything can go into these pages. Often, these end up being the most fun to look back on!

2. Work Journal

Purpose: planning & productivity.
Essential spreads: just daily logs and lists in this one!

This year, since my work has changed and I’m spending more time at home, I thought it would be a great time to try something new: My work journal has become my “dailies” journal, which is the closest I’ve come to following the official bullet journal method.

Hobby journals:

I’ll admit that starting a whole new journal for a specific hobby or subject is intimidating. So if you’re just starting out, I don’t actually recommend doing this: I’d recommend starting with one journal and making different spreads for different hobbies or purposes. But if you find that one of these is taking up a lot of your journal and it would be more practical to consolidate it all in one place, then it’s definitely a good time to start a new journal. In fact, it’s how I started both of my current hobby journals:

3. Reading Journal

Purpose: to actually remember what I read and what I thought about it (because I read too much and my memory is unreliable)
Essential spreads: Book logs! Each book gets (at least) one page with some details about the book, quotes I liked, and my thoughts while reading the book. I also add a couple of fun spreads at the start, like a TBR and series tracker, and some yearly reading stats at the end!

4. Ideas Journal

Purpose: collecting story ideas
Essential spreads: pages and pages of notes

A few years ago my friend suggested we participate in Nanowrimo together. If you haven’t heard of it, in short, people give themselves a month to write the first draft of a novel. If that sounds ambitious to you, you’re right, it is, which is why I still haven’t done it. But I want to, so I started collecting story ideas to eventually do it. This journal is a collection of all those ideas, research notes, and chapters I might one day want to include in a book!

Long-term Journals:

There’s only one journal left in my lineup, but this journal is the most long-term. It’s also the closest I’ve come to long-form journaling:

5. The 4-year journal

Purpose: reflection and memory keeping
Essential spreads: weekly long-form journaling

When I decided a little over a year ago that I would be moving, I realized that would likely come with a lot of other changes (including opening a brand new shop) and I wanted a way to record these. I love the concept of a journal where you can compare entries over several years, but most of the existing ones consist of writing just one line each day, which poses two problems for me: one line is too little, and every day is too much.

Instead, I started my own version with 52 spreads, each split into 4 half-pages – so I can write half a page each week for four year. I’m just about to start my second year and I’m so excited to be able to compare already! Let me know what you think of this concept, it’s one I’d love to talk more about and have others try!

How many journals is too many?

So is it too many journals? When I think about it, five journals does seem like a lot, especially if I have to explain it to a total stranger. But here’s how I see it: Do they each have a meaningful purpose? Am I able to keep up with them with minimal pressure and effort? More importantly, does it help to keep up with each of them? And really, can a person ever have too many journals? In my opinion: yes, yes, yes, and no!

Now I’m curious about your lineup this year: How many journals are you currently using? What are you using each journal for? What’s something you’re curious to try for your next journal?