As a busy college student, learning how to journal has become a ritual for me to stay grounded, be creative, and maintain my personal goals. While being a student I have found myself getting stuck in a laziness loop of only wanting to do the bare minimum, lay around on my phone, and go out with friends. I used to get stuck here every once in a while before I figured out a way to snap myself out of it and unlock a better version of myself.

This version of myself stays off my phone, goes above and beyond in school, hits the gym, still makes time to go out and spend time with friends. The key to this version of me was spending less time on my phone and screens in general. I began a routine of journaling by hand every morning while eating my breakfast and drinking my coffee before class that started the trend of my good habits.

When starting out, learning how to journal can be hard. It is overwhelming to sit down, open a journal, and fill a blank page at the start of the process. I will share some of my favorite tips on how to make journaling more realistic for you and some prompts you can use for when you feel stuck.

Tips for Learning How to Journal:

1. Make it a Ritual

Implementing journaling into your daily routine can help you become more comfortable with it. Just like anything, practice makes progress. In the early stages of journaling I recommend keeping your journal out and easily accessible. If you see it all the time you're more likely to think about it. It is also important to set realistic expectations for yourself. For example, I suggest only journaling for two minutes at a time when you start. If you are in the groove, you can keep going. But, if you reach the two minutes and you’ve had enough then great! You are moving towards being comfortable with journaling and not putting too much pressure on yourself.

2. Don’t Strive for Perfection

Feeling like you have to craft a beautiful and thoughtful journal entry every time you open your journal is unrealistic. Striving for perfection will only make you journal less. When you feel like you don’t want to journal, tell yourself to make an ugly page. Doing this will make journaling feel less serious. If you are the type of person that would not be happy to have an ugly page, have two journals: one curated and one for junk. This can make journaling less intimidating, more playful, and authentic to you. The beauty of journals is that they are private. No one ever has to see the inside so you can make your own rules.

3. Reward yourself

Rewarding yourself for accomplishing something is important in keeping progress. For me, I rewarded myself by having my coffee while journaling. This way, I associate the pleasure I feel when consuming caffeine with writing and drawing in my journal. This creates a ritual for myself while also helping me associate pleasure with a good habit.

Prompt Ideas:

Another key to learning how to journal is to have some journaling prompts ready for when you feel stuck in the process of writing. It is also important to have a physical journal around for whenever you feel inspired. I personally am an artist so drawing comes naturally to me but, when it comes to writing I have some trouble coming up with words. In my case sometimes when I feel stuck I just draw a little bit. Other times I whip out a prompt and it helps me know what to write about when I feel uninspired. Here are a few prompt ideas for journaling depending on your motivations and mood for the day.

Goal Oriented

What’s one small action you could take today that aligns with your bigger goal?

What daily habit has the biggest impact on your mood or productivity?

Describe your ideal self in one year. What habits and routines got you there?

Creative

Journal in bullet points only, no full sentences, just raw thoughts.

Draw or list a “map” of your goals and habits like they’re destinations on a journey.

Rewrite your day as a short story. Make the story as exaggerated as possible.

Self-Reflective

Start with the phrase: “If I’m honest with myself…” and keep going.

What’s been taking up the most space in your mind lately?

What’s something small that’s been bothering you more than it should? Why?

Save these prompts for later when you need a bit of inspiration.

Journal Page Types:

As a journal user myself, I enjoy having a crazy and unorganized space with a hodgepodge of different journal page types. Other people enjoy having separate journals for different categories of pages. You know yourself better than anyone else, so experiment and then do what works best for you. Here are some different types of pages that I enjoy creating to help you get some ideas going.

Junk Journaling

Write, draw, glue, collect, anything that you experience. There are no rules and aesthetics are not a concern. Be free and throw some junk or scraps in.

Visual Diary

When creating a visual diary, journal your thoughts and feelings with some visual elements. Tape polaroids, make little drawings, collect tickets or other takeaways from your experiences. Consider this a more relaxed scrapbook.

Prompted Reflection

Prompted reflection pages are great for when you feel stuck or for when you have a specific thought that you want to unpack. You can use the prompts from above or create your own!

Brain Dump

Just start writing. Brain dump pages don’t need to make sense. Write down whatever is on your mind and in whatever order you want. Don’t stress about making it clear, just write everything as fast as you can. Pages like this can feel therapeutic with no expectations.

Goal/Productivity Tracking

Creating pages focused on accomplishing your personal goals or productivity can be helpful. I have found that when I create a page like this at least once a week I am finding myself to be way more on track with my goals and focused on how my habits are affecting my progress.

Don’t let journaling overwhelm you, learning how to journal takes time but it is a fun process. Save these ideas for later and see how journaling can unlock the best version of yourself!

Learning How to Journal When You Feel Stuck