how to journal more by thinking about journaling less

Alternate Title: A Zentangle of Penises

I fill, on average, six 7.5”x9.75” pages of my journal every single day.

Recently, when I shared some of my favorite pages from my latest filled comp book, someone responded to ask me about my journaling routine.

“Are you a morning journaler, or a before bed journaler, or something in between? I’m feeling bored of my habits and the same shit coming up over and over, and am so inspired by how expansive your journals seem!! I’m wondering if I need a shake up in my routine to get something new out.”

The truth about my journaling routine is that I do not have one.

And I think I journal as much as I do BECAUSE I don’t have a routine.

I don’t have a set time of day I spend journaling, in much the same way that I don’t have a set time of day I go to the bathroom.

I go to the bathroom when I feel the need to pee.

I journal when I notice my brain holding something (an experience, a feeling, a question) or lacking something (inspiration, energy, presence).

What this looks like practically is that I journal all day long.

When I thought about this question a little more, I realized that I journal at transition points.

I go out and run an errand or see a friend, I come home and tell my journal all about it.

I’m about to start my next task after a meeting, I fill a journal page with how the meeting felt to me, and then a wash of crayon in my favorite color as my brain shifts into the next gear.

I also journal when I’m not sure what I should be doing…

When I’m sitting in the waiting room of the pharmacy,

or have an awkward amount of time before I have to leave for an appointment,

or when I’m on a long phone call, needing something to occupy my hands so my attention doesn’t drift away (this looks like doodling and notetaking. If you’ve ever been on the phone with me please know I wasn’t doing a dear diary gossip sesh in the middle of our conversation.).

More and more, having my journal open in front of me is my default state. I reach for it anytime I can.

This notebook is the Grand Central Station of my life. Everything passes through it. It’s the way home from and the way towards everywhere.

Here are some things that have found their way into my journal, just within the past week:

• A zentangle of penises

• A list of 60 different ways I could make money

• A grumpy log of a moment when I wanted to be reading but was too distracted by some noises in my surroundings (complete with a drawing of me sitting on my couch looking angry)

• Notes on all the supplies I would need to buy to start a craft project

• A drawing of my dog curled up at my feet in bed, surrounded by a description of how it feels to have a cozy, slow day

• A list of songs I’m enjoying singing along to lately

• A seed head from an inland wood oat plant

• Three full pages on how I’m feeling about my career lately and how those feelings are linked to my insecurities around friendships

• A wish list of things I’d like to buy or have someone else give me

• A multitude of crayon stars, which I’ve scattered through this post

In journaling this way, I’ve found that my thoughts feel easier to identify, and my feelings are more open to being moved through. I notice my life being more thoroughly digested, and I see my awareness of its contours and textures. But the most precious impact, to me, is that the world feels like a creative canvas.

Every single thing that happens is only seconds away from finding its way onto paper in pink or purple ink, and every open moment is an opportunity for a colored pencil to be creating something cute. There is more play, more wonder, in every facet of my life because of my journal’s omnipresence. I experience myself as an artist and adventurer, even when I’m just sitting at home in front of my laptop.

In her book The Anti-Racist Writer’s Workshop, Felicia Rose Chavez describes assigning daily writing practices to her students and says, “Frequency teaches…that writing is less of a high-stakes assignment…and more an instinctive impulse to create”. And that is exactly what a practice of all-day journaling has taught me.

When journaling is just a morning thing or just a having-a-breakdown thing or just a “my therapist told me to” thing, it stays up on this pedestal, being something you hold special expectations around, something that carries extra weight. That weight, those expectations, also put weight and expectations on you, making journaling into something that is supposed to happen in a certain way and that you’re supposed to be in a certain headspace for, or feel a certain way on the other side of.

All of this, I’ve observed, can end up being what keeps us away from our journals, turning them from simple collections of paper into charged, daunting objects, challenges to conquer, sitting unused on a shelf somewhere.

Our attempts to build consistency via routine are, of course, well-meaning. They’re sworn by for a reason. But for some of us, they cut us off from the flow that wants to find us, numbing our natural urge to experience the simple joy of making marks on a page, replacing those vital desires with just one more sterile box on our Google calendar.

For those of us, when our notebooks leave those shelves and their pre-set compartments of our lives and join us out in the world, walking alongside us through each experience, that’s when the real fun starts. We realize interesting thoughts are running through our heads at literally every moment, that there’s not one second in our day when we can’t document, explore, or sink into something. We might just find our journal pages stocked with as much diversity and color as our lives themselves.

Creating, processing, storytelling, thinking…none of these need to be any big deal. None of them should wait for the right moment or carry the pressure of producing a certain result. They are our natural state, and get to do their best work when they’re treated as such.

If you love your journaling routine, keep it. But if it needs a revamp (or to begin at all), here’s your invitation to pull it out of whatever portion of your life you’ve confined it to, and let it infuse every moment with creative potential.

Or, more accurately, let it show you the creative potential that was already there.