My simple & realistic journal pages [October]

A peek into my "everything" notebook/ brain 📓 🌈 ✏️

I always have such imposter syndrome when I share my journal. There are some amazing journal content creators out there and mine…does not necessarily look like theirs. But the truth is, that while these creators are very talented—they also might have more time than I have (or want) to spend on journaling.

In the past, I’ve let this lack of time, and fear of imperfection not only stop me from sharing my journal publicly, but from journaling all together. If I couldn’t do it like “them”, or do it perfectly, then why do it at all?

I want to share my journal/notebook (I use these words interchangeably because I’m not sure how to label mine!!) with you today because I feel like I’ve finally gotten to a point where I’ve found my groove and the balance between functional and fun.

Most of these pages were done quickly and I was able to keep on top of them without ever feeling “behind” or like I had to work in my notebook everyday. And most importantly these pages feel like me. They are also very imperfect and I’m sharing them so you know that you can still be someone who “journals”, even if your pages may be messy, random, or different than you may see online.

You’ll see that this notebook contains a little bit of everything: memory keeping, things that inspire me, doodles, “commonplace" type content, and lots of lists. Letting go of my self imposed rules and including whatever I wanted was freeing and made me feel excited to work in my notebook regularly.

Something else that really helped simplify things this month was sticking to a color palette. I found a palette I liked on Pinterest, found some markers that matched, and then only used those colors all month long. I have a lot of supplies and this really helped me simplify things, reduce decision fatigue, and easily kept things looking cohesive. Similarly, I only used one roll of washi tape all month, and when looking for any embellishments (stickers or cut outs from magazines) I tried to stick with the color palette as well.

The pages:

I want to share the pages in my notebook this month specifically, because they are pretty well rounded, filled with all kinds of stuff! Even if not all of the pages relate directly to your life, I hope that it will be a good example of how you can include all kinds of things in your journal and that you will leave feeling inspired to add a little whimsy to the lists and notes you might already be writing.

Left: A collection of random thoughts, ideas, and inspiration from the internet. This page feels “commonplace-y” to me, which I love. I’ve thought about having a separate commonplace notebook several times, but love the idea of combining everything in one spot even more. Right: My goals for October that I absolutely didn’t accomplish lol. But even if they weren’t accomplished, they moved the needle closer and I think it’s fun to look back on past goals and see what was important to me at that time.

Left: A leafy doodle page that I really don’t like. Right: I tried out a monthly to do list this month, rather than writing one daily or weekly. Sometimes this feels overwhelming to me, but this month it worked well, and got my wheels turning for how to make it work even better in the future. Stay tuned.

Two of the habits that I wanted to work on in October were “Me 15” and “Home 15”—either spending 15 minutes doing something for myself or our home, respectfully. While I lost steam on the habit tracker this month, I did really like having these lists to reference each day. Again, having everything written down helped reduce the decision fatigue when it came time to do these things.

I shared on Instagram, but I’d really like to get all of my saves and screenshots off my phone, on to paper, and in to action. Each Sunday I plan on sharing posts that I’ve saved and then recording them into my journal. The act of transferring the ideas into my notebook was inspiring and really helped cement these ideas into my head, especially when compared to having them lost in the abyss of my “saves” folder. Plus, even if I don’t act upon the inspiration immediately, I know they will get seen far more often as I flip through the pages of my notebook and have a better chance of becoming reality!

I have 13(!) more spreads to share about below, however due to the sensitive/private/personal nature of some of these pages, I’m going to put them behind a paywall. One of my goals moving forward is to have more content specifically for paid subscribers (because I appreciate you more than you know!!) Thank you for considering supporting my work and thank you so much for being here, either way 💙