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What To Write About In Your Journal (+Free Printable)

Journaling Prompts to help you build a journaling habit (+free printable)

Happy New Year everyone! It has been a while since I wrote a proper blog post but I figured the new year was the perfect time to return. The new year is always a great time to try new things and build up old habits again. Just like I want to write more on here, some of you might have set the new years resolution to pick up your old journal again or try journaling for the first time. If so, I hope it is going well and you are enjoying it. From my own experience, I know how exciting it can be to start a new journal. I usually have a lot of ideas in the beginning and can’t wait to get them all on paper. But there is always a point when the excitement wears off and I run out of ideas.

And that is where this post comes in. I want to help you get through that face of not knowing how to continue and help you build your own journaling habit. Therefore I went through my latest journal and put together a list of all the things I like to write about. I hope you can find some inspiration for your own journal. I even put together a printable you can find on the bottom of this post to save on your device or to print out for your own journal.

Let’s see what is on the list:

Bullet Journaling for Students

Without my bullet journal, I would be lost. Especially when it comes to studying. Over the last years, I have been heavily relying on my bullet journal making sure I won’t forget important due dates and keep an overview of my study progress. In this video, I want to show you how I use my bullet journal to keep on top of things and stay productive. I hope some of my tips might help you to be as well.

Lots of Love

just a blank space

Bullet Journal Ideas for Booklovers

One of my goals for 2020 is to read more books. I have always loved to read but forgot about it for the last couple of years. I never knew what to read and so I barely read anything at all. But every time I did pick a book I remembered how much I love to it. There is something about good books that lets you completely forget everything and dive into the story as if you were a part of it and I absolutely love that feeling. I started to follow a lot of bookstagramers on Instagram because I find pictures of colorful arranged books very pleasing to look at. It also makes me want to read more. For 2020 I want to at least read one book a month and to help reach my goal I set up a couple of spreads in my bullet journal, which I want to share with you today.

Books To Read

Bullet Journal Ideas for Booklovers

Of course, I needed a “Books To Read” spread in my bullet journal. I actually started this list almost a year ago and started off my year with two books from it. I already finished Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and right now I am reading The Circle by Dave Eggers. What are you currently reading?

New Years Journaling Prompts

New Years is one of my favorite times to journal because it the perfect opportunity to look back on the last twelve months and look forward to what is ahead of you. I love to plan ahead, set goals and reflect on where I am right now which new years is perfect for. Last year I made a video all about my journaling prompts for new years

This year I am starting rather late with my prompts because, to be honest, I have been having a hard time journaling for a while now. But since I am actually still doing my prompts I want to share an updated version with you.

Preparing A New Semester At University (+ Back to School Prompts)

Back to school season may be over but I still have four more weeks until I go back to university. I will start my third semester in Octobre which is insane because I still feel like I just started my first one. The good news is I still love university as much as I did on day one. Once a nerd, always a nerd. But that is not what I want to talk about this week. A couple days ago motivation hit me and I started planning the upcoming semester in my journals. I know I am late to the party but this week I want to show you how I prepare for back to school and besides I think you can still start planning when you are already back at school.

So here is what I do:

1. Plan my weekly routine

Preparing A New Semester At University (+ Back to School Prompts)

Bullet Journal Set Up for my 2nd Semester of University

This Blog post is from my old website before I switched to self-hosting. It was published on April 7, 2019

This week I finally started my 2nd Semester at university and that means it is time to pick up my bullet journal again. Over the last two months I barely picked it up and didn’t make any weekly spreads. I didn’t have much to do but now that I am back at Uni there is a lot of planning that needs to be done.

Planning my weekly Routine

Bullet Journal for Students

With the new semester comes a new schedule and I also decided to sign up for Yoga and a Spanish class which means my weekly routine is completely messed up. This is why I started with getting an overview of when I am supposed to be where.

Planning extra class dates and exams

Besides my weekly classes I also have three extra sittings that I need to be at. I included those and my exam dates on the right side of my schedule but also added all those dates to my future log. This way I will definietly remember those important dates.

Adjusting my weekly spreads

With classes back on I also have a lot of uni related to-dos I need to get done during the week like class related reading and reviewing my notes. This means in addition to my daily and weekly to-do lists I also include a uni to-do list in my weekls spreads again. For the first week it already turned out to be very long and I ran out of space on my spread.

Planning my blog posts

Bullet Journal

Since I have been working on my self hosted website, which I am hoping to get done before May, I decided it is time to plan my blog posts again. Last semester I didn’t really plan them and it ended up to be very stressfull. I want to keep up weekly posting so I set up a Blog tracker.

On the left I want to plan when I plan to post which blog post so I can plan ahead and include related to-dos in my weekly spreads. On the right side I am going to keep track of my ideas because I always forget them if I don’t write them down. Is there anything you would like me to include on that list?


Looking at those spreads I am actually very happy with how they look and hope they keep me motivated to stay on track with everything this semester. What does hel you with staying on track with your school work?

Lots of Love

Just A Blank Space

YouTubeInstagram, TwitterTumblr

Journal Q&A 2

This Blog post is from my old website before I switched to self-hosting. It was published on February 24, 2019 

Journal Q&A

Recently I have been getting a lot of questions on Instagram so I thought I would do another Q&A to answer some of them. Besides, I love to use the question thingy on Instagram. If you have any other questions feel free to ask me any time and I’ll give my best to answer them.

Who is your favorite artist on Instagram and why?

To be honest I can’t choose just one. There are a lot of amazing people out there. One of my favorites are @agirlwithajournal because I just love her journaling style and her watercolor backgrounds, @mereljournals because I am obsessed with her collages and her yellow feed, @megjournals because she makes the prettiest collages and always has these amazing vintage flowers and @cayleegrey because she has an amazing minimalistic style and always uses amazing color.

How many hours a week do you spend journaling?

I honestly can’t tell because it depends on how much time and ideas I have. Sometimes I don’t journal at all and sometimes I journal all day long. Recently I haven’t been journaling a lot. I just finished my exams at uni and couldn’t journal that much and now I am struggling to pick it up again.

When did you start journaling?

I started journaling in 2014 when I was an exchange student in the US for a year without knowing journaling even was a thing. I wrote a blog post about this a while ago. If you would like to read the whole story you can find it here.

How old were you when you started journaling?

I was fifteen years old

How is your handwriting this perfect and was it always like this?

First of all, thank you and no it wasn’t always like this. I am left handed and since many lefties have horrible handwriting my mom always was pushing me to try to write in a more or less pretty way and it annoyed me a lot. Around seventh or eighth grade I then had some friends who had very pretty handwriting and I was very jealous and tried to copy it all the time. But it wasn’t until I started journaling my handwriting started to look like this. I didn’t even force it. I just wanted to write pretty and suddenly people started to be impressed by my handwriting.

Has your journaling style changed since you started?

Yes, it has but it still changes all the time. When I started my journaling was more about writing and I would add some stickers or just write out some words with a different pen. I had a phase when I loved to include a lot of pictures and right now I am into watercolor backgrounds. For a while, I also made a lot of collages. It depends on my mood.


Thank you very much for reading. Feel free to ask me anything you would like to know in the comments because I love to chat with you guys and get to know you better.

Lots of Love

Just A Blank Space

20 things to add to your penpal letter

This Blog post is from my old website before I switched to self-hosting. It was published on February 17, 2019 

snail mail is an unexpected party in a letter

Opening a letter from my penpals always feels like a little version of Christmas. I always get very excited and I want my penpals to feel the same when I reply. This is why I always want to include something special in my letter but sometimes finding ideas can be hard. I know many people feel the same so I decided to share a list of some of my favorite things to include in a penpal letter.

20 things to add to your penpal letter

  1. Sticker
  2. Your favorite quotes or lyrics (you can make a list or cute little cards you can hang on the wall)
  3. Washi Samples
  4. Tea
  5. Postcards
  6. Journaling cards
  7. Pictures you took (of you, your room/hometown, of places you went to…)
  8. Pressed flowers and leaves
  9. Sticky notes
  10. Mini playlist of your current favorite songs
  11. Scraps of paper
  12. Paperclips
  13. Ribbon or twine
  14. Ephemera
  15. Scraps of old newspaper or pretty packaging
  16. Book pages from old books
  17. A list of this or that questions for your penpal to answer
  18. A list of question for your penpal to answer
  19. Lists (facts about you, places you have been to, goals, dreams, your top ten of something…)
  20. A bookmark

Do you have a penpal and if you do, what do you love to include in your letters?

Lots of Love

Just A Blank Space

Journal Q&A

This Blog post is from my old website before I switched to self-hosting. It was published on October 28, 2018

Journal Q&AQ&As have become an all-time classic. Whether on YouTube, Instagram or on many other platforms around the Internet, people seem to enjoy them.  But in my soon to be three years writing this blog I have never done it myself. I asked you guys to send me your questions earlier today which I want to answer along with some frequently asked questions. If I leave anything unanswered, feel free to ask me in the comments.

How many journals do you have?

At the moment I am working on four journals at the same time. My traveler’s notebook with my morning pages and my “normal” writing pages, my bullet journal, my art journal and my junk journal. I don’t work in each journal every week but I love each and every one of my journals.

 

What’s your favorite journaling supply?

My favorite journal supply used to be Washi Tape. I have over a 100 rolls of Washi Tape but at the moment what I use most are cutouts from magazines and all kinds of pictures I find. I love it when my penpals send me some as well. I just recently bought some indigo liquid watercolor from Ecoline and I am obsessed with it as well. It’s just so hard to decide.

 

How do you keep up with your journaling habit?

Keeping up with your journaling habit can be hard. I get this question a lot and I always say the key to it is to set aside time for yourself to journal. If it helps you can also write it down in your calendar, planner, bujo… as an appointment. Just remember, you can’t be creative all the time. Over the last two weeks, I haven’t been journaling at all because I just couldn’t get myself to do it and that is fine with me. Stressing yourself about keeping a habit just makes it harder to actually keep up with it.

 

What is your all-time favorite page?

This is an amazing question but it is so hard to answer. I don’t think I have one favorite page. There are so many pages I am proud of but here are some I narrowed it down to four pages I really like:

 

How do you make your journal pages?

I don’t think I can give a good answer to this question. Each and every page is different but I guess for each page I try to get the pictures and ideas in my head on the paper.

 

Are you accepting new penpals?

Sadly I am not accepting new penpals right now. I recently started writing to two new penpals and it turned out to be harder to keep up with 5 penpals than I thought it would. It always takes me ages to reply and I am always catching up on my letters

 

These are all the questions I got for today. Thank you so much for reading. If there is anything you would like to know please ask me in the comments. I always enjoy chatting with you guys.

Lots of Love

Just A Blank Space