Transcripts
1. Welcome to Modern Journaling: Using a planner and a journal has always been a part of my life. I was that young girl with a big case of colorful pens, and doodles, and my journal. But as a teen and a young adult, I lost that habit. Life got busy and hectic. Then as an adult, digital apps replaced a lot of my analog journaling and planning practices, maybe you can relate. However, in the last few years, I realized that having a system where I can plan and journal, was what I needed all along in order to learn more about myself, to practice self-care, to express myself creatively, and still be productive and efficient with my tasks. Hi, my name is Audrey Ko, and I'm a teaching artist for watercolor and calligraphy right here on Skillshare. In this class, I want to share how the system of modern journaling has transformed my life, and how it can do the same for you. If you've been looking for a way to merge both the efficiency of a planner and the traditional practice of writing in a journal, then this class is for you. This class isn't about being perfect or creating the most beautiful journal, it's a personal journey that you're documenting and reflecting on along the way. So let's journey together. I'll see you in class.
2. Why should we journal?: Before I get into why this type of journaling is so important, I want to clarify some terms I'll be using. I'm calling this merging of a planner and a journal as the modern journal. The word modern doesn't mean that it's a digital tool, but rather just a broader term to describe how we're using the journal in today's world. When I say planner, I'm referring to those predesigned agenda planners that have your calendars, monthly, weekly, daily layout, all planned out for you. Sometimes there's space for notes and goal writing but the key is that it's predesigned and not very flexible to meet all your needs. Now when I say journal in conjunction with the idea of a planner, I'm talking about just a blank notebook that you usually write, dear diary type of entries, space for you to write dreams and goals, random thoughts, brainstorming, even doodles and sketches. Moving forward, I will be using either the term modern journal or just journal to be all encompassing and interchangeable. If I reference a journal in contrast to a planner, I'll probably call it traditional journaling. Now let's discuss why we Journal, why we plan, and why doing both simultaneously is beneficial. I want to highlight five of those benefits. Number 1, the act of writing boosts your memory and keeps it sharp. This is a long known and proven fact. When you physically write something down, you'll remember it far better than typing or reading. I see this playing out when I write down my grocery list. Sometimes I don't even have to reference my list because I actually recall writing it down letter for letter at a certain place in the page. Even more long-term, writing down your reflections, gratitudes, dreams and goals helps you stay focused and motivated. Number 2, on the idea of minds, the modern journal will help declutter your mind. I found planners to be so limiting because I didn't have any blank empty pages to dump my thoughts. I have a lot of those brain dumps or free thinking sessions. Even if I did have an empty page, it was usually snack in the back where I would get lost. However, with the modern journal, I can keep track of where all those pages are and reference them easily. The goal is not to have the prettiest journal, but to use this journal in order to have a clear mind and a space for you to express yourself. Number 3, mental and physical health benefits. Additional mental benefits include, reduced stress, a boost in your mood, and overall emotional health. Counselors and therapists may recommend journaling for those that just came out of a serious romantic relationship or when you lose a loved one. I'll share more about this in the my journey video. Believe it or not, there are actual health benefits such as improved immune system, combating certain diseases and even helping wounds heal faster. There's more information that I'll link in a resources page in the downloads. But you get the idea that journaling is more than just helping your mind, but also your body and soul. Number 4, it's a creative outlet. The great thing about designing your own modern journal is that you mold it to fit your needs. That also applies to the style. You can go as clean and minimal as you want to the other extreme of colorful and infused with art. Wherever you are in the spectrum, it'll work for you. It's also an outlet because you need to approach this journal with a mindset that it's for you. It's not for social media, it's not for other people. It's just for you. Last but not least, keeping a journal like this is priceless for posterity. Maybe it's because I work in a history museum. But being able to read about personal accounts of what life was like 5, 50, 100 plus years ago, is absolutely priceless. Even if it's about ordinary and everyday things, it provides insight that's impossible to just fabricate. Photos and videos, unfortunately, can be manipulated to look a certain way but a personal list of tasks, dreams, goals, doodles, and thoughts, they're real things that happen to real people. I always wish that I could find out more about my grandparents or even who my great-grandparents were. Wouldn't your journal be something to treasure for generations to come? Now take a deep breath, reflect on your why. Do any of these reasons resonate with you? Maybe you need a creative outlet or you're grieving over a loss of a loved one. Perhaps you need a space to process your thoughts. This step is important because if you don't know why you're keeping a journal, you'll lose motivation and eventually stop using it. Your why could change over time, but there always has to be a reason. So go ahead and do that reflection now.
3. My Journey and My Why: I want to share more about my personal journey with journals, and planners because it reveals my needs, and reflects how I currently use it. Perhaps there will be parts of my journey that you can relate to that will inform how the modern journal can help you to. I had grown up always writing in a journal. It started out as an outlet for me to practice my English since I was born in South Korea. In my elementary, and middle school years, my journal was more of a Dear Diary. I remember keeping a travel journal at one point writing for hours during road trips, documenting everything I saw, how I felt, and what I was excited about. Even as a student in my high school, and college years, I wrote honestly about my emotions, thoughts, and dreams for the future. I still have some of those notebooks now.. At the same time because I was a student, I had to keep a strict planner so that I could stay on top of my assignments, clubs, and social life. But even then, I wanted something that would serve both purposes of a journal, and a planner. From then into adulthood, I struggled to find that answer that would solve that problem. During college, I actually tried to DIY my own solution. This was before the Bullet Journal became a thing. I created my own monthly, weekly, and daily layouts, but it quickly fizzled out because I focused too much on making it look right, instead of on the content, and my journey through it. I resorted to using regular planners again, and having a separate journal to record my reflections. I got married in 2012, and I continued to journal, and plan separately, but this time I use digital means more for efficiency's sake. I wrote journal entries in Word documents, and saved them into folders. I use mostly the Google Calendar to schedule events, and appointments, and they all served their purposes as well, but only on the surface level. I still felt like something was missing. But in the summer of 2016, everything changed. A few months earlier in May, my grandmother passed away, and I wasn't there to see her go. She was in South Korea, and I was here in the US. It was my first time experiencing a death in the family, and an extreme sadness came over me, and I didn't know how to process my grief. I found myself falling behind on tasks, and appointments, and typing out a journal entry just didn't seem like it was enough. I began searching again for a new way of journaling that would help bridge the gap. That's when I found out about Bullet Journaling. But it was really overwhelming at first because of all the pretty spreads at the time that made me feel like it wasn't the right fit for me. But I went to bulletjournal.com, learned the basics from the founder Ryder Carroll, and started applying them. I'll admit the creative side of me still wanted the pretty layouts, and I found myself bringing up old habits again, and I focused too much on how the pages looked rather than what I actually wrote down. My first year of the Bullet Journal was just a lot of experimenting, and trying to make it fit my needs. I adopted the Bullet Journal system, and use the many blank pages for me to write about my grief, to process my feelings, to write letters to my grandmother, etc cetera. I actually started learning calligraphy, and watercolor because my grandmother was an artist as well, and that led me to starting my business things, and scene designs. Being able to journey through the grieving process allowed me to move on, and dream of bigger things. Sometimes I think that if I didn't have a way to journal, I might have suffered from depression, and I'm not sure what kind of person I would be today. I continue to evolve this new way of journaling to fit my needs from season to season, from year to year, and that's why I'm calling it the modern journal. I know it's not a completely brand new, innovative way of journaling, but it's more than a planner, and it's also more than a journal. It's the ability to have both, and more, and that's what makes it modern. I seldom use my Google Calendar now except for my Museum job, and everything else goes in my journal. I definitely don't type my journal entries anymore. I love the active actually writing it out, being able to scribble things out, and think about what I'm going to write before I commit pen to paper. Some of my needs were that I needed a very responsive productivity system, like the Bullet Journal. But I also needed a lot of empty pages to help declutter my mind, and be that creative outlets. I hope this will help you too to see that it is possible to have an all in one journal that is modern, away of merging the traditional practice of writing in a journal with the efficiency of a planner. Take a deep breath. Reflect on your relationship with journals, and planners. Maybe you're like me, and grew up having separate notebooks for each, or maybe you only plan or only journal, but you want to try having both. In your previous journals, and planners, what features resonated with you? Did you like this strict hour by hour scheduled layout? Do you like the bright colorful planners? Or do you prefer a more minimalistic approach? Feel free to use the reflection she provided in a downloadable resources to help you process. In the next video, we'll dive deeper into finding your why.
4. Discovering Your Why: Before we get into the nitty-gritty and start writing in our journals. I want to spend some time together thinking about your WHY and what you really want out of your journal. Remember my mistakes about focusing too much on the layout and not on the content? Well, I'd hate for you to make the same mistake. Think about how you would balance the journal and planner aspects. Maybe you want an even 50-50 split, or maybe you're more task-oriented but want a little bit of creative freedom. Perhaps you're more spontaneous, but need a little bit of structure to keep track of appointments. Know where your priorities are and let that guide you instead of trying to do exactly what someone else is doing. For example, I do have trackers only on a seasonal basis. There are times when I really need to be conscious of how much water I take in or maybe I'm saving up for a trip, and during those months I might set up some kind of tracker. Otherwise, I don't usually add that in my journal. For the journal type entries, think about your WHY for keeping a journal at all. Go back to the handout, the resources, and recall your WHY. Is it for goal-setting? Keeping track of thoughts or doodles? To remember dreams? To plan projects? Take some time to do this first before we go on to the next video. Here are some features to consider adding. On the planning side, you might want to add the following. Yearly, monthly, weekly, and/or daily layouts, Index and page numbers, lists of birthdays, title pages. Some journal features to add are a gratitude list, inspiring quotes, song lyrics, goal-setting, personal projects, doodle pages, dear diary type entries, business ideas like blog posts, painting subjects, social media posts, etc. Morning/night scribbles. Some optional features to add, trackers like habits, budget, fitness, diet, etc. Maybe a vacation or a trip scrapbook. Memories recap, a bucket list, and so much more based on your needs, lifestyle, and goals. So take some time to be in the right mindset. You can use the worksheets to help you plan. Starting in January on my website, I'll be releasing journal prompts by month to help keep you inspired to write. It's always hard to come up with things to write about, so prompts can help jump-start that process. Then the prompts could become part of your regular, monthly layout or you can phase it out and try something else. I also have a Pinterest board for modern journaling inspiration. If you need ideas of how to design your layouts or other journaling features, follow that Pinterest board. Now, I want to give you a detailed look at my journal and how my WHY has shaped it.
5. My Modern Journal - An Overview: In the next few videos, I want to show you how I set up my modern journal. Then in the following video, you'll get all ideas on how to design yours and get started. Finally, I'll designed my setup in a brand new journal with you. The basic design layout will look similar from month to month. But the first several pages are different because it's a table of contents that map out your journal. I'm going to focus more on those pages right now as I described my setup, you'll notice that I borrow a lot of the same ideas as the bullet journal. But I also want to show you how I go beyond the productivity genius of the bullet journal to incorporate the traditional practice of journaling. Also, as I show you my journal, don't be so concerned with my design just yet. That will come later. The content is more important for now. I my setup, I start with an index. This is really important because you don't have tabs or colored pages, although you can craft and add them later. Therefore, each page must also have a page number. Some companies create journals with page numbers already printed. Keep that in mind when you go to purchase yours. Your index will grow as you fill out your journal. For now, save about 3-4 pages. I like to add title pages. It gives me a chance to be creative and use some color. Then I added a quote that I really liked and some goals for the year. Then I have my yearly layout. I project about 12-18 months into the future because I tend to plan long-term. I usually use one whole journal for one year. For 2019, I started in January and projected into September 2020. There are lots of designs for yearly layouts, and we'll talk about that in a later video. I also like to have title pages for the months. I use a page for each one. Then I have my monthly layout. I use four pages for this. There's two parts. On the left, I have an overview of all the events and appointments for the month. If you have multiple things going on in the same day, you can do two lines per day or have the box calendar, monthly layout or both. Then on the right, I have three pages saved for a running to-do list. Many of my tasks tend to be long term, and it's difficult if you have to keep writing them over and over again because I didn't complete it in time. If you have quick turnaround projects or frequent deadlines, you may want to consider doing weekly or daily layouts. After the to-do list is where the journaling part really comes in. The next several pages until the next month's layout are filled with whatever I want to add. If I need to take notes or decide to do a journal entry, I use the next available page. Same with doodling, brainstorming, etc. I mark page numbers as I go and log it in the index. I keep my notes from church in here too. Sometimes I'll have projects specific pages, like here on pages 23-24. I'll create a separate task list. Then on the monthly layout, I referenced the page number for that task so I know where to go. I even take other skill share classes and take notes. Here's one from inking maps. These pages don't really have any structured design. They're very free-flowing and I like to incorporate my calligraphy and stickers here and there. Then as one month winds down, I start the monthly layout for the upcoming months. I usually do this one or two days before the next month starts. Sometimes I'll skip a page because I want the title page to be on the right side. I filled the left side with doodles or other thoughts from the remaining day or two of the month. I repeat the previous months design unless I want to change it up. I have a title page, monthly look at events and appointments, then a few pages for tasks. That's how every month looks for me. I'm generally using the same design because after years of experimenting with different layouts, I found that this is what works for me. Maybe in the future, I'll use weekly layouts when I need a more detailed focus on my tasks and events. But for now, my monthly layouts are enough. Once I design the layout, I actually have to do just a little bit more. In the bullet journal system, this part is called migrating. As I look at my events and appointments page, I refer to my yearly layout to see if there are any prescheduled things that I need to migrate into this month's page. Then I look at the previous months task list. If there's anything that hasn't been completed or needs to be completed in the next month, then I migrate it to this month's list here. If there's a task from the previous month that can be put off until much later, then it goes into the yearly layout. This active migrating is what makes the bullet journal so effective and keeps me on top of my tasks because I hate having to rewrite the same tasks over and over again. I do my best to accomplish them before the month is up. I use specific symbols to indicate whether they'd been migrated to the next month or the yearly layout. You may already have specific symbols or colors that you use. Feel free to use those or referred to bulletjournal.com to see how Ryder Carroll, the founder and creator, uses symbols. That's how my current modern journal likes. In the next few videos, we're going to get more practical with the supplies you can use and we'll design our new journal together. You can see how all of this plays out.
6. Supplies: Let's start with the absolute basic supplies. You'll need a notebook and a pen. If you have an empty journal sitting on your shelf, maybe start with that. I'm sure there is a pen in your junk drawer because everyone has a junk drawer. If you want to invest in other supplies and once you've got the habit of writing in your journal down, then here are some of my favorites. For notebooks, I don't really have a favorite brand. I've used at least three different brands and they all have their pros and cons, in general I look for the following; dotted pages, thicker pages, that there's no ghosting or bleeding, reasonable size so that I can fit it in my purse, usually around five inches by eight inches, a hardcover, an elastic band closure and ribbon bookmarks, and some journals will have a pocket in the back, which is great, but you can also create your own. I'm a total pens snob, so I have my favorites here. For general writing, I love the Sharpie fine point pens, Micron pens, Muji, and Staedtler. For brush calligraphy, I like to use the Tombow fudenosuke, the Pentel touch, and Mildliners. They all have a small brush tip and are easy to write with. Other coloring tools that I use are Crayola twistable crayons, super tip markers, and general colored pencils. Decorations that I use the most often are washi tape and stickers, sometimes I use stamps, but not as often as I'd like. Sometimes I'm designing the next layout outside my home, so I don't have my stamps with me. But I like to keep a small collection of stickers in the front pocket here that I added recently. Other tools that might be useful are a pencil case, pencil, ruler, glue, white-out, stencils, and scissors. I like using the six inch ruler because it fits perfectly in my pencil case. I like the glue pen from Tombow because it doesn't work the paper. I don't usually carry around the rest of these tools, but if I'm designing my journal in my studio, I might use them. Maybe there was a page in a magazine that I really liked, then I can cut it out and paste it in my journal. This is the pencil case that I use on a daily basis. The usual supplies are a few black pens, a black brush pen, and whatever color scheme that month is, and I have a few additional coloring tools to match. For December, the color scheme was light blue. So I have a few Staedtler pens, two Mildliners, one brush pen and one highlighter, and a paper make felt-tip pen. This is enough to keep me inspired and add some color into my journal. Again, don't feel like you have to add everything just because you have it or are influenced by social media, just start with your why. Will adding color help you be more productive? Will adding stickers bring you inspiration? Will using brush pens help you practice your calligraphy? Will these pens give you joy as your dealing with them? Start there and then start incorporating those supplies. Now it's your turn. You have your why, you have your supplies, so let's start designing our new journal together.
7. Setting Up Your Journal: In this video, I want to demonstrate how I set up a brand new journal. I will be speeding through certain parts, but I'll explain every step of the way. This initial step is like the planner part of the modern journal. After you're done, take a photo of one of the layouts to including your project, you will include the following. The index, key, your title page. yearly goals, your early layout, monthly title page, monthly goals, and a monthly layouts. Let's start with the index. Some journals have some pages predesigned for you, but if you don't save the first few pages for this, writes a bold title and we'll come back to it periodically to fill it out. The key can really go anywhere. It can be on a post-it that you transfer from journal to journal or you can design it right in the journal. I don't usually have a key because I know now which symbols mean what. But I'll show you a which symbols I use and what they mean on a separate piece of paper. Similar to 2019, I want to add a title page for 2020. You can get really creative here. You can use a stamp, stencil or anything to make it stand out. I want to save a page for my goals. I'll write the title in for now. Then I might save this page for a quote. Now Let's get into the yearly layouts. I like to project up to 18 months. In 2019, I was able to fit three months per page. But as you can see, I run out a space for certain months. For 20-20, I'm going to do only two months per page. This is the most tedious part, writing out all the numbers for each month. To design this page, first, I'm going to figure out where the center is and then use that to divide my pages in half. I can use a pencil to make a small mark. Then I'll write in the months of the year. Then go back and write in the number calendars. There are stamps and other tools to help make these go faster, or you can even print it out and paste it here. It's your journal, so do what works best for you. Now, I'll speed through a little bit so you can still watch me work. Then I'll show you the final result. Before I move onto them monthly, I need to migrate anything from my 2019 yearly layout that would be relevant here. I can also list important birthdays, anniversaries, other big events that I know are happening. I might also use some of my stickers to embellish and add some flair. As I'm going, I'm adding my page numbers, and when that section is done, I'll add it to my index. After the yearly, I'll create my monthly title page for the first month. In this case, it's January. Right after that, comes my monthly layout. But you can make it your own by adding monthly goals here, maybe a habit tracker or an inspirational quote. For my monthly layout, I'll add the month's title, and sometimes I'll have a color scheme per month. That's a small way for me to add some color without going too crazy. Then I'll write the days of the month and the date in two columns. I'll save the next three pages for my to-do list. Before I move on, I need to check my 2019 journal's December calendar to see if there's anything I need to migrate to 2020. Don't forget to keep adding page numbers and add them to your index. A side note about the index, you don't always have to add individual page numbers to it. You can do groups of pages or even skip them if they're not worth labeling in the index. Now that I'm done with the planner section of the modern journal, I'm going to predesign a few journaling prompts to get me started. I might do this periodically to keep up with my writing habits. Something that I want to start in 2020 is AM/PM scribbles. This is a way for me to capture any random thoughts I have first thing in the morning. Maybe it's a dream I just had. At night, I want to store any lingering thoughts or notes that I may want to follow up on later. I'm going to start by saving two pages for that. I don't want to save too many pages in case I don't fill them up. If I run out of room, I'll just skip to the next available page and continue there. Then in the index, I would indicate that it was from, for example, pages 11-12, and then 18-19. Some other journal layouts that I want to prep now is a blog post ideas page. This is a great place for me to dump all of my thoughts that have to do with blog posts. That could include watercolor tutorials, calligraphy-related tutorials, journal ideas like this, or anything else that might just come to mind. I'm just going to write out the title for now. I first traced it in pencil because I didn't want to mess up the title look. Fortunately, as long as you write lightly enough, it should erase pretty easily. I'm going to leave these two pages completely blank. In the past, I used to draw columns and rows, but again, I found those really limiting. So when I just have a blank page like this, I can draw circles, or bubbles, or arrows. It's just a free-flowing area. Since that's how I like to work, I want my pages to reflect that. If you're more of a, "I need line.", so then go ahead. Use a ruler and draw those horizontal rows or draw rectangles with arrows just so it gets you thinking in that way. But for me, like I said, I like to just leave it open so I can map it however I feel like. The next spread that I want to work on is, I want to plan out all of my calligraphy worksheets that I design. If you didn't know, on my website, on a monthly basis, I offer free calligraphy worksheets. Right here, I've divided it by month, and then I drew out three lines because I offer three words per worksheet. You can check those out on my website later. But just like earlier, I'm going to just write out the title and then fill in these lines, but this time I'm going to use a little bit of gold. I'm still going to use gray for my title, but then use gold for the rest of it. Here we go. To finish this layout, I'm just going to erase all my pencil lines that I sketched earlier, and then write my page numbers here at the bottom, and then I will add them to the index. These are just some examples of month long journal layouts that you can add to your journal too. It doesn't have to be super fancy like in this one. Like I said, you just write a title and then just leave the rest of it blank. You don't have to get all fancy pancy, especially if you're like me, and just like things to be open-ended like this. That's it. Once January rolls around, I'll be using this journal and continuing on with writing page by page until January 29th, or 30th, or so. Then I'll start designing February's layouts. You keep this cycle going until you finish the year or you finish the notebook.
8. What to Do After Your First Journal: [MUSIC] If you haven't already decorated the outside of your journal, you can do so now. Maybe your journal chronicles, January through June of that year. Then you can write on the spine of your journal, you can use a sharpie, a paint pen, gold foil, whatever fancies you, as long as it's permanent, or you can name it 2020, Volume 1, whatever floats your boats. If your cover is plain, maybe you can decorate the outside of it with your word or the motto of the year. Once you're done with one journal, you can immediately start in the next one. If it's in the middle of the month, you may have to spend a little bit more time duplicating info into the new journal. But you can always start with the index, the yearly layout, and then that month's layout, maybe you're starting a new year in the middle of a notebook. You can make a divider page by using a paper clip, covering it up with scrapbook paper or something else to distinguish the start of a new year. Then you can start, again, with the index, yearly layout, the next month's layout, et cetera. If you're close to the end of a notebook and the New Year is just around the corner, then I suggest just starting in a new notebook. You can always fill the empty pages of the previous one with doodles and photos, et cetera. Once you've finished one journal, it's really easy to start the next one. Be really proud of yourself and be excited.
9. Lessons I've Learned: Since this is a journey, I want to share some things I've learned during mine. First, you need discipline. Like any habit or new skill, discipline is required especially if you're not used to daily journaling. It may take a few weeks for you to get used to a new routine, and used to carrying your journal around with you everywhere. I try to make it a priority to look at my journal first thing in the morning, even before my phone. I take a look at what I have to accomplish today. I prioritize certain tasks, and projects, and I make it a point to visit my journal before I go to bed. That's another reason why I want to try that AM, PM scribbles. I have a very solid reason to write in my journal. But also, don't worry if you missed a few days or even weeks. There's no rule that says you have to write every day. Not everyone feels that they're everyday thoughts are journal worthy, and that's okay. Skip that day, move on. You can always jump back in. It'll take a little while to adjust to writing down all your appointments instead of typing them in your phone. But soon you'll find yourself using a daily because you're using it not just as a journal but also a planner. Next, allow yourself to make mistakes. If I let perfectionism takeover, I would've stopped journaling years ago. But you can't let that stop you. Journeys are messy. The trajectory is never a straight line. Sometimes you start on a linear path, but then you get distracted, or you stray, or you hit rock bottom, or you go backwards. It's the same with journals. You may rip out a few pages here, and there, you use white out, you will cover up mistakes with Washi tape, and stickers. You'll use a big Sharpie to strike through errors, and it'll happen. It's all part of your journey, and on that note, feel free to take a photo of your messy page. Let's be proud of our messiness. Next, go page by page, don't skip around. The beauty of starting with a blank journal is that you can make it your own. But the idea of the modern journal is that it's a direct reflection of your daily life. The minute you start saving pages, and adding things in future pages, you break that daily life cycle. The Journal should be a chronological review of your life from day one to the last page. When you need to add a special page like a list of books to read, just add it to the very next blank page. Then note the page number in the index. That's why the index is important. When I look back at my previous journals, it's much clearer to me to see how much I've matured as a person or how I think through decisions or recurrent dreams that I've had. I wouldn't have those same revelations if I skipped around, and hand things out of order. Let's make this year one that we will fully remember, so that when we look back over the year, we won't have to scratch our heads wondering where the time went. But exactly will know how we felt on April 14th, what we did on June 21st. The goals that we accomplished, the good habits we've developed, and how we're becoming better versions of ourselves with each year. Finally, this last one is more of a tip than a lesson. Remember that you can journal anywhere. That's why I like to choose a journal size that's small enough to fit in all of my purses. I like to carry it to the cafe even when I meet up with a friend. When I'm shopping, I take my journal with me, I have my grocery list. I also take it with me to church so I can take notes. It gives me chances to reflect even throughout the day. This journal will quickly become part of your daily routine. You wake up with it, you take it around with you all day. Then before you go to bed, you also take a look at it one more time to see what's coming up or to reflect on the day's activities. It's an extension, and a reflection of who you are. Choose a journal that makes you happy. Maybe the cover is your favorite color. Maybe it has an animal that you really like or an inspiring or funny quote that makes you laugh. Let the act of writing in a journal be something that you look forward to. Something that brings you joy, something that makes you happy. It should never become a source of stress or a burden on you. The moment that it does, take some time to step back, and evaluate why it's doing that. Maybe you're focusing too much on making it look pretty. Maybe you feel the pressure that you have to display something beautiful on social media. If you start feeling those kinds of pressures, use your journal to even write about it. As you carry around your journal, you'll start to develop an attachment to it. When you finish your journal, it becomes a really important piece of your story, take it around with you, show it off to your friends and family, and spread the joy of writing in a journal. Maybe it'll catch on. There are many more lessons that I've learned, and I'm sure there are still more to learn. Keep an open mind. Remember that this is your unique journey. Use this journal as a living testament of that.
10. Final Thoughts: Before I end this class, I have a few final thoughts. First, I hope you'll check in on this class from time to time, and share your journey with me. I hope you'll see some real growth happening, from the inside out. Second, take a moment to check out the project prompts. There are a few things that you can share. Share one layout design or share an inspirational layout design that you really like or that you've pinned. You can share your messy peaches. Let's celebrate our mistakes. You can share your worksheet notes. Take a photo of your supplies, and if you can, check in monthly or quarterly, with updates about how your journal is evolving. Thank you for taking my class on Modern Journaling. If you enjoyed this class, please leave a review and share your thoughts with me. I'd also love to connect with you on social media. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram at ThingsUnseenDesigns. For this class, I'm using the hashtag JournalWithTUD. Until next time. Bye.
Audrey Moon, Watercolorist and Modern Calligrapher
