A personal journal can be a powerful tool for self-reflection and growth, but how do you structure a journal to make it best work for you and get the most out of it in the long run? In today’s post, I’ll be recommending approaches to structuring your personal journal and how you can adapt the structure to your own personal needs.  

Why structure is important in journaling

Firstly, what do we mean when we talk about structure in journaling? Structure could mean the layout and format of the journal, or it could refer to whether the journal is guided or unguided, with a guided journal offering a pre-defined structure to work with. For this article, I’ll predominantly be talking about unguided journaling, as the largely unstructured nature of this can be off-putting for many people, especially new journalers.

Developing a structure that works for you, regardless of how loose or defined that structure is, can be important for a number of reasons, such as:

Focus and clarity: Giving your personal journal a structure helps to maintain focus. You know roughly what you’re going to concentrate on when it comes to writing in your journal, which means you don’t have to come at it from a completely standing start. A structure can help you track progress by having consistent trackers and goal tracking sections. It also makes it easier to look back at specific entries and monitor progress that way. And finally, having some sort of structure makes it easier to organise your thoughts because you have a place for everything and it makes it easy to find your previous thoughts.

Encouraging consistency: One difficulty many people have when it comes to journaling is developing a consistent, long-term habit, and this can be a result of having not enough (or sometimes too much) structure. If your journaling practice isn’t structured enough, it can be intimidating to come to that blank page each and every day. Having even a vague structure gives you a starting point, and once you get something onto that page, it becomes much easier to fill it out. With a little bit of structure to define what, when and why you journal, you will have a greater chance at successfully developing a regular habit.

Goal-oriented journaling: If your focus is on long term goal setting, strategy and planning, as well as tracking your achievements, then a good structure to your personal journal will prove invaluable. Being able to quickly and easily track key metrics, monitor progress and commitment over time, review setbacks and successes and re-evaluate your goals as you get closer to achieving them are all vital to long-term success. Having a structure makes it easier to align journaling with long-term personal goals or self-improvement and ultimately establishes your journal as an indispensable tool for success.

How to structure your personal journal

Now you know why structure can be important to journaling, it’s time to look at some ideas of how you may choose to structure your personal journal.

1. Decide on the type of journal you want:

There are many different types of personal journal, and often, the style of journal you choose will determine elements of the structure so it’s useful to determine the type of journal you want early on. Keep in mind that you don’t have to limit yourself to any one format. Your journal can encompass any or all of these formats, or incorporate any elements from that. The important thing is that the structure works for you and your goals. 

• Reflective journal: Often in the form of diarised entries or guided prompts, a reflective journal focuses on personal thoughts, feelings, and daily experiences. The style is often longer form and focuses extensively on writing, reflection and introspection. Structured elements that you’ll see in reflective journals often include prompts, sections for gratitude and weekly or monthly deep reflections on previous entries.
  
  
• Goal-oriented journal: A goal-oriented journal is used to track progress towards specific personal or professional goals and will often make use of habit trackers, to-do lists, weekly or monthly progress reviews and inspirational quotes.
  
  
• Gratitude journal: A journal that aims to keep you present and mindful by reflecting on the things you are grateful for each and every day. Whilst the structure is often loose, ideas you could adopt include a specific daily entry or journaling on a mindfulness topic to promote mental clarity.
  
  
• Combination journal: You can probably guess, but a combination journal uses elements from other journal formats into a unique and personal journaling system. This is my preferred style of journaling and often I recommend that anyone new to journaling starts by trying out different formats and techniques and then picks and chooses the elements that work for them.
  
  

2. Start with a consistent format:

Once you’ve decided on a journal type, you can start to consider formatting options. Having consistent elements helps with organisation, ease of use and avoids that difficult early stage of not knowing what to write. Some format tips you might want to consider include;

Date every entry: Adding the date to your entries can help you track progress over time and provides a sense of continuity because you can see how consistent you are with your habit. For me personally, dating my entries can backfire because if I miss an entry, I feel like I have failed, so I prefer not to, but many people find this useful and enjoy being able to reflect on specific dates or time periods.

Morning or evening prompts: Giving yourself a prompt to consider each day can be a great springboard into deep self-discovery and reflection, and the time you choose to work on a prompt can have bearing on your journaling style. In general terms, working on prompts in the morning gives you the opportunity to be forward-looking and goal oriented, whereas prompt work in the evening encourages more reflection and retrospection.

Long hand or short hand: Whilst only a minor consideration, it’s worth thinking about whether you want your journal to be writing focused and make detailed entries that you write out in full sentences, or whether you want your journal to be more of a tool where you make short hand notes, bullet points and lists. Again, you can combine these approaches as you see fit, so you’re never beholden to one or the other.

3. Set clear goals for your journal:

Having a goal for your journaling habit immediately provides structure to your entries and often has an effect on the layout and style of journal you will use. There are many different reasons you might use a journal, but some goals you might want to consider are:

• Personal growth goals: Consider your long-term and short-term personal goals, whether that’s to do with fitness, career, relationships or anything else. This will mean you are probably going to want sections of your journal dedicated to goal setting, planning and reviewing, and may even choose to use prompts to help you decide on your goals initially or keep you on track with your goals long-term.
  
  
• Track progress: A progress tracking journal is used to measure and track your progress towards a specific goal, and may often be used in combination with a personal growth style journal. You’re likely going to want to use to-do lists, dated entries and habit trackers to make progress tracking simple.
  
  
• Increased creativity: If your goal for journaling is to increase your creativity then you are probably going to want sections where you can quickly jot down thoughts and ideas as they come to you and you may incorporate elements of collage or junk journaling.
  

Whatever goal you have in mind when you begin your journaling habit, the key thing to consider is that the form should follow the function, meaning you should choose elements and sections that are going to be useful to you when it comes to achieving your goals.

• 4. Use sections to stay organised:

Sectioning out your journal can be a useful organisation tool and also removes that fear of the blank page because you know that the first thing you will do is create your layout and sections and then you know that you write specific things in specific sections, so in that way it can be very useful. I personally have to use sections and layouts carefully, because I like to journal by hand and I often find if I’m spending as much time drawing up a layout every day as I am actually writing in my journal, I find it hard to stay consistent. Having said that, I do still use some sections such as habit trackers and areas for a quote/thought for the day.

• Dedicated sections: The most formal use of sections is to actually divide your page (or entire notebook) up into sections for each journal goal you have. For example, you may have one section for habit trackers, another for daily gratitude, another for personal reflection, a to-do list section, a section for working on a prompt etc. You can get a lot of use and function out of a single journal with some early consideration towards sections and layouts, avoiding having to use multiple journals for multiple purposes.
  
  
• Tabs or markers: Rather than sectioning up the page or drawing fancy layouts, you may opt to use tabs or markers if you are using a physical journal. This can be handy because it means you don’t have to dedicate time to dividing individual pages up and it makes it easy to flit between sections and find specific entries.
  
  
• Bullet journaling techniques: Lastly, you could introduce some basic bullet journaling techniques into your journal to help section out elements. Rather than drawing out your layout, you can use symbols and bullet points to mark sections on the page and incorporate visual habit trackers and progress trackers – check out my post on how to bullet journal for more tips.
  
• Use pre-existing templates: You don’t have to start from scratch!

Whatever way you divide up the elements of your journal, the focus should be on making it a useful tool to you. Don’t feel like you have to commit to certain elements if they aren’t as useful as you hoped and don’t feel like you can’t change structure and layout at any time. The key is consistency.

5. Use prompts to keep things focused:


Always useful for adding some structure to your journaling habit, prompts can be used whether you’re brand new to journaling and just starting for the first time, or if you’ve been journaling consistently for years. I often like to decide on a goal for my journaling and then look for a prompt that ties in with that goal, for example, if my goal was to journal for career success, I might consider a prompt like, ‘what skills do I need to develop to get promoted in the next six months?’ But there are other options for using prompts as well:

• Daily prompts: As you might guess, this is the practice of using a prompt to guide your journaling each day. We’ve already discussed how the time of day you journal and use prompts can affect the outcome of your journaling, but daily prompt use or guided journaling is a great way to structure your journaling and always have a topic to think about.
  
  
• Weekly/monthly reflections: Rather than using prompts every day, you may opt to use them once a week or even once a month to encourage deeper reflection and to aid your regular review process. You may even use prompts to help guide you towards goals for the following time period.
  

Tips for maintaining your journal structure

Now that you’ve defined the structure to your journal, whether it’s a very defined and rigid structure or it’s a loose, more fluid structure, how do you go about maintaining that structure and keeping a consistent habit?

• Keep it flexible: My first suggestion would be that however you structure your journal, you leave room for flexibility. Structure can be useful, but ultimately your priorities change, the amount of time you can dedicate to journaling may change and an overly structured process can begin to feel like a chore.
  
  
• Start small: Going straight in with hundreds of sections and multiple goals and complex layouts can quickly become overwhelming. I would suggest starting small and then adding additional structure as you get a sense of what might be useful to you. For example, you might start by doing some prompted writing every day and then add a simple habit tracker. Your journal can evolve over time, but should always be providing value, so don’t feel like you have to add elements if they aren’t helpful to you.
  
  
• Review regularly: Part of keeping your structure flexible is taking the time to regularly review it. Is your structure still helpful? Are there elements that were useful for a period of time that you now don’t need? Do certain elements feel like a task to complete and make you dread picking up your journal? Take time at the end of each month or week to review your entries. Adjust your journal structure if needed.
  
  
  

Common mistakes to avoid when structuring your journal

Now that we’ve covered the reasons for structuring your journal as well as some of the common structures, it’s time to look at some easily avoidable mistakes you might want to avoid when it comes to your journal.

• Overcomplicating the structure: I’ve spoken about how having a structure that is too rigid can lead to a sense of overwhelm and cause you to avoid journaling. Look back at the tip on starting small so you don’t make the process too much of a commitment (both in time and effort). Remember that you can add structured elements to your journal at any time, but you can also remove them if they are no longer serving a purpose.
  
  
• Skipping entries (and not skipping entries): Consistency is great when it comes to journaling. Once you build a consistent habit, you’ll see the benefits of being able to look back over previous entries, and identify patterns in your thoughts, feelings and actions that can help you re-evaluate or optimise as appropriate. To stay consistent, you have to be able to commit and not skip too many entries. Missing a day doesn’t mean you have failed or it’s not worth carrying on with the hobby, but consistently missing days is likely to lead to completely giving up. By the same token though, don’t put too much pressure on yourself to journal every day. If you don’t give yourself the flexibility to miss a day or too, then it can be equally demotivating when you do miss a day and this can cause you to give up. Be flexible, be patient and understand that life happens – journaling should help you manage stress, not cause more of it.
  
  
• Not reflecting on past entries: With your structure in place it should hopefully be easy to get into the flow of regular journal entries and to build a consistent habit, which is great, but don’t forget to also take time to reflect. Remember, journaling is about growth and self-development, so making the time to revisit older entries is an extremely useful exercise for measuring progress, identifying patterns and spotting opportunities or threats to your long-term goals. If nothing else, the sense of nostalgia when you revisit old journal entries should also provide some motivation to get reflective.
  

Conclusion

Structure is a useful thing to have for your journaling habit, but keep in mind that journaling is an ongoing and evolving process, so you should never feel restricted by your structure. Instead, see it as a means to an end, to create a habit that supports your ongoing self-improvement. You aren’t committed to any one style or format or layout and you can pick and choose important elements as you continue your journaling journey, so remember, it’s not about perfection – it’s about progress!

If you haven’t yet started with your journaling, I hope this post encourages you to think about the structure and how it acts as a tool to aid you. Remember to start small and find what works for you.