Journaling is a great hobby and so good for honing a range of skills. Not only does this hobby help you perfect your handwriting and drawing, it’s also a marvellous way to relieve stress and focus our thoughts. We have listed six reflective journal ideas to try with your uni-ball writing pens. Hopefully you’ll find these journal projects super absorbing and fun to do, while making use of the best features of your uni-ball writing pens.
Scrapbooks and journals are a fab way of documenting your life; making a bullet journal to set goals, lists to record your interest and day journals to reflect on those special moments and capture a moment in time. The practice of making a journal is a great way of giving yourself some creative time out, taking a breath to gather your thoughts. And there have been many studies that state the mental and physical health benefits of committing thoughts and feelings to paper.
Reflective journal idea 1: Be aware of your mood
Tracking your mood is a really effective way to learn more about yourself and achieve better health. Making a note of how you feel in a day is a marvellous way of checking in with yourself. Plus the act of colouring in a section to illustrate your mood provides you with some space and time to reflect on how you are. We’ve featured two mood tracker ideas for you to try. We thought these designs lent themselves very well to Eye Fine pens as the wide selection of colours can help you illustrate the various ways you may be feeling.
Cool journal ideas 2: Keep a track
A bullet journal is a brilliant way of keeping organised. With a bullet journal you can make plans, set goals and outline your ambitions. A bullet journal works by giving you a blank page for each day. On that page, you set out what you need to do that day, outline any key events and appointments, and after that, you can add anything you want such as long term goals and what you’ve done that day to work towards them. You could also include a habit tracker to look at your eating or workout habits. You will be able personalise your bullet journal, as we’ve done here with our Air Micro pens, by creating your own key so you can keep the focus on things that are important to you.
Creative journal ideas 3: How’s your day?
A day journal is an ideal way of making a record of your day and seeing how small, daily accomplishments make a big difference overall. Different to a bullet journal, this doesn’t deal with plans or goals, this is simply a record of how you’ve felt about small things in the day. If you’re starting out on a journal journey, why not buy a ready-made journal with sections you can fill in (as we’ve done with our Eye Micro) so you are more guided in your journal practice?
Reflective journal idea 4: Record your dreams
We’ve tried something a bit different here. We took all our Eye pen ranges and picked out the blue pen shades. Then we enjoyed all the different line effects we can make with our different sizes Eye nibs (from delicate 0.5mm Eye Needle to bold 1.0mm Eye Broad) to make an illustrative opener for our dream journal with a blue theme.
Keeping a dream journal can be very helpful for memory. Making a note of your dreams is a great overall exercise for the brain as it develops your recall abilities. It will also enable you to get to know a bit more about yourself too as dream journaling can give insight into your unconscious mind during sleep. To get the most out of your dream journal practice, keep a pen and notebook next to your bed so that you can begin to write down your dreams on awakening. Before you commit pen to paper, lie still for a few minutes as this helps you recall more details of your dream before it starts to fade away, then document as much detail as you can about the dream; making a particular note of numbers, colours and events.
Cool journal ideas 5: Love nature
Keeping a nature journal is great for tracking the seasons and for looking beyond your daily life. We’ve used our drawing skills here using Eye Fine pens to draw and document our favourite garden birds. It goes to show that you don’t have to be particularly wordy if you like to keep a journal – it can be as pictorial as you like. You can say lots with simple pictures and let your creativity run riot with this technique, and while we’ve used all the Eye Fine colours here, you could keep it simple with a black and white nature journal. You can vary a nature journal by combining lots of journaling ideas such as day tracking, recording your mood in nature, making a bullet journal of what you would like to see in every season and making lists of all the things you like about being in the natural environment.
Reflective journal ideas 6: Make a list
Making a list is a great way to kick off your journaling hobby. But don’t just make a normal list, enjoy playing with your hand-lettering to make a creative list. To really have fun with lettering do it with a pen that makes your writing sing! Use an Air pen as your writing will look totally on point and be a pleasure to explore. Here’s two examples of journal lists we’ve made with the Air Mirco, taking very simple subject matters and turning them into a something special. The uni-ball Air Micro rollerball pen writes with the look of a fountain pen but without the leaks. It uses uni-ball famous fade-proof, water resistant and tamper proof Super Ink so your lovely lists will last.