Types & Examples of Journal Writing

Types of Journaling to Do & Journals to Keep

Whether you’ve just begun exploring the notion of keeping a journal or you’re looking for examples of new directions to take your journaling practice in, there are lots of options available to you. Journalers who work by hand in a notebook, tap out notes on their phone using an app, or take advantage of journal templates in their word processing programs can all take advantage of these journaling types.

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This isn’t an exhaustive list of types of journaling you might undertake, but it’s sure to help you get an idea of how many directions you can take a journaling practice—or how many journaling practices you can keep concurrently:

• Morning pages. This is a type of journaling that’s popular among performing artists, but it can be fun and helpful for everyone. Simply pick up your journaling tools as soon as you get up from a night’s sleep and start writing. Whatever comes to mind, write it down, and keep going for three whole pages. It’s a place to vent, to be creative, to see what ideas come to the surface—just don’t plan what you’ll write.
• Dream journal. There may be significant overlap in a dream journal and in morning pages, but they’re different. While morning pages are three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing as soon as you wake up, a dream journal is full of the dreams you’ve had—in as much or as little detail as you choose to write.
• Food journal. For those interested in health and wellness or who are trying to track the way certain foods make them feel, a food journal is an invaluable tool. Writing down what’s eaten at each meal—up to and including serving sizes, macronutrients, and how the food was prepared—can help journal keepers figure out the effect of foods on their day-to-day health and long-term wellness goals.
• Pregnancy journal. Pregnancy is a specific, special period of a person’s life—why not document it? Whether a pregnancy journal is kept privately or written to be shared with the forthcoming little one, it can be a fulfilling, therapeutic activity, and a priceless keepsake of that unique time.
• Reading journal. Taking notes on what you’re reading may feel uncomfortably close to being back in English Lit, but voracious readers and practicing writers will find that journaling about what they’re reading can help spark ideas and offer a deeper understanding and appreciation of the text.
• Travel log. Road journals and adventure tales are classic forms of nonfiction and fiction. You don’t have to be Jack Kerouac to take on keeping a travel log when you visit someplace new—you just must want to write about the sights and sounds of your adventure as you experience it.
• Gratitude journal. If you’re looking for a way to see the silver linings in life—or want to catalog all the positive things you experience—a gratitude journal is a great place to do just that. When you focus on writing about what you’re grateful for, you can explore those meaningful people and moments in depth and start to see what’s most important to you.
• Daily log. This journaling type often includes aspects of the others—and is a popular approach for those who choose to keep a travel log. A daily log can be a few sentences about what you did or saw each day, or a larger exploration of the day’s events and your feelings about them.

Examples of Journal Writing Prompts

If you find that your approach to journaling is to eschew choosing a type of journaling and instead take a more free-flowing, catch-all approach, that’s fine—but you may find yourself in need of a prompt to get your pen (or fingers) moving. Here are some journaling prompt examples to try out if you find yourself with writer’s block:

• Something you’re grateful for today. Even if you choose not to keep a gratitude journal, writing down one thing each day that you’re grateful for can spark an idea for a single journal entry. If “grateful” isn’t the road you want to go down on any particular day, feel free to swap that adjective out and instead try:
  • Something that made you laugh today
  • Something that made you smile today
  • Something you learned today
  • Something that surprised you today
  • Something that confused you today
  • Something that happened today that you wish you could share with a loved one
• Exploring firsts. You can choose your first job, your first love, your first big win—write about it and explore it deeply.
• A list of ______. Move beyond grocery lists and to-do lists. Consider some of these list prompts:
  • Favorite memories
  • Bad dates
  • Times you laughed until you cried
  • Vacation stories
  • Book endings you didn’t like

Your journal is whatever you want it to be, no matter which journaling approach type you choose to go with. There are no rules when it comes to journaling—don’t worry if you choose one approach and decide to abandon it. Keep trying different types of journaling until you find the one that works for you.