Ten Types of Jewish Journals to Create

Jewish Junk Journal for Elul

Ten Types of Journals You Can Create 

When you begin journaling it will likely occur to you that having more than one type of journal might be the best way to keep everything organized better. When you have more than one type of journal, you can simply go to the specific journal to work on one issue at a time or keep something organized so you can make better decisions. 

1. Bullet Journals – This type of journal is useful for anyone who has lots of to-do lists, loves using a pen and paper, and who enjoys goal tracking. Your journal should have a table of contents that you create as you add to the journal so you can find things. You’ll use symbols, colors, and lines to make your bullet journal. You should be able to understand at a glance what’s on the page.

2. Vision Journals – You may have heard of vision boards and this is essentially it, except it’s a journal that helps lead you to your vision. The way it works is that you set up the journal to have only one goal per page. Then you can write words, add pictures, or draw something that enables you to make plans to reach that goal. When you do reach the goal, be sure to go back and add the date of achievement. 

3. Line a Day Journals – Basically this journal is what it’s called – you write down only one line a day. You will simply write in the journal a short line about what you did that day. It should be only a sentence or two at the most, and should not take up that much space in your journal. Some people like using a calendar and a pen for this. 

4. Classic Journal – This is simply a diary, and you can write whatever you want in it every day. It can be long, short, or you can skip days if you want to. The classic journal is just like the diary that you maybe kept as a child. You write whatever you want in it daily. 

5. Prayer Journal – This is my favorite type of journal! I write letters to God because some of my prayers are easier to write than to speak. Try it! Write your prayers in a journal so you remember them and can look back on them.

A little prayer journal can inspire our prayers for other people. Intentionally creating a mini-art journal with the names of people we want to remember in our daily prayers is a fun, peaceful journaling project for us that also serves as a blessing for others. 

6. Dream Journal – Some people really like tracking their dreams because they believe that dreams provide signs for life. If you want to track your dreams, you have to train yourself to write in your dream journal every morning while you still remember the dream. Write about the dream and then research what it means and write about that too.

7. Food Journal – Write down everything you eat every day. Some people like to include the calorie contents and so forth. It can also help to write down why you eat it, how you felt about eating it, and things like that.

8. Travel Journal – A wonderful way to remember your travels is to keep a travel journal. Some people like making one for each trip so that it’s easier to remember. You can write your thoughts in your journal, but you can also attach tickets, pics, and memories.

9. Gratitude Journal – This is a journal where you record each day what you’re thankful for and grateful for. Nothing can be negative in this journal because it’s designed to help you think more positively. Sometimes we can take our negative thoughts and turn them positive by thanking God for the best outcome instead of asking for a particular change.

10. Project or Holiday Journal – This is a handy journal to keep, especially for anyone who regularly works on projects and wants to journal Jewish holidays. This blog is really the story of my first Elul Junk Journal, for the final month on the Hebrew calendar.

Keeping a journal of each project you work on that records actions taken, results, and data, will help you improve every project but will also help you look back on this one with excitement. 

And keeping a journal for each Jewish holiday is something you can build on an add to each year when the holiday comes around again. Here's a good post on journaling for Elul.

If you want to journal to help work through a problem, keeping specific journals for different things is an effective way to go about it. It’s also a great way to store your thoughts and memories for the future in a more organized and useful manner.

And HOW you compile your journal is another fun consideration. This video gives a good explanation of the difference between smash books, junk journals and art journals. 

Another Jewish journaling idea comes from Melissa Lerin and her vast collection of ideas and resources on digital scrapbooking. It's fun and lovely to combine family photos with light journaling to share with others.