A YouTube creator named Jashii Corrin has predicted on the Planner Pals Podcast that a trend she believes will come about in 2025 is the idea of joy-naling. This is journaling focusing big on it, bringing you joy. Whether it’s enjoying the process or adding elements that make you happy, I see immense value in the idea of joy-naling. As a result, I’ve looked at ways to bring the idea of joy into my journal recently. Because I have been planning using the bullet journal method since 2018, I figured I’d share some ways that I’ve been adding joy to my journal recently so you can get ideas of how to add joy to your journal.
The Speed of Planning and Setting Up Spreads
I am a naturally anxious individual. I’ve been called neurotic multiple times in my life. By using a physical planner and adding artistic elements to my planner, I’m forced to slow down. Because I am limited by how fast I can write words on the page, more so when I’m trying to make it pretty, I am forced to make the million miles an hour thoughts slow down to a much more tolerable pace. This does a lot to help bring me joy, as I have a talent for over burdening myself by being excited by so many ideas at once and then running into the reality that it isn’t physically possible to do some things I set up. By slowing down and putting my ideas into a place I can see, I can see when I’m putting too much on my plate. The limited space in a physical spread also forces me to limit myself to what I actually can do because there is only so much space to write things. While it may not sound like much, this allows me a lot more joy in my life as I’m not drowning under the pressure I put on myself and I’m able to enjoy the things I really care about more.
Stickers
It is probably no surprise if you have seen me post about journaling on social media. I love stickers. They are a great way to add some decorative elements to my page without having to make them all myself. On top of that, some part of my brain is like a young child with stickers. It’s a dopamine hit to add a sticker for accomplishing something and it’s a really inexpensive way to reward myself for actually doing things. On top of that, I have a monthly theme of stickers so I have a lot of colors and themes to keep the same pages repeated interesting. My brain gets bored quickly, but being able to change elements of my planner regularly helps give it some of the novelty it wants without upsetting everything.
Personalizing Spreads For Me
If you’ve seen some spreads I’ve been posting on Instagram, you can probably see that I have regular elements on my spreads that most people wouldn’t want or need. This varies from my currently playing box which contains all the games I play, movies I watch, and TV shows I watch to my box made for this blog. However, by bullet journaling, I’m able to customize my spreads so that I can use something that works for me. I can make a spread for my advent calendar murder mystery because I’m interested in gathering my clues there and then never do it again. Because I allow myself flexibility in my spreads but also have my go to structures for keeping my life organized, I’m able to do what I need at the moment to bring joy to my life and keep me focused on the things that bring me joy.
Those are my latest focuses on adding joy to my journal. Do you have ways you are focusing on adding joy to your journal? Let me know in the comments below.
