Traditional journalling has never worked for me. I discovered this video on journalling for ADHDers and was inspired to try it out, and develop it further into what now works even better for me. I was also inspired by OneNote, which was always my work bible in my previous jobs. I'm going to write this as instructions, however I highly encourage you to do what works for you, include or reject any of it. I would love to see what you come up with!

What you need

• A journal with a colour/image/quote that feels good to you. It doesn't have to be groundbreaking, just something that inspires you to pick it up. Mine says "Enjoy the little things". 

• I suggest a journal that is spiral bound, for ease of keeping your pen with it and I often write with it folded fully back so I'm not battling with the next page. Just a comfort thing. 

• Sticky tabs, something that is visually pleasing to you. You'll need approx 5 variations. I have a book of 5 different coloured magical horses.

• A little roll of selotape. 

• A set of coloured pencils, coloured pens, scissors, all that kind of stuff. Things that you might want to use on your pages. Get things that you really like to use. I am partial to gel pens, so I have rainbow gel pens, rainbow pencils with inspiring quotes on them, cute scissors, some glue, Tippex, pretty tapes (which I never know what to do with). 

Getting started: Dedication

Dedicate your journal with a statement of how you want to improve your life over the next year. Give it a theme. Mine for 2024 is:
"Year of Recovery. More bravery and establishing stability"

Using your sticky tabs, break down how you want to tackle that theme into key areas, making sure one of those areas is for freestyle self exploration, which I simply titled "Self love". In full my key areas are:

Red: Home & money
Yellow: Fitness & beauty
Green: Relationships
Blue: Creator journey
Pink: Self love

Underneath the journal theme, add one each of these sticky tapes taped to the page, evenly spaced apart. From here on whenever one of these tapes are used, they will go on the page at the same height on the page as these, for ease of finding notes.

I used the next page to dive a bit deeper into what each section might contain as examples.
Home & money: Money planning, home planning
Fitness & beauty: Exercise, hair care, food
Relationships: Conversation with others notes
Creator journey: Plans, dreams, wishes, exploration of ideas, OPS
Self love: Triggerings, CPTSD

Organising your journal

Start with whatever you want to journal on that day. Write on the sticky tab what your subject is, selotape it to the corresponding place on the page, and go! 

When you are done with that subject, you can start a new one with the same process on the next page. You don't need to divide your journal in any way. Every time you start a new page, you choose the subject, the sticky tape and keep going. If you are mid journalling about a subject and need more time, I just leave a page blank and then use the next one when I move on. 

This means you can skip around subjects constantly, and allow each subject to have the space it needs. My red tab on home and stability has only one page of notes currently, while self love has many. This helps me to see that I spend little time on journalling about stability and money, but lots of time on working on my mindset. 

When you want to review a subject, it's easier to flick through. Each sticky tab tells you what notes you wrote. 

I use this journal for a few things. It's where I write my notes if I'm learning something fairly short. I make notes when on a call with someone who inspires me. I make small task lists. this keeps all my inspiration, everything I need to know to improve my life in one place. Somewhat. One day this journal will be full, and then what? Don't worry, I got this covered. 

Obsidian: Your Brain Extension

I have also implemented another system for long term journal notes. This is specifically for notes I will want to keep next year and beyond. After a few weeks of journalling, I do a review page in my journal. I added a cloud sticky tab to the top of a page and flicked through to see what subjects I journalled on and what I need for the future. These are very brief notes but help me to decide what needs transferring to Obsidian. 

Then I open my Obsidian and add in any notes that need to be more formally typed up and organised. I already have a thriving Obsidian set up, so any notes have to add value to that. But that's it! My full journalling process.