Create The Day With Journaling & Scrapbooking

The best way to document your day is by creating it. For many of us, our days may just consist of staying home, attending Zoom lectures, doing homework and then sleeping. Even though the days may seem the same, there are always small changes in your routine that you do not necessarily notice. However, by recording your days in the form of a journal or scrapbook, there will always be something new in your routine to remember. With all this time at home, there is no better reason than to start a journal or scrapbook right now to harness your thoughts, feelings and creativity in one place.

You do not need to invest in a fancy notebook to start your journal. Your journal can be anything, whether it be a flimsy notebook or a leather hardcover book. It is your journal, so you can decorate it however you want with whatever you want. Using the journal to record your daily thoughts and memories is the most important aspect of keeping one. For each day, you can sketch or draw images to represent that day. You can dedicate a page for each day for writing down your thoughts, what you did, what you plan to do or anything you feel. You could also print out photos that represent what you did that day and attach them in your journal to have a physical documentation. For example, I would take a picture of the dinner I had on a particular day and attach it to a page in my journal just to leave it there as a reminder of what I ate in case future me is curious.

For my personal journal, some days I choose to include the songs I listen to just illustrate my mood for that day. If I am sad, I will list some of the sad songs I listened to- and vice versa if I listened to upbeat songs. Overall, your journal is for your private thoughts and feelings. By having a journal to document your everyday routine, you will have something to look back on in the future to cherish even the memories that you thought were insignificant. 

If you want to focus more on documenting your days through photographs, then scrapbooking may just be for you. My inspiration for scrapbooks is from the movie Up, in which Carl and Ellie have documented their memories through their adventure book. Again, you can choose how you want to format your scrapbook, but having photos of different aspects of your day will provide you with the most exciting way to cherish memories you look back upon. For instance, on one day, even if you did nothing but sleep, you can take a picture of your bed, pillows or blankets just to remind yourself that sleeping is what you did on that specific day. Or perhaps you cook a lot one day, you could take pictures of your dish. If you called a friend, you could screenshot the duration of the call and document it as part of your scrapbook. The ideas for what to include in your scrapbook are endless. After all, this scrapbook is meant for you to create your day through pictures, words or any way you want.

You may think that staying home is boring, but once you begin recording the little moments of your day, there will always be something new to look forward to. Having a journal to document your thoughts is a way to have your feelings written on a tangible object. If not a journal, then having a scrapbook of photos will show you what you did each day, and it will serve as a reminder for your future self. Instead of believing that each day is a waste of time at home, you can start to create your days through journaling and scrapbooking. More than just objects, your journal or scrapbook will be a manifestation of your memories that you can reminisce about in the future.

• feelings
• home
• Journal
• memories
• photographs
• scrapbook
• thoughts
• words