My Journaling Ecosystem

It is new journal season! So I thought that before I dive into the changes I’m making for my 2026 bullet journal setup, I’d first review my current ecosystem as a whole! 


I’ll list out my journal ecosystem here and talk through the different aspects of each part! I hope this gives you ideas for how to set up or modify your own system!




1. My Bullet Journal


Last year I shared my bullet journal setup for the beginning of the year on this blog. (Linked here: https://sneakersnshakes.blogspot.com/2024/11/2025-journal-setup-guide-pt1.html and here: https://sneakersnshakes.blogspot.com/2024/12/2025-journal-setup-guide-pt2.html ) 


This is my main goals/memory keeping system. A lot of people use bujos for planning but I prefer to separate that. My goals spreads at the start of my journal are the most planning I do in mine. I also use one journal per year, so it ends up being more for memory keeping, and reflection, serving as an overview for the whole year. (Spreads include seasonal bucket lists and seasonal spreads where I collage my memories, monthly dashboards that show what I did, and daily memory keeping.)


2. My Planner


I plan in an A5 ring binder. This is where my weekly spreads live. I write what I’m planning on doing, track my daily/weekly habits (that I then move to my bujo), and most importantly, I can be messy in it. It’s less curated than my bullet journal so I feel like I have more freedom to move things around. And since it’s in a ring binder, I move old weeklies to the back so only my current week is at the start. My planner is my daily check to see what I want to get done in a day and my focuses for the week.


The way I set up my daily/weekly spreads can be found in this post: https://sneakersnshakes.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-tour-of-my-daily-planner.html (this is from before I moved to a ring binder but the layouts are the same)


3. Project Planner


In the same planner I listed above, I have a section for projects. This is where I brainstorm, draft things out, and keep ideas. I have found this section to be extremely important because it gives me a place where I can just get my thoughts out about something I want to accomplish. For example, I recently drafted the 2025 Reading Challenge I made in the Projects section of my planner. 


4. Entertainment Journal 


Some people call this a media journal. (It’s basically a reading journal but it includes more than books). I like to include events, music, and movies along with books in mine. Anything entertaining (hence the name) gets a spread decorated with stickers or ephemera and my thoughts on the piece of media. It’s been a cool way to document the different media I’ve interacted with this year.


5. Monthly Scrapbook


This is basically monthly junk journaling where I add things I’ve saved over the course of the month to a journal. Things like receipts, ticket stubs, wrappers, anything cool that I can add to memorialize the month, get saved and added to the scrapbook. 


I actually have a blog post on scrapbooking that shows how mine looks, linked here: https://sneakersnshakes.blogspot.com/2024/07/beginners-guide-to-scrapbooking.html 


6. Second Brain


This is set up in xtiles (I’ll write a blog post about that too). And this is where I keep my menus (I referenced this in the last post, basically menus are lists you can pick from. For example a skin care menu will have all the different ways you can do skincare.) I also have a reference page to add things like birthdays and charities and a To Try page where I can keep track of things I want to do in the future. I just started this so I’m sure it will continue to expand as I keep working on it.


7. Writing Journal


This is just a journal I use to draft ideas for my writing, often I take this with me to coffee shops and write in there before typing it up on my computer. It’s just something to have on hand when I want to write and not type. (I’ve drafted a few blog posts in there before they end up posted on here!)


8. Diary


This is just a place for me to spill my thoughts. I have thoughts and reflection pages in my bullet journal too but sometimes it’s good to just have a place to dump thoughts outside of that.


9. Concert Journal


This is a special notebook where I specifically document all the kpop concerts I go to. I write about the experience of the concert and add memorabilia from it (usually freebies) and it just has a special place in my heart.


-.-


And there you have it, my journal ecosystem that I will be carrying over to 2026. Some of these, I can definitely expand upon, so you’ll likely see more posts about them but I wanted to do this overview post.


Journal season is exciting, I’ll be posting about the changes I’ve made to my 2026 bullet journal set up next month!


Thanks for reading!

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