Analog Tips to Plan Your 2024 Journal Line-up

Though it can be helpful and informative to find out which journals our friends will be using in 2024, I know from experience that choosing your analog system is very personal. Finding our so-called ‘ultimate journal’—the one that feels like our go-to, fail-proof, and comfort journal—can take years of trying different methods and brands. Still, as stationery lovers and adventurers, we can’t resist changing, mixing, or adding things up every few years to match our current passions, jobs, side projects, lifestyles, or family situations.

So, if you’re still thinking about your 2024 journal line-up, you may want to ask yourself these things before finalizing your decision:

1. “What kind of journaling problems do I have?”

Is it that you finish a journal too fast (go for a thicker journal, like the Midori One Day One Page journal)—or you never seem able to finish a journal (go for a tiny journal, like the Cafe Analog x JieyaNow Atelier BON VOYAGE journal)? Can only journal once a week or once a month? Try something like the Traveler’s Notebook 2024 Weekly Vertical, Weekly Memo, or Monthly inserts only to write a recap of your week or months!

Don’t have time to decorate your journal? A lovely journal/planner from Dodolulu can be an option—as it has gorgeous Dodolulu illustrations inside, so you need to only write your highlights of the day!

Do you have difficulties finding certain journal entries about certain things, i.e. books you’ve read, quotes from your favorite movies, or that delicious recipe for dinner? Maybe it can be a good idea to start a collection journal—where you dedicate one journal to record your hobbies or regular past-times, like Reading Journal, Quotes Journal, or Recipe Journal, that you can pick up and fill in from time to time (we love Jr.Journal’s Anytime Anywhere journal format for this!).

2. “Do I tend to journal about my life monthly, weekly, or daily? Or do I want to only pick up my journal when I feel like it?”

Knowing this will also help you when you search for your 2024 journal. You can search for monthly journal, weekly journal, or daily journal as keywords, and make informed decisions about the one(s) you want to adopt into your journal line-up.

If you like the concept of daily journaling but can’t keep up writing long journal entries and making decorated spreads every single day, you can use a planner like Jibun Techo Diary or Jibun Techo DAYS to write 1-2 word(s) highlights every few hours or so about your day so you won’t forget them. At the weekend, or when you have leisure time here and there, you can see these highlights and explore more about them in your journal: spending time to write, reflect, decorate, paste photos, and all. It’s amazing how fast we can forget something that happened 2-3 days ago when we don’t write it down. Having something simple and functional like a planner to just jot down a few words about what happened during your day can really help refresh your memory!

If you don’t like the pressure and commitment of regular journaling, you can also choose to journal only when you feel like it. You can grab something like MD notebooks for this (we just love MD paper so much here in Cafe Analog). Pick it up whenever you have something interesting to write or feel the urge to do something creative.

3. “Where do I journal mostly? Will I carry my journals around a lot, or will they mostly stay flat on my desk?”

I really love my A5 journals, but I have to admit, they are quite big and heavy to carry around. So my A5 journals will usually stay home.

For my travels, I usually carry my smaller journals, like Traveler’s Notebook passport-size inserts or MD A6 Notebook, which are lighter and compact. I think it’s good to consider which journals you will designate as your carry-around journals; and which ones you’ll leave at home, on your desk.

4. “Is my handwriting big or small? Do I like uninhibited freedom or a bit of structure? Do I write a lot—or decorate a lot, or both?”

When you have big handwriting, small journals may fill up quickly and easily—so if you also like to decorate on top of that; you may want to go for bigger size journals. If you have small handwriting and you don’t write a lot of journal entries, you should be okay with smaller-sized journals.

You can also consider how you like to write to choose your journal: blank, lined, grid, dot grid, columns, or boxes… some people with bigger handwriting may find grid or column notebooks quite hard to work with. Maybe there’s not enough space to write—or the grid is too small for you. The blank notebook may give some people more freedom, but we also know people who find it too intimidating—without any lines or grid to guide them whatsoever. Thus, think about it and find a journal that feels good to you, and feels comfortable for your handwriting and style of journaling.

Heavy on decorating, love layering and pasting stickers and ephemera? These decorations do add bulk to your journal. The thicker your journal is, the bulkier it will get—and after some time, it will be quite hard for you to stamp or write on it.

If you are quite heavy on decorating and pasting a lot of thick materials on your journal (i.e. Polaroid photos, carton labels from packaging, etc.) we would suggest using thinner journals (48-64 pages). Yes, they will also bulk, but then after a while, you can fill it up, finish the whole notebook, and swap it to a new journal, so you can still write and stamp things comfortably.

You may want to consider the Traveler’s Notebook Sketchbook refill to handle heavy decorating, as it also has thicker paper that can handle loads of glued paper, ink from your stamps, and heavier ephemera.

5. “How much time do I have to journal? How many journals I can wrap up without stress?”

We know that there are so many ideas out there to start out any type of journal, and it can be tempting to jump into it and start a new journal right away! It always feels good to start something new, we know! 😀 However, it can also be a source of stress when you feel like you don’t have the time and energy to keep up with all your (currently open) journals. We know some people can also feel like there’s something “unfinished” when they can’t wrap up a notebook—and this can give them stress or the feeling that they are not good enough, or that they are left behind somehow.

So, be gentle with yourself, and know that you do not need to keep more journals than you can handle. We mostly write or work in our journals to keep memories from our lives, so it’s also important to spare some time to make memories that you can journal about! 🙂

If you are tempted to start a new journal (maybe you see someone starting a book journal, a recipe journal, or a travel journal), start small. Pick up a thin and tiny booklet to start this (we personally enjoy the super thin but fun TN Accordion Refill), and see if you enjoy it. Is it really for you? Are you having fun doing this?

If after 1-2 months (s) you feel like you want to keep at it, you can switch to a thicker notebook and continue from there. However, if you feel like this is not for you, you can just wrap up the thin journal quickly, and then it’s finished and done—something you can store and flip through now and then to inspire you; but you don’t have to start another one. By doing this, you can feel a sense of relief and satisfaction for trying something new and completing it—but with much less stress and pressure.

Have fun journaling and preparing your 2024 journal line-up!

love,

Hanny