Bullet journals, aesthetic planners, and color-coded habit trackers are ubiquitous on social media, having been the subjects of countless TikTok and Pinterest posts for what feels like an eternity. They promise organization, productivity, and even wellness, I mean, who doesn’t want to feel like they’ve got their life together with the help of a pastel highlighter and some washi tape?
But to be completely honest, sometimes, the act of keeping these “perfect” journals becomes more stressful than helpful. When I tried to keep one, I found myself obsessing over making everything look just right—writing neatly, maintaining daily streaks, and curating spreads to mimic what I saw on social media. And when I didn’t keep up? I’d abandon the whole thing out of guilt or frustration. The journal that was supposed to help me manage stress became another source of it. The pressure to perform can feel overwhelming, seeping outside of the bounds of social media, work, or school and into the small, private corners of life. Something as simple as writing in a journal, which should feel personal and cathartic, started to feel like yet another performance I had to perfect.
I stumbled upon the concept of a commonplace book by accident. Unlike a bullet journal or planner, a commonplace book doesn’t have rules or a structure to follow. It’s not supposed to be pretty, and it doesn’t have to be organized. Think of it like a second brain: a place where all your random thoughts, to-do lists, quotes, little reminders, sketches, rants, and all live together.
This past summer, while interning in London and working with limited belongings (and an even more limited budget), I had to make use of what I had. One of those things was a singular notebook that I had started at the end of the semester, but wasn’t anywhere near full enough to warrant getting a new one. I began to use it for pretty much everything: meeting notes, meal plans for the week, shopping lists, quick brain dumps and diary entries, bookings, the list continues. It became a constant companion, always in my bag whenever I left the house.
As someone who is usually very organized and can be a bit of a perfectionist, often to my own detriment, this simple practice felt strangely freeing to me. It’s comforting to have a space where you don’t feel the need to perform, even if no one else is ever going to see it. You can write half a page about what you got up to this weekend, and then jump into brainstorming your Halloween costume, followed by a list of books you want to read. There’s no theme, no pressure, no structure.
What surprised me the most was how natural and easy it started to feel. I’ve never had a journaling habit that stuck, but this didn’t feel like a habit; it just became an integral part of how I navigated my day. Without meaning to, I was building a quiet record of my life. A half-finished to-do list from exam season, notes from a meeting with someone from work, scribbled notes about travel plans, a brain-dump from a bad day. Nothing I would typically think to document intentionally, but reading it back gives me a little snapshot of who I was and what was happening in my life at that moment.
There’s also something about the physicality of it that matters. Unlike a notes app or any other digital alternative, a notebook carries a kind of permanence. Its messy pages, smudged ink, and dog-eared corners feel far more grounding and long-lasting than anything I could scroll through on a screen.
So if traditional journaling hasn’t worked for you, I encourage you to let go of the idea that it has to look a certain way. Grab a notebook, literally any notebook (I’ve been loving my Leuchtturm one, but before that I was using one I bought in Tesco), and use it however you want. No rules, no themes, no aesthetic needed.