Sunday Morning
Fall is here!
Caught this amazing shot of NYC before the Nor’Easter while I was there!
Happy Sunday, friends! I hope your week has been a good one.
I’m back in London after a couple of weeks away, and as much as I love to travel, nothing beats being home in your own space. I also returned to proper fall weather. Sweater season is one of my favorites, but I wasn’t quite ready to trade in my summer wardrobe!
This week, I want to chat about journaling and how to get started, especially if you’ve been wanting to try it but don’t know where to begin. With cooler weather settling in, there’s honestly no better time to kick things off.
The Ritual
A Peek at What I Journal About
I’ve been journaling consistently for a few years now, but before I really got into it, I always struggled with what to write. These days I have the opposite problem: there’s so much I want to put down that I can’t find the time to write it all.
I was reading through the comments on my recent TikTok videos, and one theme kept coming up: so many of you don’t know where to begin. It got me thinking about what actually helped me get past that daunting, overwhelming feeling of a blank page.
My honest advice is to let go of the idea that your journal needs to be perfect, on theme, or focused on one thing. It’s easy to look at what other people are doing and start believing our own journals have to be the prettiest, the neatest, the most coherent. Or that we don’t have enough stickers, stamps and accessories to do it “properly.”
That simply isn’t true. Just put your pen to paper and go for it.
If there’s one thing I want you to take away, it’s that there’s no right or wrong way to journal. It doesn’t need to be long entries about your feelings (unless you want it to be!). Here are a few of the things that fill my pages, to show you just how varied it can be.
Here I’ve made a photo spread of a tasting menu I had at a restaurant. I wanted to remember every course, so I printed the photos and gave the whole meal its own spread.
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Sometimes a page starts with the most random thought. For me, it was saunas. Thinking about them reminded me how much I adore Finnish sauna culture and the ritual around it, so I wrote it all down. Now it’s turned into a little info page.
Every week (mostly) I journal about my week through the photos I took on my iPhone. It’s become my Sunday night ritual, and honestly I’m way more likely to look back at them in my notebook than if they just sat in my camera roll. Plus it’s so fun to build creative spreads around them.
Not every page has to be about my life. Sometimes it’s just something I got curious about, like La Tomatina. I read about it randomly, did some digging, and made a full spread out of it. Now it’s one of my favorite pages to flip back to.
Above all, be gentle with yourself. Journaling doesn’t have to be perfect or happen every day. When you let go of the pressure, it can be fun, creative and one of the best ways to calm a busy mind!
Margin Notes
Still need help getting started?
My personal photo journal
Here are some journal ideas to start you off:
A Commonplace Journal: to collect quotes, notes and interesting things you come across in books or media.
Tiny Adventures: logging small challenges like a new coffee shop, walking to a local grocery store, or browsing a stationery shop.
Weekly Photo Spread: printing your weekend photos and turning them into a spread, and you can also writing about what you loved or hated about each experience.
Brain Dumping: Sometimes my journal is just words. When my mind feels busy, I’ll fill a page with whatever’s on it, no structure and no pretty spread required. Just word vomit.
Daily Glimmers: These are the small, everyday moments that make you smile without trying: a good song coming on at the right time, a warm croissant, a text from a friend.
Loved and Hated: Just make two quick lists: what I loved and what I didn’t. Nothing deep, just honest bullets. After a few weeks, look back at them and see if any common themes jump out.
My Stationery Shop
Visit Cho Sunday Ritual
New here? This newsletter is the editorial side of Cho Sunday Ritual, my stationery shop. If something here got your shopping sense tingling, use [SUNDAY10] for 10% off your first order (Sorry, UK customers only :(, US/CA Shipping coming soon)
Until next sunday.
I have some new stationery goodies I want to show you all next week! Colder weather for me means more cozy nights in for me.
Deb
P.S.
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